Scott Rodger

few years and really go back into. You know, we just signed just under a year ago that young twenty year old from Nashville coach Celia Castleman, who's working with Daniel Glass. Um. We did the album with Dona was in l A which was great with Peter and Palladino enable Boreal as her backing band. She plays guitar, so we made an and we just went a minute album. This is a kid who hasn't released a single thing. There's no social media. Well, well let's go back to

the very beginning since we're going into detail. How did you find her? Daniel Glass? He emailed me and says, I found this girl. I think you might be interested in working with We just signed there and he sent the music and I thought it was great, and we arranged a zoom because this is still you know, through COVID, and she was so good. She played the song She's in the bedroom in her mom's house, UM, and I thought it was so good. I flew to Nashville about a week later to sit down with her to see

if it was a real deal. And she's legitimately the real deal. Alison Cross found her because she knew her father her father, and then Allison referred her to her attorney, who looks after her own career. And then from there, the attorney sort of brought in publishing in label UM and we just jumped in and made an album. She had about forty so so we're gonna launch the first song in March. Daniel was telling me about this and telling me that he was putting a lot of money

into the recording, more than usual. Was that your perspective, Yeah, definitely, because he he just signed it to little development EP deal and then everything naturally fell into place, you know, like we thought, can we make this a bit more of a story. You know, the way records used to be made, you know, instead of just going locally with some young natural producer, make a very nice record, no

real story behind this. We took a time. We spent a good six months, and I sent a few tracks to Dawn because he's a friend, and and it was actually it's a serious recommendation. She's like, hey, you know, i'd love Done Wars. I'm like, you're twenty. How do you even know who Done War? Was it? You know? Um? But she's such an old soul. And I sent him to Dawn and don't call me the next day and he's like, how do you find these people? You know? This is amazing? Is this she really this good? He

was kind of blown away by it. She can't be this good. I never do new projects ever, you know. And and that's where the conversation stuff. Cecilia went to meet Don, who was in Detroit at the time, and they hit it off and he's like, let's just do the album. And from there you pool every favor young artists, low budget, the team enhanced the studios who I love Farrel who who runs the studio. She went, oh, we'll well we'll cut your deal. You know, we've got this time,

and this time we'll do half rights. She made so many friends, she got she'd never left Nashville. She went to l A with her mom, started recording John Mayer's there the first day and she texts me sure, Oh my god, I'm just make John Mayer. You know. It's like, I love John Mayr. He's so amazing. And John Mayer's like, hey, you want to use any of my guitars, you know, feel free just come in and help yourself, you know.

And the whole sessions ended up being like that, to the point where Fario, who runs the studio, is like being my husband. We love her. If she ever need to spend time in l A, she can stay at our house. Everyone had met her, just felling up us girl. So it all felt very natural. Even though Daniel spent a bit more than he wanted to, it all felt really natural. Okay, so now the record is done in a completely changed world. What are the next steps? How do you make people aware of her? How do you

grow her career? This? You know this, this used to be when I was a kid, This is this was the job. How do you find a new artist and how do you break them? And times have changed over thirty years or so since I've been doing this. It's no longer the same as the hustle is different. Everything

is different. She's got to find friends at DSPs. We gotta literally old school and get her in a car and drive around and go and do little sessions and go on do you know whatever radio that we can get her into, just to try and get some music out there, start working on social presence and do some videos, just real least get content out there. We hope we'll get some support from not only YouTube, but Apple and Spotify, Amazon, just to stead of giving a little poosh, give a

little profile, get her own some appropriate playlists. You know, it's not country. She's from Nashville, but it's not country. You know, it's it's got a real modern feel to it. But she could you know, she's so influenced by people like Steve Nicks and Fluwood, Macs of the world, and it's got that a bit of that flavor. This record could have been made in n Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can tell the technology that's in there that it's made today. So as you say, you know, the business really changed

in this century with the advent of the Internet. Give me the hierarchy of and this includes both old acts and brand new acts, and they may not be identical. What has the most power and exposing an act the most power and exposing an act if you and again as you said, whether you're a brand new office or you're the most established office, most successful artist, what has the most power? I think it changes was genre, Bob, And you know this. You've been a music fan, you know,

your entire life. And when when you think when you were fifteen years old to twenty years old, you loved whatever was popular. Whoever that was, was the Stones and the Beatles, and who was it Led zeppel In, the Symphonies or whatever it was. The biggest music throughout every era has been pop music, same as today. You know, the most of the biggest consumers of teenagers and young people, they're the ones who consume all the Drake or Kanye or Taylor Swift or or you know anything that's huge.

It just they just need to put a song out and it goes. It just goes. It's got a life of its own. As soon as they drop. They tell everyone on social media, you track dropping today, and it just goes. They have their own legs. But then that's pop music throughout the ages. You know, everyone would wait for the new big thing. And again it could have been anything through any era pop music because its always been the biggest music. It's probably consumed ninety plus percent

of the world's music market, pretty similar today. So to put an artice who isn't in that genre, they could be a rock band, they could be sort of a more independent type, you know, avant garde style band or or singer. Um. They don't have the mass consumption that pop music has. We still need to support of the Amazon's Spotify is all the DSPs, But that's not answering your questions, like is there one thing. I don't think

there is one thing. It seems to be the sum of a thousand different small things that only to be happening at the same time. But more importantly than that, it's like when you're socializing with friends, family, or having a cup of coffee with someone just catching up, you'll talk about things like great movie, you've just seen a great series, and you know what, what have you been listening to? Uh? What book of you just youve got to read this book. It's amazing. The word of mouth

is so important. And what I find is with every artist, I work with because I don't really work with the young pop artists, the artists that I wish I worked with a Taylor Swift or a Drake or you know one of those arts where you just drop Beyonce, that you drop a song and it just goes boom and that's the job is done. But I don't work with anyone like that. So it's how do you get in

the conversation? You know, I find that's the most important thing because if you're you know, you're sitting having sort of lunch with three or four friends, and if you're in that conversation, did you see the new video by whoever? Did you hear that new song? It's incredible? Or did you see something that they did whatever was creative and marketing, the visual, the artwork, Oh the artwork was done by Stone,

So isn't that amazing? How did that happen? How do you get in the conversation, whatever way in you're gonna take, you have to be in the conversation with the brand new act. What is it like with your interaction with the DSPs? What are you looking for from them? What do you want in a perfect world? Well, you know what, I think all of the DSPs, it's like the old kidney candy store analogy. You know you love candy, you walk in the candy store, you have no idea what

you want to have, and DSPs feel like that. For most people. You're very different and very different. I know exactly what I wanted to want to go in there. Most of the time, it's still good to find things on curative playlists that you may not have known but you actually like, and it's been a great way to discover. I think most people are still of the playlist mentality. You know, they're like a genre music, so they're quite happy to listen to playlists that features that genre, whatever

that genre happens to be. So I think for new artists the playlist concept is so vital. It's a great way to introduce someone who's never going to go in that store and choose your song. You've got to present it to. Okay, let's go a little bit deeper in the weeds. You're talking to one of these uh streaming companies. How hard is it to get on a playlist? How

many playlists will they put you on? And then there's issues of you know, save rates, tell us you know how you get to the point where you have some traction. This is where it becomes a global issue because you know, the great playlists in France or Germany, or Italy or Sweden or Australia very different to what they are in the UK or the US. Every country is that localized. Don't one the playlists. So it ends up being a task that you got to go around the world exactly

excuse me as we're doing now on Zoom. You know, we do constantly we're on zooms with territory of the territory of the territory and trying to find out what they need to do, what they you know, to in

order to achieve set up in these art results. A lot of times they may want to bring us in from management on a call with a Spotify or an Apple or whoever happens to be or a Deezer, and you know, all all these companies, and it's trying to find your friends, find people who actually believe in the artist. Then they want to help. It's it's it's it's like

you're doing the sales pitch. And for the most part, you know, we have a lot of friends now in these companies and we can go to these friends and try and ask them for support because they know we're established. What we have is legitimate. We're not coming in cold, We're coming in with a track record, and we sort of not asking for the world. We'll try and isolate where we want to be. Can we can you please

just try and get us on this. We know we're not going to get music Friday on Spotify for example. You know that may be further down the line, but initially it's like, let's see where we need to place this artist. Let's isolate the key playlist that we feel would be appropriate. Then we've got to try and get on them. Some of those playlists are curated by the company.

Some of those playlists are curated by individuals you know, And then that's where you need to label help because a lot of the time they know a lot of these people because they've solicited music to them before, and maybe they have a track record with those people. It's it's the workload, I think for a manager. And you'll probably hear this from a lower manager of friends of yours or people you talk to the workload from saying when I was a kid working for managers versus what

managers have to do now two different jobs. Two different jobs. You can never I don't think you can never achieve if you've got a checklist of everything you have to achieve. If you're releasing a record, you can never do. By the time the records are the job doesn't end. Okay. These streaming services provide a lot of artists data. So to what degree do you look at that data and does it affect your game? I think that depends on

the size of the office. I find that really really useful with the larger office because you can focus on certain areas um and then the areas where nothing's happening. You know. Okay, we've got to put a bit of weight over here for a young artists. And it's someone like we're talking about Cecilia, who hasn't put a record out, so there's zero data on her. So I think it's just going to be interesting and how we act on

as two different you know another thing. You know, you get the data, what do we do with that data? You know, we just want to see, Oh, is there people you know, as the New York there's graviting towards her but nowhere else or is it just the coast, or is it maybe in the in the South. Maybe it's just naturally if everything, so, it's going to be really interesting to see what comes back. Then at that point, we still know what kind of office we have or

where people are. You know, is she being played on rock and alternative or should be being played on sort of you know, more sort of the middle of the road type stations or is it she going to get in some country stations? And maybe the cover song. We have no idea how this is going to pick up. So that's where the data is interesting because it sort of tells you where you are and where you've got

to focus. Um, you know, if we get the heat map, you know, and terrist, she's not just in the US, but around the world, you know, because these things can break. Oh this thing is breaking out of France. Well, how did that happen? Then you gotta figure out how it happened, and then you gotta go there and you've gotta chase that one. And if it breaks in one place, you know, you can mirror it elsewhere, you know, And that's kind

of again. I never thought I would get into trying to break a brand new artists from zero again until I heard this music. But you I'm a music fan, heard the music, so this isn't a way to make a living, you know. So we're definitely not doing it to every quick you know. And I say, it's coming back to why are we doing this in the first place? Because the music is great. She's legitimate, she's the real deal,

she's a real artist. She didn't just write a one off pop song that we think we can chase and make a hit, you know. So it's trying to remind yourselves. Are people that work with me, we're all music fans, as like, why are we doing this? Let's do with this. We're not going to earn a penny for years, if we ever earned anything, but it's the right thing to do. In these various as of the stool. How important is television today? Into what degree do you put attention in

that area? We keep analyzing that and discussing that internally. Um, during the late nights, you know, all of the late nights, without even naming any of them, they're all good fun, they're great. You really don't get much from them with your music unless you're doing something there's some kind of gimmick production gimmick you know, or your your you know, the artist has created something where it may go viral

and it lives online after the performance. But the actual sort of look at their ratings on all these shows, who watches them? Are they? You know? How real are those ratings? Are people really watching to the last five minutes of the show when an artist is going to put a song on. I don't know about that. I really don't know. He used to be such an important tool.

Now I think it's one of those things unless you can make it viral, unless you can create something that's a little different and again create a talking point where we sto down, we have a coffee, they're like, oh, did you see your selling so on Jimmy fallon last night? You know, I see, You've gotta watch it because this happened. Then you go online and you'll look it up, and you will you'll take a look. That's the only way that sort are really resonating, or if there's some kind

of stunt value to it. UM Saturday Night Live seems to be the one that still really really need something. UM that shows so many highs and lows over the past most been on for five years, has been on there. You know, so many highs and lows. At some point everyone thought, but this is the show is gonna end. It's not going to be relevant anymore. Then Boy comes back on the newcast and it's on top again. That

show is still absolutely resonating. That's the one that everyone wants to try and get on, you know, but that they are always smart with what they book, unless there's someone who drops out last minute because of COVID, you know, which has been happening lately. You know, they're not getting the artists that they wanted. They had someone book for models and then they drop um. So that one still really really means something um. But then you go internationally,

what else means something? Not a lot of the TV none of it really means what it used to mean unless you can make it something making something special. So what I'm finding is like with the bigger artists, you need to try and come up with something that's almost like an artist special. Can you make something that's just different from the norm. Can you make something that's artists in conversation with someone you know, like try and get a BBC or an NBC or another network to get

them bored. And so you've given fans something a little bit richer than just use one song from a new album. Never gonna work. But yet it's still something you do because you know, this is that they are of marketing. If marketing is a science, you know, we don't know how to do it when we throw everything at the wall. Okay, we're going to do the cover of Billboards so that the industry knows what we're doing. And we're gonna do, you know, try and get the cover of Rolling Stone.

Doesn't really mean anything, but we're gonna do it anyway, you know. And we're gonna do Jimmy Fallon and we're gonna try and get set in that live. And we've spent all this money in advertising and all the key markets and stuff, and you started throwing everything at the ball in the wall, and we've got all this social stuff that's going on and everyone's doing the same thing, you know, And again, how do you make it resonate?

How do you get in the conversation, because then it becomes a little bit like wallpaper and this instead of our daily task. How are we shaking this up? You know? What is the next trend? You know, especially for a lot of the acts that I work with, you know, they're older, they're really established, they're really really successful, you know, the biggest artists in their fielding, in their genre. You know. Yet you can't take up a brand, so you can't just drop a record like Beyonce it and you know

it's gonna go. It doesn't work like that, So you have to be more creative, you know. Stuff found that more and more my jobs. It's almost like, yes, you manage, but it's more about marketing. How do you present these artists to market? You know, And that's the toughest thing. It's got to be right for them. It's got to feel good, feel appropriate, connect with their audience. Um, and it gets harder. Let's leave a side top forty radio because you don't really have acts in those areas. Those

are the Beyonces, etcetera. And that's narrower than it's ever been basically hip hop and pop. So the other types of radio to what degree did they fit into your plan and how effective are they in terms of getting the message? I study use the same sort of analogy very diod from marketing. It's important to have a presence serious ex sam is probably the most important I feel, you know, unless you're again on the top party radio,

then I how's your best friend? Um? But for us is that I work with you know, serious is legitimate. They have a real listenership, you know, and how they've grown in the past fifteen years, you know, from a few million subscribers to probably all closer to forty million subscribers not um, I don't know the exact date on that, but it's getting well. They announced thirty two and there's six point six point five that are on free accounts,

so your number is pretty good. Okay, So yeah, you know, I keep seeing it every sort of year where they're at, and you just that they're going up. But it's that's a lot of potential listeners more so than anything else. However, you know those listeners is like, yeah, I only like sixties or seventies radio, you know, or I only like country. I only listen to Howard Stern. There's still a lot

of that. But they're really really good at what they do, and you've got to think that whatever genre you're in, you're gonna have a dedicated listenership, you know, because let's face it, you know, like where can we're rock bands? You know, alternative radio doesn't mean what it used to mean, you know, gone on the days of the label spending money hiring independent radio specialists to try and push your music on specific formats. Yes, it still happens, but they

don't think they get the return anymore. You know, if they get all there, the payback isn't what it used to be. It doesn't move any you know, so that is a challenge. Um. But yet, like when I look at sort of a C radio or how a C you look at the total listenership and it's so small. It's important for artists to see that their music is being played. So a lot of it is. And I get this from big artists. How do I measure my

success today? I used to look at my success where you know, whatever radio chart with a song in the top five, my album went in in the top five. Oh, my album's gone go no, no, my album's gone platinum. That's how they used to measure their success. Oh, and doing the two or thirty days and they've all sold that. Artists feel successful today. They might still do the shows that way, but then they see any we've got number one record this week, and you you're very very aware

of this. Over the past few years, you know, we've gone from bundling tickets with some authors, we've got really big tours, you know. So you're buying the ticket and it comes with the CD, and the CD goes out an accounted for for a scam and that doesn't happen anymore. So now everything changes to formats. How do we get our hardcore fans two collected from formats and boost our numbers first week? Um, So measuring off the success, which you know, everyone I work with is like, well, what

does that mean? Yes, I got number one a week two I was number thirty, you know, week three I was number sixty three, whatever, So how do I measure my success? And it's a really hard question to ask. But in the advent of streaming the big artist that I work with and we work with as a company, you see a whole lift across the entire catalog, you know.

So that makes it even more complicated to measure success unless you really get down to the analytics of exactly, say what you were doing across the catalog to what you did for the catalog over a very small window of time, and what does that lift equate to, and then trying to break it down financially is even more complicated because then it goes down to the nature of the artists deal. Um So, trying to measure success for the biggest arts in the world has never been harder,

I don't think. But they will see the revenue eventually flow through because of the increased across If you've got twenty albums and your catalog and thirty albums your catalog, you see movement across the whole thing. Not necessarily a new record, but everything goes up. People are curious, Oh, I like that record, I'm going to go back to that one, not necessarily the new one. Um So I'm learning. We're all learning. Just when you think you know your job,

you don't know your job. It's back to square one again. How do we do this, How do we do better? How do we service our artists? How do we make them feel that it's not just about touring. Yes, touring has never been better for certain artists, but that's not what feats them. They like their shows, they're happy to be paid well, but they still want to see their art and their music becomes successful because that's why their artists, you know, like working with all for example, he doesn't

stop h whites it all the time. He's never stopped since years. Yeah, So it's he wants to know that he's relevant. He's putting up music and there's an audience that have music. Okay, so you mentioned the charts. Hey, do you feel there's a significant chart in addition to the Billboard Nielsen chart, and that chart, as you say, number one, can be manipulated with games physical product In addition, they meld physical and digital downloads along with streams and

now YouTube in a certain way. So, hey, to what degree do you play the games because everybody else does be would you be in favor of the game's going away and see what is it like actually living in the world? Okay, Um, I feel that I'm partly responsible for creating the games. Um why the game's created? Um? Again, going back to say what we're saying about pop artist pop artists through history. If you're Beyonce, if you're Kendrick Lamar, your Drake, you're Adele. Any of those artists drop a

song today, it's number one next week. They don't do anything, no physical products. It's probably just there are people who still digitally download the few that are there. It's still relevant, but the rest of streaming those artis can just drop the song in the system and boom. Yeah, it would be a dream. I'd love to work with something like that, but I don't um so in order to try and get that chart, because again, let's face it, and you

probably have exact stats on this, I don't. Is it something like the top three percent of all big artists probably consume nine plus percent of all streaming. I don't know the exact staff there. It's I don't know the exact one, but it's not too far away from that. And what that means is if you're not a pop artist that has been consumed at insane rates by people say between the ages of twelve and twenty five, and

and that's just a very random number. Those are people with more disposable time, more downtime then say maybe their parents who have good jobs and trying to sort of run their lives. They don't have as much free time as young people. Young people are free time. They can consume that their friends, they share songs, they're online, they're all chatting with each other, sharing music all the time,

and they're they're consuming a lot of music. They're not doing that for more, shall we say, established artists, people who have had more than five albums in their career. As soon as they hit that thirty five to forty five maybe plays a little different. They seem to be breaking them old um. But most other artists aren't streaming like they should. I would think most artists that I

work with, and let's make up a number. Let's say for ch our purposes, they've got a hundred thousand albums in the U S and week one, that's what the sales equivalent would be. I think probably between three and

five on a good day would be streaming numbers. So without having any kind of creative game plan, you're never gonna get that hundred thousand target if that is what it needed to be to be number one that week, or even playing top five, You're never going to get there without first having to say, Okay, how are we going to break this down? You know, how are we going to get to where we want to get to?

And then you have to find the path to get there, and I've started become really really good at that with everyone that I work with. You've got to try and look after the fans. What do the fans want who, at least hardcore base, what do they really really want from this office, and then you've got to try and feed them, knowing that your streaming numbers right now aren't going to get you there alone, you know. So I couldn't put a record up by and Paulay or s

Twain and just any of the albums up. We've got a great final, We've got a great CD. You can stream it on Apple and Spotify and Amazon, you know, and it's just it would probably do a tenth of what we've needed to do. Let's go to YouTube content. To what degree is it necessary? And do you create specific content for YouTube like videos? It used to be, you know, you made a video for MTV. Now the bigger acts make a video especially for YouTube. Maybe it

might be distributed elsewhere. Other acts do nothing and hope for fan content or something that might be from a late night shell. To what degree is that part of the plan? And what do you do YouTube? I've found at least for they are acts, I work with them in such an important partner because they're willing to be creative, they're willing to do things out the books, and they're willing to assist you to fund it. A couple of years ago, McConney released an album called Egypt Station and

that was the name of the album. So we're trying to think, how do we launch this album, you know, and we've done a bunch of great stunts over the years with him. He's really open to doing things if they're created. And we thought, we we've never done anything in a station, So what about Grand Central Station probably one of the most iconic training stations on the planet architecturally, everyone knows it would be anywhere in the world. And

you say grind Central, they know it's New York. Why don't we try and do the album comes out on Friday. Why do we try and do the show just after rush our sitting pm on a Friday night in Grand Central Station, and let's film it, you know, because it's a beautiful, beautiful room there. As architecturally, it's actually stunning. Next time you in New York, if you haven't been there, have a walk around. The building is unbelievably beautiful. So

we found this amazing room. We've got the permissions. New York's very friendly. You know, three different police forces. You know, you've got the Metro police for the station, You've got state police, you've got a city police, got them all talking in harmony. The Mayor's office gave his permits. It's really strict. Everything about it was really strict, from the minute you go in, the minute you get out what

you have to do. And YouTube came on board and filmed this and we we filmed it in such a cinematic, beautiful way the really creative director and we broadcast alive. So those stunts are so few and far between, they don't work for every artist, but it was such a monumental event. That event was captured, it's still online. And we we partnered. We did a fun partnership, say would lift and on their maps because anyone wanted to the station, they gave him a lift there for free, you know.

And they re branded the station on the maps and Egypt Station for a night into Grand Central Away. So we had a bunch of fun, gimmicky things. But but the YouTube partnership was so vital there because we couldn't have afforded to do it without them. You know, I think they paid, you know, just over half of what it costs and the rest we use from marketing budgets

from the label. But it was such a stunning event and created a real moment and what we gained from that media wise, especially in New York, the biggest selling market, you know, or literally the state of New York is where he sells more product than anywhere else, and you get all the front page coverage from that, you know, McCartney shuts down Rush Hour and things like this, and but it was all because of YouTube. We could have done it without. Then I go into Andrea but Chelly

and this is in April. It was Easter Day and we went to This is actually one of my staff, Francesco. We were in a team in Italy. He came up with this idea and we all thought, yeah, that's kind of a cool idea. It didn't set our worlds up far and thinking like, yeah, cool, we should go with it if it's you know, and his idea was on Easter Day because everything was a lockdown. No one was allowed other than the groceres or walking your dog or something.

We did this event at the Duomo Cathedral in the Lama. We sold the idea to YouTube as and would you like to help fund this and we're broadcast it live um and it was just really under it in the cathedral. You know, he sang a couple of songs and we had to rehearse and walking out the cathedral because he's blind. He walked all the way outside of the cathedral and sang a song in the square at that's normally full

of tourists and full of people. There was a ghost town and he sang a song with the cathedral as the background. The weather was beautiful. We had a crew of six people and a couple of staff, and there his wife. There's no one there. It was all very tied because of COVID pre the call, and that changed the game completely because everywhere, I think we had something crazy like three and a half to four million people chewed in the live around the world. It became such

an event. We were thirty million the next day because people would go back because the world them out. You've got to see this, you know. And and that for him was something that we thought would just be a cool little thing for him to do, and he just wanted to do it earthly and then turn it into this global event. And again I think it was a hundred and fifty thou dollars in costs for the film crew and the satellite up link, a lot of money, but not a lot of money in the grand scheme

of things, and that was such a game changer. And again, and you know, I'm probably the best salesman right now, but they thought, this is a great idea. We want to support the artist. Let's do this. So going back to your point though, artists doing videos for your YouTube, I think to try and get an engagement, you know, like YouTube are always willing to if you go to

them with an idea. Okay, we're gonna have this artist of this group of this band sit down with this actor and this other artists friends of theirs, and they're going to talk about the new music and then all of a sudden they're going to introduce a new video, almost like a premier. YouTube are always game for any cool ideas. I did one with Paul and Chris Rock. They just chatted about music and it was over zoom

because it couldn't be in the same place YouTube. And yeah, we'll do this, but not only will we do this, we'll actually support this and we'll take our off side billboards because like most companies, they book billboards around the world, but they pretty much take on a twelve monthly basis, and we will drive more traffic to this, so they really get behind the artist. There's such an important partner, but they're one of many really important partners and it's

just another piece of the puzzle. You've got to get them on board, and you've got to be really, really creative. What works for the fans, what works for the artists, and also what works for the company. Can you get all three right at the same time. Um, the biggest issue with YouTube will always come back to, well, how do they pay? You know. It's like like all of these arguments you know, with Spotify or how are they paying? You know? Is how they paying fair rates to the artists.

There's always that fine line between water is promo. If you look at YouTube like we U see look at MTV, We're not getting paid for that. They're playing our video ten times a day. So it's that fine line between ensuring the artist gets paid when music is being played and also we need to promotional outlet because if we have something that we feel is great that our fans love,

hopefully we can create that project. If YouTube is partnering with you, do they still pay from view one or do they say we invested all this money you want to take it off top no, they still pay from Okay, let's go to the other end of the spectrum, Cecilia. You know, without you can talk about her specifically but in general and act like that with much less visibility. Will you create specific content to post on YouTube very

close to launch or even before I think so. I think you have to try and get the autics personality across. Maybe it's something conversation piece, maybe it's sort of playing acoustically. We will create specific content that we will put on YouTube. Her sitting in our bedroom. You know, there's nothing better. At the amount of time she's a zoom and say, hey, I want to play you this? What do you think call it? And it's so fun when when that happens,

because no one else does that. Let's face it, you know, the young artists who are not tainted with this industry, not jaded in any way, Hey can you do the zoom? And she'll just sit in her bedroom with a little leftop there and taught herself how to record, and she will just play a song and it's it's so effortless and amazing. It's almost like we just put a little camera crew in your bedroom with this little twin bed and your little leftop on your desk and stuff and

just record you doing this. So absolutely because contents King, how do you you know when someone discovers you discover anything, you want to know more, Oh has that person done anything else? And you go backwards what else have they done? Kind of learn more. It's gonna be the same for anyone, any new fan, anyone who's remotely interested. They want to go digging, and if there's nothing there, you're not feeding them. So we're going to try and feed them until we

put an album out. Then it comes to question, who you know, if she puts an album mobile, I'll be putting out physically. You know? Is there a marketing even for vinyl as big as viol is Right now, we kind of don't know what's what shape this is gonna take until we start. It's kind of exciting, really, this them is our hope or only hope for this album. Even if we don't sell a lot of records, I guarantee we're going to be in the year top ten lists.

That's where we're going to get with the record. Let's go to TikTok. What do we know? The traditional music infrastructure was blindsided by this. Then we had the incredible success with the Cranberry Juice and Fleetwood Mac. You know,

it's not run like the other social platforms. You know, the company invests and it allows you to not have talking about as someone who's creating videos, not myself, but a creator they might be able to get into in traction, whereas on the other systems, if you haven't already made it, you're really pushing the rock uphill. To what degree do you interface with TikTok? Does it work or is it really just about getting lucky that someone picks up yourself

and peels like it's really just about getting lucky? The genuinely does. Like every other outlet, you have to address it. You can. It's not an afterthought every call that we do. What's our plan for YouTube? What's our plan for Spotify? What's our plan for Apple? What's our plan for TikTok's our plan for Amazon? Every single partner you have to address. You have to give them time. You have to try

and get creative. What content can we put up there that's not only going to connect with the artists fans? How do we get new fans? How do you introduce this new music to people who may I've never heard of the artists a new artist, even as an older artist, you know, like a new music out How do we get this out there? Um? And by far no means an expert on Spotify, on TikTok. Luckily I have younger staffs. They're way more you know, well worse than I am. Um.

But it still feels like it's pot luck. It's about music connecting with something a creator has done, you know, or the artists does something that's really appropriate for that platform. I haven't had anything big breakout of it. Had some fun moments with it, but they never really turned into anything tangible. But I've seen but I think it's something

that you need a presence. The view counts that you get on some of these uh little pieces of content that you post are insanely large, but I don't see that translate off the platform. Okay, let's go to the road. Let's talk with someone like Paul McCartney is essentially going to sell out everywhere he plays. How do you decide

on frequency, location, building, ticket prices. Paul was always really, really, really adamant, even with the new world of secondary ticket things stub hubs and all those after market platforms where people would sell the tickets for two or three, four or five, ten times the cover price. Paul never wanted to charge more than three dollars, even though he could have this role and that is two thousand dollars whatever. He always wanted to keep it tight, still does, still

having these conversations. Always make sure he's aware of how things work, to make sure you knows what every other office is doing. And at that point it's his choice. Um, that's generally ticketing. So his grocers are always going to be lower than what they could be because he doesn't want to raise his prices. That's just the way is, even though he knows that three ticket, so I'm gonna buy for two and a half thousand dollars. Okay, how

do you decide how often on the market? Now? How do you just decide forre you get to the yeah, in terms of uh, if leaving COVID out of the picture, let's really talk to paradigm before that. How much does he want to work and how do you decide the market and within a certain country where to play and what size buildings. Let me give you an example saying in the US, probably easiest one to do um Pose agent and co promoters a gentleman named Aarry Marshall who

has worked with Paul for decades. One of the best I've ever worked with, learned so much from He's such a mentor, such a you know, fountain of knowledge. And if you ever go to Barry's office, which is in London, he's a map of the world, big map of the world on a really big wall and there's little color coordinated pins on this map and each pin will signal signify a year and the tour, so you can see, okay, how many times has he been here, how intends to

be there? And that's what it ends up doing, is where has he never been? So you find out all these markets where he has never been, and he always wants to go to these places. Even though with Paul, if he doesn't run a dates, let's say shows in the US, he could just do major markets, but he could do major markets every two or three years if he wanted to, or every year even but he doesn't.

He wants to go places where he has been just adding to the fact that he will have played most places and he was always into trying to do if you went to a major market let's say New York, I'm going to play in the Garden a few nights, then maybe go across across the river to the Barkley Center for a couple of nights. Maybe go over to New Jersey for a couple of nights. I'm covering the Try State area. Then maybe next time I'm go and

play Met Life. You know, so never wants to just repeat MetLife, Met Life, MetLife Yankee Stadium, Met Life Yankee Stadium sometimes wants to keep it smaller and more intimate, mix it up for fans so they're not just getting the same thing every time. Same In Los Angeles, you know, maybe okay, maybe we're gonna play the Forum, or we're gonna play Staples Center or Hollywood Bowl, and maybe we're gonna do like Dodger Stadium. You know. So it's always

tries to mix it up. Um and then with the rest of the world, it's like, okay, you know, he hadn't really done South America. The Beetles never did South America. So then we said, okay, let's start with Mexico, and we did a whole bunch of shows in Mexico, played the Aztecs Stadium in Mexico City who played Zokolo Square for a free show for two children, fifty people, you know. And there's another place called Fotosaul, which is like the

baseball stadium, you know. So okay, we're doing all these venues, and we've done the arenas, so you covered that one. Wherever. Never been never in a Paraguay, never been to Uruguay, you know, and never be in the Chile never you know, never been to Peru. When we started going around all of these places, and I remember going with him to a sun shone in Paraguay. Flying in, I can't even see a city. I always see his jungle and like, who is going to come and see him play in

this city? And you get there and you're really in the you feel I really feel like I'm in remote part of the planet, never mind in this country itself. Then we go to this rookiey old football stadium and thirty five thousand people show up, and it's like, where did these people come from? How did they know him? How can they afford the ticket? Doesn't look like a wealthy country. Um, And we sell out and it's amazing. It never ever ever ceases to amaze me how things

are that can happen. It's magical. And one thing that Paul when we're speaking last week, he he he always talks about this. He's going, you know, I'm hanging out with friends or bump into someone they like, hey, what are you up to? You know you're still playing these days. He's going, people have no idea what goes on another parts of the world, you know, and we've got to remind them. We gotta do something with that. Because when he's in Mexico, he's in Argentina, all those places, it's

still beatle Mania. Thousands of fans outside of that town all night, singing Beatles songs with their flags and there whatever they've painted on them. And when he tries to get out of the hotel, more often than not, same in Japan, he's got to go out from underneath the service entrance. You can go out the front door. It's kind of next level craziness. Yeah, And the rest of the world is all very civilized, it's all very polite, and he's like, it's kind of he says, that still

blows my mind that no one has any idea. You know, we just played three nights that were played stadium. We played two d and ten thousand people. It's beat on many of their Nobody knos you know, so we have we're talking about it. How do we pull something together, you know in the future. You know, it's like, but there's a little mini dark or something. Because we film everything. You film all the shows, We record all the shows with a bureau team were still photographers. We document all

of this. Um So at some point hopefully we can do something and people are, oh, that was happening, that's still happens. Um So it's pretty funny. Just that's one artist perspective and can look at Andrea Butchelli. No one talks twice about Andrea but Chelly that often. He's one of the highest box office grossing stuffles on the planet. Certainly in the US. Nobody knows. You know. You can go down in Brazil and he's playing multiple nights and

football stadiums, nobody knows, you know. So this is sort of off. His careers, you know, are so different, so diverse across the world. And how you get that to connect so that everyone is aware all over the world is something I haven't managed to crack yet. Let's stay with the Curdy for a minute. At this late date, what does he want? Also, he has a reputation for being a student of the game. There's certain artists that do, like Elton John whatever, and the other artists are oblivious.

Just point me in the right direction and I'll do it. So to what degree is he involved in strategizing, knowing the numbers, etcetera. And what is he actually looking for at this late date. Papaul is a master of his craft, There's no doubt about it. No one has a career this long, this successful without really being on top of it and driving it. You can help artist careers to a point, but if they're not the driver, it wouldn't

last as long. Um. I think I've learned more about my job through working with him than I have done through working with anyone else. It made me better at my job, made me better with other artists because no one's had a career like this who's still active. Um, he's super aware every detail, every number he wants to know. He's super tuned in, doesn't gloss over anything, needs reporting, needs constant communication. Is a really big team, um, great,

great team that we've refined over years. This is my sixteenth year poll. It took probably five or six years to find the right team, and we have a great team. I wish we could have a team like this, but every artist I worked with, it would I get better. Um. He's so tuned in and so involved in the creative, you know, artwork, paper stock, everything we do. Were we do working on the catalog piece and he'd approved the cardboard stock and then that was out of stock. Covid

couldn't get a ship, got another one. He's like, just not as good. Let's find something else. So every detail he's on, no one, no other artists on the planet has this attention to detail. I want to see printing samples once, to see everything before he signs off. We have a full time team who do this sort of thing for him to make sure that it's perfect, you know. And when it comes to touring every show, when's the last time was there? Oh, haven't been here? He's really

really involved. The only time in my whole time with Paul he let me run with something was when he did McCartney three, because he delivered it with eight weeks ago before the record came out. That was kind of and it was writing Covid. It was run about the holiday period of twenty and you know he delivers. The masters were often running the hoops we had to jump through.

For vinyl, you know, I went to Thirpman knocked on the door literally to see if they could help his manufactured vinyl, and they did because without them we went upand behind all So it's it felt like a punk rock campaign for someone like Paul McCartney. Made this record at home, gave us the record eight weeks before Street Day, but no expectations, wasn't really doing any promo, and then he says, like he usually does, so send me the marketing plan, let me look over with what you plan

to do. It's like, Paul, trust me on this, just go with it. We're gonna make it up as we go along. We're not going to put any singles. We're just gonna try and drive some excitement if we can till the street day so people really want to hear the music, and we'll do a series of little movie trailers just with you know, little themes, maybe a little bit of music in there, just to sort of our energy behind this campaign from the moment we announced the

moment that comes out. He's like, you feel okay with this and went feel good with it, just go with it, and he went, all right, I trust you go with it. First time. I took that long for him to not be hands off, but just sort of take one hand off, you know. And what I came up with on that campaign was let's do the remix album. Originally I thought, let's try and get out four weeks after the main album. Just drop it McCartney. Three Imagined was was our concept.

And we just have a different artists, young artists, more established artists, just a real, very group of genres. Do each song that's on the record just for the fun offense, purely for the fun of it, no expectations, just trying to sort of all I said. All I was trying to do was keeping the conversation longer, you know, because there's no hit songs on this record. How do we keep people talking about it? But then this album became pretty good. Paul never, you know, wasn't really involved in it.

He signed off and all the artists, this is who we're going to approach, great, love them, this is great. That was really his involvement, and we just went on. We made it. He loved every mix that came in and spoke to every artist. He wrote to them all was so grateful. Really was a fun project, but it took longer simply because of the final backboat. We could out five months after I think. Um. So that's the one time he kind of took his food off the guests a little bit and let his team, who are

really established we all ran with it. Um. But otherwise he's all over everything, every detail, like you wouldn't believe. Okay, tell me two things you learned from him. You say you learned so much. I think when I first started working with Paul, it was one of those things where, yeah, it was maybe a little more cocky and confident. I thought it was good at what I did with the artist that worked with, you know, and I was I'm like, yeah, I'm happy, I'm I know what I'm doing. I'm pretty

good at this. You know. I was my late dirties and I'm like, okay, I got this. And then he would call me at all Ours. You know that a PM on a Friday night, you know you've had a long week. You just get home, put your feet up, I'm gonna maybe have some dinner. I'm tired. It's been a long week. A lot of ours and he called and he's maybe in the car, maybe driving from the country up to town, up to London or something. Hey, how's it going. I'm like, yeah, great, great, he's gonna

remember that thing we were talking about last week. You said you get back to me. Didn't hear from you? Where are we with that? And I'm like, let me get my notebook, but don't worry about it. Can call me Monday. Um. And you also said you were gonna call me on this thing and that thing. I said, uh, yeah, yeah, I haven't done that yet, you know. And I'm like, and I got the game. I'm like, that's how people don't survive. And he's always says you can call me anytime,

seven days a week, night and day. I'm always here, and it's true. And he is that person you can calm nine am on a Saturday, tempt you on a Sunday something's going on, takes your call never, never doesn't take your call, or he'll text back say I'll call

you back after this thing or whatever. I started playing the game back, I'd call him on a Saturday morning at nine am and say, hey, Paul, remember we spoke with this thing and you you're gonna sort of approve or not approve that, you know, so we need to move with it. Ye forgot about that. I'll get onto that. And and it was like playing ping pong, you know, instead of being aced all the time, you know, you

started to play back and forth, back and forth. Um And I got the point where I'd have to write little basic notes because he could call yourn or somewhere you're in a restaurant, you know, and he wants to know the answers. I have all the answers. And then I just got the point where I felt like I was in top hall. But it took him in in, you know, at the point where you feel like your

head bobbing underwater. You're like, then deliver, then deliver, and that just makes you better at your game, makes you more efficient. Um And through going through so many different

experiences with him, and they are of PR. How he talked about PR having gone through from the Beatles through the present day creative PR games that you play things, I'm like, Wow, I learned they are are from him how to do it better and that translate to other artists what you need to do to make it connect and be better, you know, And because he is the master of it. He's been in the public eye for sixty years, you know, and at that point I would say he I would say he's an expert. At that point,

it's more than ten, that's for sure. You said you also learned a lot from Barry Marshal the agent. Tell me a couple of things you learned there with Barry. Barry is the ultimate gentleman one. He knows his craft better than anyone else on the planet. He promotes shows all over the world. He's not just a British promoter

or a British agent. And his attention to detail. If Paul has never been in the building, or he hasn't been in the building, he will fly there with our production manager and our tour accountant and they go through the building. They say, can we do the show? If we do the show, do we have enough of facility here? What is everything? They check everything. He flies around the world to check everywhere before he confirmed the show Number one,

number two. We've done some really weird shows with Paul, really weird sort of you know, be a promo or fun of whatever the reason. Small clubs, you know, tiny little clubs or AMVA Records we've done all these weird shows. That is the one who goes in, Okay, this is going to be Poles dressing room, this is going to go here. They make it amazing, unbelievably, So he doesn't need to be doing that. There's other people on the team that can do that, but he's the one who

walks through to make sure everything is perfect. When it's looking at ticketing and how your ticket shows, and if you're shore, you go into in his office, he has that full map. You know, say we've got some zone way up in the gods that hasn't been selling, he makes sure it's going to be sold. He also does things like every single show, without fail, always keep a few seats quite a few seats, like maybe a row

right at the front that doesn't sell. He would go and pick people that he thinks are really great fans, reassigned them at front rows every show, so there's an energy there. Because one thing that every artist hates is the rich guy up front Cuson is iPhone type and emails because they also sees that guy in the front row, you know, so he they want to see real legitimate fans and when you bring people down from the gods

who weren't expecting it. And then the front two or three rows changes the energy for the artist and baries the next Bert at that little detailed little things and it's like, wow, Okay, that's amazing, you know, because not a g A floor, it's it's you know, it's it's reserve seating. You know, where his reserve When it's g A and we have done a few g A quite a lot of stadiums in South America. You get the energy up front, but if it's reserve seats, he brings

people down because all of those little things. You know, he's masterful of his job. Okay, what about Shania Twain who played Vegas, etcetera. What are you what about her? She is sort of the ultimate pro. Took time off when her son was born, stepped back from the industry as he got older, her son. You know, she's like, Okay, I'm ready again, I want to do this. Um. She loves Vegas mainly because she's a big horse rider. She's a life just outside of Vegas. Where should go riding?

You know, it's just part of her global trek when she moves around the world. Um. So it's very much a lifestyle thing. She liked Vegas. She is her second residency in Vegas, and we'll run a residency all year this year and then look to go and do world through next year. That's the hope. UM. Hopefully there'll be a new album, you know, coming later this Year's fun of working with office like that is introducing them to new collaborators, you know, building new teams around them, giving

them a new revival energy for what they do. Um. And not only that, she's very real. She's a great person, great person, hang out with boundless energy, a lot of fun to work with. And she's a worker. And you find this a lot of the office who have had the biggest successes, they work harder than the office who have had a marginal amount of their success. I'm not afraid to work. They know the game. What's your viewpoint?

I'm Vegas. You know it used to be the old has beens now young people even people only you know, you know, ten years in or less, like Katy Perry go there. Do you think that's a good thing? To what degree? When you go in you have to worry about production? And of course for those on the inside game in Vegas, the ticket game is totally different. You know, if something doesn't instantly sell out, which is rare to begin with, you have to have whole network of you know,

concier different price points, etcetera. Vegas is veggas cells. To be realistic, you've got to be looking at close to a hundred million tickets a year pretty COVID two million a week. That's Vegas. That's a real business for artists and promotors alike, and for the buildings. Then every single theater in Vegas, all of the the in house theater is not, including MGM Arena and Timobile Arena. Their stages are as big or bigger than most arenas, so you

can put any size of production in there. I think Usher had like fifteen to seventeen trucks worth of the production in there. Huge amounts of production going there. It's unlimited, so you can do the stage whatever you would do in the biggest arenas in the world, you can do in any pretty much any theater in Vegas. So the facilities are really great and really production friendly. But then

you've got to boil down the business. If the theater is between four and six thousand capacity, which mostly they are, that's still less than half the size of your Aragorina. So you're not going to sell as many tickets and you're not going to make as much money as say one Night am GM versus one night A planed a Hollywood. You're not gonna make the same money. No about how the tickets of scale, it's not going to be the same. So again I think artists like it because it could

be a lifestyle situation, such as the Adele position. She's she's like a young young child. I think quin Stefani young child. You're Britney Spears with a couple of kids. They like to go work maybe in the weekends to fly home. They could fly back to l A then fly back. It's a fortwo minute fly so it's really friendly for them to be able to work, still be a mother and have a different kind of life without being on a bus and track and run the world

for six months. So some people choose it for lifestyles, but then you boss is like being the Bruno Mars. You have Lady Gaga all these other shows. Katie Perry who also probably doing it for lifestyle because she's a young mom. You know, she can fly back and forth from her home and ever but a lot of artists on in that position and they may just go in and do I'm going to go in here for you know, I'll do twenty shows in a year, spread out over a few months. I think artists like it because Vegas.

I think on average, I was quoted as stats about people at every show are not from Vegas. All people who have flown in, They've flown in for a weekend. They're gonna catch the Beatles Love Show or another set, this Live show or a David Copperfield show. Then I'm going to catch tonight twenty show or Bruna mar show or whoever happens to be playing. So that very much feels like Vegas. It feels like it's super active between Thursday and Sunday, then really quiet maybe between the Monday

to Wednesday. Um. Do I like Vegas? Not really? Um, but I get it. I understand that. Is it sustainable that's another question because Vegas itself isn't a huge city. You can see it grow by the year, but in comparison to the major cities in the world, it's not that big. So is it sustainable to do a hundred million tickets a year? I don't know. Well, that hundred million. Can't get it hundering twenty million. Maybe, you know, let's talk of the new Sphere Arena opening there as well,

just the third arena possible in the city. You know, they're they got the new Allegiance Stadium there where stadium shows are going. I'm not sure who's played there other than maybe golf, Brooks and guns and roles is so far, but there's another stadium there, you know, So that that city is growing in the growing in sports and trying to bring more sports teams there. And they've got the ice hockey team, you know, think they're trying to bring

a basketball team there, you know. So, um, it's ambitious as a city. Um. No. Answering the last part of your question, I think I've got most of it, and now I think you gotta let me go one step deeper here, you know, starting god almost twenty years ago, even longer, touring for the absolute top tier change where they would base in a city maybe Chicago, and they take the jet every night to the different locations, and

then we have Vegas. Do you think Vegas is sue generous just one thing or will the future be the acts of the fans coming to the acts as opposed to the acts going to the fans. Acts is they were going to go for the fans. That will never change. That will never change. It has ever changed through my lifetime, your lifetime, and it's not going to change. I think the residency concept can grow one office being based in

one city, even if it's not Vegas. I think that can happen and people will travel depending on the office. But I don't think it's a model for every office. Okay, let's go back to the recordings. You know, Paul McCartney is a thing unto himself, not that he's in this equation, but if you go back to the paradigm was established in the seventies and refined in the eighties, you had an album come every three to four years, you win single, the single, up to five singles, whereas today you can

put on an album and it's literally over in a weekend. Okay, So what's your view on release schedules? What's your view on putting out albums supposed to singles? What's your view in terms of what dropped once every three years, once every year, as opposed to every month. How do you feel about all that? I mean, you still gotta ball in down to basics. These singers, bands, artists. There are artists that that's their craft. They write songs, most of them.

The load of young ones, there's four or five songwriters in each song. It's all studio based. It's great. Is that's a different lane people I work with their artists. It's been a long time writing, you know, and they constantly write. Then it's trying to figure out, well, how do we put this up? How much should we put out? And to your point, should we just do a whole bunch of singles? That doesn't resonate for certain artists and

it really resonates for other artists. You know a lot of young artists, you know, they don't even care really about doing not doing albums. They can just put single left, a single after single after single and have a super healthy career. You look at DJs like Calvin Harris, one of the most successful recorded music artists of the past ten years. No one really cares about the albums because it's song driven, event driven. He does the show, it's

an event. It's the biggest residency or maybe he goes on tour in a stadium somewhere in South America, whatever happens to be. That's a completely different business. It's just another silo um. But with the people that I work with and looking at the path turn as you say, maybe it's this album over three or four years, maybe it's you know, some music in between or separate projetrotects. Albums can come um really quick, one after the other. Well, you look at Paul, it was like two years from

his Egypt station to McCartney three. It was two years. But then McCarty three wasn't planned. He was supposed to be on tour in Europe and doing Glastonbury that year, and there were a whole other plans, family stuff, private stuff, nothing to do with music at all. He had a whole year matth t there's no plan to do an album, just wasn't meant to be. But he's not one to sit around and just sort of put his feet up. He would go to the studio every day, which was

around the corner from his house in England. You just go in there and he just sit and work away, clean up a few old things, working a few new things. And before you knew he had an album, and he wasn't sure he had an album yet. Think about it. He's got I got all these songs. I think it's an album. You know, that was the question, And I think that's the healthiest attitude to have a put a collection of songs here, we all sit down, what should we do with it? Should I put this out? Why

should I put how to put it up? You know? So every artist has again you lumped them all into one formula or one system. I think you just got to take them all individually, see what their own desires and ambitions are for that music or that project, and try and help them realize it. So I'm game for anything. Whatever anyone wants to do it. So I was like, let's do it. Let's go with it. Okay, how many artists you have on the roster? Now? I have no idea?

Um in Maverick, like we were a group of partners, we all have our own rosters. So I got my roster. We have some shared services, some shared staff. Um, so I is now and again dip in to help other people out. They might dip in to help me out, Like I'm quarterback in the red hole. Chili Pepper's record with guy right now? Um you know, so he's like,

I haven't put an album for a few years. Can you help me on the album projectin't sure, you know, because I feel like I'm on the the album released treadmill of being very up to date with how certain records should be put up. So I help him and his team on that. It's good for me to do because it helps me stay on top of my game. It's not that complicated. I don't really deal with the band.

I just deal with label and our team and what we should be doing on a global basis to try and make this record happen and deliver and be creative around it. So I see that as kind of fun for me. It's a big records, an amazing record, great band,

um and so I do a bunch of that. But with my roster is Paul, It's Sny Twain, Andrea Chelli, Morrissey, Um, I got Andrea Chelli's son Mateo Rich Kelly, who we sugn to Capitol, who's just been putting a couple of singles as the Sirie Castleman, Sint Pierre Revo, the actress, and we had her music project with birth um and again that was sort of a fun thing. She's she's having so much success in film and television. Um, you know that she wanted to try music as a solo artist.

It's going to take time because she's so busy in film and television. Um. And then across the company between you two Chili Peppers, Madonna is over on the guy side and the big country side, Clarence Baulding, Jason Oldeen, Danish Rucker, Reva McIntire, books and Done, Um, Morgan Wallen um Man with g Robertson trying to think his own jeez roster right now. You know he's in the hip hop world. Let's go back a few years. So you're running your own independent company and Irving as all starts

to roll up management companies. And he had a very specific formula. You know, he wrote you a check based on certain revenues and you have to earn it out. What incent advise you to go from independent to going to work with Irving's actually sort of learned, you know, when you don't need the money, it's not financially driven. Um, you think, how do I actually grow what I'm doing?

How do I build a bigger network? I always felt like some of my UK because I'm British, as you know, some of my UK manager colleagues like people like the Richard Griffiths of the world or E. Mcanderon all these other great UK managers. None of them spent other than

Richard when he was at LABEL. Obviously, you had to spend time on the ground in the US if you're going to service your artists on a global basis, unless they were big enough where you just open an office in New staff and they're going to deal with everything over there. I wanted to be on the ground, and

Irving gave me that ability. You know. I had an office in l A for about five or six years before I sorry in New York before I spoke with Irving, but just to sort of get a better level of connectivity, and he certainly helped me get that. You know, you want to learn from him. As soon as I did a deal with Irving, Roger Rains, who was part of

Irving's team, based himself in my office, you know. And Roger I remember as a kid that was managing Buork and Roger was sort of CEO of Warner at the time, and being terrified going in to have meetings with him because he was a global chairman. Um to then have him in your office and have him help you. They are of dealmaking, They are of uh negotiation. Roger is

a math genius. He is the one person who you can still have a cup of tea and he'll draw a whole deal with all the tax issues, everything on the back of a napkin. One of the most brilliant men I've ever worked with. So, having Roger in my office for six years, what I had learned it was invaluable. No, he became a real mentor to me, unbelievably growing. So that was my benefit really, you know, it was like, imagine you've going back to do do a master's you know,

in your craft. That's what it was for me. So I think, if I want my game, if I want to work with bigger artists, more demanding artists, the only way I can do it is by being better myself. Okay, so Irving and Rapino or running Live Nation. Then it's Irving's out and it's just Rapino. And it evolves into what is now Maverick, what changed in their transition and is how is your business different under this heading as opposed to the old one. The whole Maverick concept was

an easy one. Look at it as a collective. You know, it's not a corporation. It's a collective of like minded people. It's a knowledge based you know. And the concept of putting Maverick together again was really really simple on paper. Can we as a group of friends who all know each other long established relationships, can we together and this is nothing financial and nothing business like. Can we leverage the power of a lot of really big artists in

different genres to create opportunity for them? That was the concept. You can we do better for our artists? Can we bring them more by trying to leverage them collectively? It could be a brand new start up. Imagine if it was Twitter Mark two. Oh, we all come off Twitter Mark one and go into Twitter Mark too. Can we get all the artist equity? Very very bad concerts suggestion there, But that was the concept. It was really really simple.

What happens in those situations? Are some of the individuals become so astronomically successful because their artists are hitting and they get this and off they go And that's sort of okay because the whole concept was can we try and bring opportunity, which we did um for the artists, you know, And then it comes down to the core. We're all like minded, we all help each other out, we all have respect for each other, you know, and the business is exactly the same, nothing changed. It kind

of works like a law firm. You have your own client roster. You could have a hundred clients, you have three clients, you have a hundred, you might earn more than the guys cut three, you know, So it just all downe to the individual and their motivation. I could really really type team that are very, very long established, you know. It's it's really like a family between London and l A great team of staff. How many people, uh tenoral living I think not alone, really tight if

we need. Paul's team is different because Paul was very specific. When I work with him, he's he's He's like, I want you to build a team for me that I pay for so that when I fired you. This is my first ever meeting. So when I fired you just put someone else in and the teams there and I'm like, I kind of laughed, and I'm like, Okay, there's probably oone else in the world who could say that, And that's what we did. So we get a team about another ten people over on Pole's side who do nothing

but Paul McCartney. UM, and very specific jobs as well. UM. We call it like a production company while the management company. UM. So everything he does is in house. His whole world is in the house. Nothing's out of house. All creative in house, all the photography, archiving, in management, the databasing,

the the online team, everything is in house. They don't do anyone else by him, and he's probably the only artist who's in a position to do that, you know, and every other artist, no matter how big, they don't have that. They don't have that facility. So it works again like a law firm. We all work as hard or or not as hard as we want to work, and we get paid as much as we work or

successful as our artists are. Okay, but in this particular case, you're mentioning helping guy out with red hot chili peppers, uh when you take them. But then guy helps me and other stuff as well, So it kind of goes back and forth. Okay, So there's not an issue of compensation. You don't feel like, Hey, I did this work I didn't get paid for. It really goes around because God brings opportunity for the office. Because he's such a big focus on start ups, tech and the whole new world

that he loves being part of. And he's very successful at and none again. And he has an open door whenever there's big presentations, any of the office want to come in, anyone want to come and see this or something great that might be appropriate for this aufice of this aufice. So he's always bringing opportunities, you know, and he's great at introductions. He's just super network. The relationship really works. You know, we've been friends with twenty five years,

um so it's not a new relationships. Traditionally management was either usually fifteen percent sometimes twenty. Irving charges fifteen percent with no contract. What do you charge and do you have a contract? In the very HEAs artists the artists, um I would say, there's two very distinct styles of commission. It was the European style, which was gross on advances

and third party revenue. Say, if you did a deal with the sneaker company or whatever, it would be, but on touring, it will be of net after all costs. So the European model sounds like oh it's great, it actually works out less than across. You get lesson advances, but your number is known um so U style traditionally fift like dirving model and in Europe of cross advances, but net net on oud a mixture through my whole career, some UK European style. It's whatever makes you feel is

making the artice happy. Have some deals in I have no contracts because if you're not any good or it doesn't work, okay, take hands and you can move on. You know, I would never litigate against an artist, no matter how badly you may be worked over, because the first thing that people will do today, if you're an artist, I'm gonna google this guy and the last thing you want to see is so and so is suing this

office is for non payment of commission or something. And it's like, I'm not going to go work with that guy. I think you always want to put the office first. They're not always right, but you still want to support them, and the office comes first. Model is always work for me. Um and I have this argument with some promoters that they believe it or not. It's like you're really not gonna let them hit their bonus points because there were a thousand dollars on the threshold. The artist friendly look

after the artist. Artists comes first, look after them. Everything else works out. So again, different styles of deals. Sometimes it's not commission on every revenue stream. Sometimes it's different commissions on different revenue streams. It's gotten really complex. So what we have to do even with no contract, just a basic term of agreement. This is how we agree to be compensated. And if something is not work can you go back and say this is great, let's change it.

It's too little because this is what we brought in in this field and it always gets worked up. You just have to have that healthy conversation. Let's talk about promotion deals. You know, there was the roll up that will ultimately became Live Nation. Ultimately uh, Philly and Shouts brought concerts west, it became a G. Now you have certain philosophies, the Q prime philosophy where we would rather go market by market, work with the independence and we

can make more money uh going that way. Then there's most of the big acts are taking national or international tours, making a deal with Live Nation or a G. What is your philosophy? Again, there's no one size fistul It is down to the office. A lot of artists like saying we take Paul mccarny do a monster Live Nation or a Monster a G deal if he wanted to, but chooses not to. Still likes to work with all

of the independence that he has history with. Shows will always be mixed up between Live Nation and a G sometimes with the promoter who was brought into one of their folds. Very loyal tries to flip Eastern West Coast shows unless there was a G. The stem up Live Nation tries to keep a level playing field. Some artists, even the ones that I don't work with, like to do that huge deal. Maybe it's jay Z, maybe it's Beyonce or whoever. They'll like to do that deal with

a big check. And I'm trying to see that from the office point of view. If someone brought your check for a hundred million dollars, a childred million dollars, I'm sure if you're smart business advisors, that money over the course of a year could be really well and ested.

So maybe that money as equity at the start is right for that specific artists, Whereas if you go through the c Prime model market by market, promoter by promoter um, that might just be their philosophy, and that's okay if it's right for that artist, because they'll have that conversation with the artist, this is how we want to do it.

Are you good with that? You know? Whereas but the cute prime model metallicas seem to do more Live Nation shows than independent shows, different internationally than it is in the US. So I think there's no one size at all. You know, some promoters get the big ones a G and Live Nation will get aggressive on Feast for certain tours and I bid each other. Um, so the authors tends to win in that instance if they go with one of those promoters. Um, I'm sort of fairly never

been the same no matter who it is. If the artice has history, they love a specific promoter, well that's just going to do their show. That Sigma around the Okay, he's always done our true that's who's going to do it, you know. Or if it's Ja Marciano in the US, let's just do it and we work with Jason's Universal Concidize or something. Whatever the office wants to do, you make it work, there's no question. You know, it's like you want harmony. The record company situation has changed, you know,

with the New century. Used to be pretty much certainly in the US, you were dead in the water as an independent without going into why, uh, everything is up for grabs now, Okay, anybody can get their record distributed through tune Core or another CD baby, etcetera. The major labels tend to sign things that have already been developed

online as opposed to developing things themselves. And you can negotiate for things that were harder to negotiate for before, you know, return of rights, owning masters, higher percentage royalty. What is your view on whether you need a label or not and whether to sign or not and what kind of deal you can make? Again, I feel like

I'm a broken record here. It stands an individual artist having done every single conceivable deal known to man with different artists, and and did this a lot with Arcade Fire, who I worked with for twelve years or so, who did that, did their first five albums, and in the beginning they had eight different licenses that you know, on their first album they paid for it themselves, licensed to eight different labels, and they ended up being paid probably

for selling about a million albums worldwide. They probably got conversated on the five million albums, so they were really, really, really well paid because of the nature of their independent deals. Now that feels like a bit of an anomaly because that was a physical buying market along with Apple digital downloads.

This is pre streaming, you know, in two thousand five, two six, when the first album came up, and they really benefited from that all the way through every album that came out until probably their last album, you know, when streaming was really the most dominant partner. Um by being creative with all of their independent deals. When they finally went over to major deal, they had split territory deals,

really short licenses, five year licenses, records come back. So in my short twelve years with this band, did the same with publishing. Publishing deal ends. Oh we're going to sign the whole catalog again. There are three albums, are four albums. They really reaped the reward from owning the masters so they can be super creative. When they were that hot commodity, every major wanted to sign and overpay

for but really short licenses. They signed the catalog, they pull it back, signed a new album, catalog would start reverting from another label. Really really creative deals. So that's that's probably one of the most exciting unusual situations I've ever dealt with and again I learned a lot from it. Today new artists, let's say Seceria, who we work with, imagine Daniel hadn't introduced me to and she had no

record deal. We could do anything that we wanted to do. Now, if you go with a model where you just want to own all yourself and work it yourself, we need a bit of capital for marketing and video, and you know, we could do like a rights deal with b MG or whoever. If we didn't really want to enter into long term negotiation, we could do that. You know, it's a lot more work on the artist team, huge amount

of work, more staff, resources becomes really expensive. But then you have to look at how competitive are you and that's where the major labels come in. If you have an artist who's really competitive, they have a big project, they really want it delivered globally, not just us, they want to globally delivered. You need a major label, I think, UM. And the reason for that is they're just so streamlined in the way that they work today. You find your team,

you have a great team. You know, everything works really really efficiently. UM. You actually save money on because of the amount of ad space they buy each year. Their their cost per ad is way more efficient than something that you r I could go and buy tomorrow for the same space because they buy it more weeks a year than you or I would buy, So you cost them down a little bit. More opportunity will come to

them because those companies are so big now. They because such you know, unique dedicated departments that work on you know, like, hey, I'm only work with you know, apps and right share companies, and this is an opportunity to command and like all the stuff you can't do on your own. If you're really depend you've just made a cool little record and you're happy with that. You think we're gonna sell ten thousand of these equivalents. We want to be paid five

dollars a unit equivalent. You might just do it yourself and then you're happy with that, you know. So it's all depends on the autice and how they want to compete. A lot of authors I find there like, no, we want to be huge, We really want to be huge. At that point, you've got to think, Okay, how do we get them there and not be too concerned. Be concerned about the rights and the rights management, but don't be too concerned about how much money you're going to

make off that album if you're agenders. Okay, let's go back to the beginning. So where did you grow up. I grew up in Glasgow, Glasgow? Okay, what was your family situation, what your parents do for living? How many kids in the family. My mom and dad split when I was six. My dad remarried when I was twelve. My mom was a hairdresser. My dad was a cooper, so he made barrels for whiskey. He made what, um barrels,

wooden barrels. Really yeah, um, which was kind of fun. Actually, I never drink whiskey because I think instead of just surrounded by as a kid, um, and you drink beer, yeah, drink wine of love. Tequila does not whiskey. Yeah, Whiskey is just it was like everywhere I felt like it was surrounded by it when I was a kid because that was my dad's industry. Uh. And I get two half brothers and half sister. One lives in Melbourne, one Australia, one lives in leon and France and once they lives

in Glasgow. My mom still lives in Glasgow. My dad passed on. You're growing up in Glasgow. Are you a good student? Bad student? Popular? Not popular? Popular student, not the best student? Because I got distracted. There's there's two school levels in the UK. There's no middle school, so it's essentially primary school and secondary school. There's no middle school before high school. So that probably when I was

about living twelve years old, discovered funk groper music. You know, it was the Clash, it was the sex pistols, it was Ramons, everything that came, and then enjoy Division came after that and it was like I just got consumed. And the whole strategy at that point was how can I go and see all these bands play live with me and my friends? So we go and see every show that came through tom There was a lot of them. Um,

we would travel to go see shows. You know it that became the obsession and then you're instead of high school bands, you're trying to how do we make this? I want to be a rock star. Okay, so how did you pick up an instrument? And what were you in the band? My my dad bought me a guitar or the cost thirty pounds. It wasn't very good, but that was it. I brought an amplifier for five pounds for a friend of a friend. It was terrible, you know.

It was really small one and you know, and you just sit in your bedroom with song books and trying to listen to records and then make the records. You know. I was I could pass, but I wasn't that great. You've learned pretty soon you're not that great. Okay, So you finished secondary school. What's your next what's your next move? Um? I went to London to stay with a friend for a weekend and then went back. Now you're in London, what's what's your viewpoint? What's your agenda? What are you

gonna do? Immediately it's like, I'm like, okay, I got to find a job, just try and pay rent. My friend had an apartment, found a job in a photography studio doing that, which was really cool and I was really well paid for my age. My dad said he give me a gap year between school and university. Um, and I'm like okay. So I sort of had his blessing slightly. I was sort of being groomed to be an accountant. And I was friends with this band on

four a D part of Martin Mills Empire. It was run by Iva wats Russell, and I was friends with the band of cop to the Twins. Robin got Freelizbeth Fraser. Robin still one of my best friends to this day. And they stayed in our apartment for a while because they were trying to find a place to live in London. There were also Scottish stay closed for about six months, you know, and I'm super fun time. And then Robin said, hey, there's a band on our label who are auditioning for

bass players. You should go do it. And I did and I got in the band. So I left the Toby studio job. This is all within six months of moving to London, and I joined the band who were still going m a band called Dead Can Dance who was sort of this early and he's so I wasn't Deck and Dance for the first two albums. What did your father say about the gap you're knowing the university? Well,

he wasn't cool about it. He's like, okay, and then we put a record on it, and all right, you got a record on And he came to see us play alive and he's seen there were like two and a half thousand people there and he's like actually they kind of liked you, and I said, yeah, we're doing okay. He went, all right, he gave me a bit more rope. He just kept feeding it because he actually seen that it didn't look as though I was wasting my time

just you know, being a lay about doing nothing. Um very quickly and this is a moly, but the time years old or something very quickly learned, once you start playing festivals or you're playing with other bands, were really amazing. You sort of figure out actually and kind of just getting by. Here am I going to get caught up because I'm not that good? It's good fun. And everyone in the band was five years older than me, which

seems like ancient at that age. You know, it's not as you're an adult, but when you're really young, five years is a long time. They were. I was the youngest kid there, and I decided it's time I'm stepping back because they were going to musical direction. That wasn't really the guitar based drums set up. It was definitely more orchestrated and more sort of ambitious. And then I started to at that point I was a shift to management. I was friends with the bandages in marriage and they've

just been taken on by Chris Morrison. Chris Morrison, who again another mentor of mine, great, great, great manager who has retired now, who in the eighties managed Living in a Box that Are Alive, Thin Lizzing from the seventies through eighties Ultra Box. He had had this huge, huge, monstrous success, but could see the tide shifting, so he went in this more rock alternative zone and he took on Jesus, Mary Chane. He took on Blur that became Guerrillas.

We're still going but Damon from Guerrillas. So he was able to anticipate sort of the shift from what was going on. And I started working with Jesus and Mary Change because they were friends. And then I worked with Chris for a number of years and that kind of became my start of working in management and working for other managers, some really really great, some not so great. But that was kind of my schooling until I started

on my own when I was about twenty five. Okay, what was your motivation and what do you do for acts? Going independent? Oh, that's when I started. That's when I started company. It was the hardest thing. The hardest thing was to get because you know what it's like. We had a conversation on commission splits. So let's say your young, hot new band. You're like, they're going to choose a Richard Griffiths who's called you know, Global Success, or they choose an Ian Montone or a John Silva, you know,

or they go to Cute Prime. All these big companies. Everybody wants you and they all charge. Is saying, right, I'll to go with this kid who has no company, no track record. He charges the same as everybody else as well. Who do we choose? And that's always the tough thing, you know, And it's worked to my benefit a few times by not being the biggest guy in the room. You know, like the best opportunities to me has happened because I wasn't the biggest guy in the room. Okay,

so you go independent with what acts? And then what do you do next? The first two at first two acts I had was one was called the Sneaker Pimps, who had one one very big hit single off the back of the movie The Saint the Belcolm or movie the same and the had a song called six on the Ground that I got to think top five in the US the album went top five. I think we did about a million albums in the US. You know, we were I think we never have had a number one,

but we're always top five aorund the world. And that was in the days of when there was so much money in movie promotion. They flew the band around the world, play every premiere, Premier in Madrid, premier in Paris, premier in the premier New York. So this band sort of started getting you know, we're flying around the world doing

most of promo at a movie company's expense. And probably about six months after it took them on, I took on Pure so be York could be in the Sugar Cubes if I work with at the time, so we had an established relations. Okay, so you worked with Sugar Sugar Cubes when you work for the other company. And she ultimately decided to go independent, leave the band. Were you part of that? She came to you and said, hey,

I'm independent. It was very much a case of we just caught up socially, hanging out, went for lunch and she said, you know, we just said she didn't had what he'd been up to, and I went, well, I just started managing you know this man speak of him. She went, I need a manager? You want to manage me? And I went sure? And it was so organic and natural. It wasn't like I wasnt part of the what we

call the beauty parade where she's meeting ten managers. She just wanted someone she knew that she was comfortable way. And that's when I felt, I'm out of my depth. It's like, how am I going to do this? Because she just exploded. Um, and that was learning as I went. But such a great school to go to. At that age.

She was famous already, but really when she went independent her solo, she was truly seen as an artist making decisions that not everybody else would make correct, absolutely correct, you know, and a lot of she was someone who was very Again you learn from working with these artists, all of them are different. She is the purest artist I've ever worked with. And what I mean by that is she never wanted to sort of have her face in an ad, you know, for cosmetics or jewelry or something.

I didn't want to accept money from brands. She turned down millions on millions of dollars. And she was not a rich artist, you know. She just went I can't do it. I can't do it. The closest we ever got to taking money with Steve Jobs. You know, this is the tour two thousand, two dozen one, just before nine living. We managed to secure meeting with Steve Jobs, much to the reluctance of his team. They gave us fifteen minutes be the four Seasons and fifty seven Street

at seven thirty am. You got fifteen minutes or thirty minutes. We had a really short time we got there. Trying to get Buerk there at that time was something and she was doing a tour. And this is just when airport first came out, and you know, I'm going to

use airport on stage. We're gonna send little computer files back and forth, and American use airport up front, you know, for merchandise people beon Mac terminals and or the merchandise for from remote computers, things that today sound really easy. When WiFi wasn't everywhere, you needed one of these stations to get WiFi. And that's not that long ago. And Steve, we've got a meeting and she just charmed depends off Dejols. He canceled his next two meetings with to hours with

Steve jobs. You could see his people were livid, but she was just talking about her artistic and creative philosophy and why she used his products and what we wanted to try and do and it's going to use it. And we'd love to try and secure a million dollars because what we're doing with this tour, with orchestras and stuff, it would really expensive and we're trying to keep ticket prices low. Even let me come back to you twenty four hours later, Okay, we'll give you all the equipment

you want, will give you the money. In two tiyears and they were in and then none, no liven half and then everything for us. No one knew what was happening in the world. It gave us a bunch of equipment, didn't give us any money. But then Steve was charmed and he called up and he's like, okay, I want

to offer TV commercial really simple, there's no fee. I'll give her as much equipment as she wants forever for black and white, her creative manifesto, no product, no nothing, just her talking about her creative her creative mind and her creative manifesto. And at the end it goes to black and we've got the white apple symbol on a black screen. That's it. No voice over, no nothing, no heart cell and told the orchids and she's like, oh god,

I'm not sure. She said, let me think about it, and was in a car with her somewhere I can't remember. I think we're going to Coachella, of all places. We're driving there. I'm just driving her in the car and Steve Jobs calls. She hasn't go back to me, what's happening? You know. He was kind of getting because he's used to get in his way, But why don't you speak to her yourself and put her on? And she's like, Steve, this is the best offer I've ever had from a

big corporation. You know, I love you, you do love your products, but I'm punk rock. I can't say yes into the TV ap And she never did it. And what did he say? He's like he respected her even more because just you know, like Bork became, she wanted to go more into art world, and I was hanging out with her at the weekend, which was really great for her shows in l a Um. You know, we're still friends and you know, like we grew up together, you know, so my heart is still there, you know.

With her as a person, I really admire her. But when she got into apps at the beginning of app development, she was one of the first artists who made apps for songs, and Steve helped him make the apps. He introduced it to the right people, he funded a bunch of it. He really helped her. And then I met Steve just before he passed away. He came to one of Polls shows in San Francisco and he was really

unwell at this time. He sat side the stage and we chat and said, you probably don't remember me, Steve, because about eight nine years have passed, but you know I worked with you. And He's like, I love that girl. She's the only person who ever said no, the only person who ever said no. And you know she's good. You know I helped her out with the as. Yeah, I know you helped her out with the apps and stuff. She's gone. She is just a creative inspiration. The world

needs more people like that. You know. He was so generous with his words of praise. Um for someone who was never a global icon or you know, on on stadium level artist, she was. She did her own thing, and she was difficult as an artist, but as a genuine artist. Okay, so you're me and pure, how do you work your way to our kid? Fire had a few of the smaller artists. That one was called Alabama

three who only they loved that. They licensed the song to sopranos and that was the one thing that they did. Um probably the most successful sink in history because of the way that was still television deals weren't like they were now, so they were banned to the gift that kept giving that point. Your licensed for a prop pilot, you licensed for season one, Oh, your license for home video DVDs? Come out with a license for DVD now and it kept wait wait wait. The rumor on that

is that they got a very low fee. What's the reality. No, the fee was never huge. There was just a lot of fees. So you've got a fee for the pilot. Then you got a fee for season one, and home video via Chess came out, you got a fee for that,

and DVD came out. You got a FIFA that the season two came out, you got a FIFA that, you got a fee phone video d for DVD, and you went through every season get a fee and the fee would go up, so it became quite healthy until the last season of sopranocos Um, David Chase, the creator, did this huge Vanity Fair spread, you know, the great any Labats pull out cover with the whole castle Sopranos, really stunning,

stunning photo. Remember reading the interview about how at that point, which seems smaller now but this is haven't been a long time ago, how they had made almost a billion dollars from the franchise. Because we've got to remember that time. Every holiday birthday someone to give you a books at or season two of the Sopranos season season one to five,

you kept buying it. Again, it was a gift given thing because everybody watched DVDs or VHS box sets, and they made so much money from those physical sales, unbelievable amounts of money. It was such a financial earner for

HBO at that time. So I'm sitting there reading like, wow, this sort of almost a billion dollars, And I went to Derek Burkeer, who's my best friend in the world, who was within the weekend, who runs one little Indian Records in London, who Buaquous signed to Alabama three signed too, and we're still talking about this. It's unbelievable. We're talking

about it still, you know. And we said, let's say no when they when the license agreement comes in further the final season, Sopranos, Let's just say no and see what they say, you know, because they're not going to change the song at this stage. Everyone knows you hear the beginning of that song, you know, sopranos. So we said no, and they were like, what do you mean, no,

We need the song of the final season. We just went no, and of course they probably got the highest sink higher than any Beatles song for that final season. And then it keeps going. It keeps going because the was it The Many Saints in New York. I don't forgot the exact title right. The movie that came up recently, the prequel with James Gandolfini's Son is a Star. Songs not in it, but what is it's in it? Right at the end, you just hear a little bit of the drum machine and the hairs in the back of

your next end up because this movie ends. And then at that point you know Sourprianos is supposed to start, but you hear the song and it's iconic with that, with that story, and it's the song that keeps going because they're gonna do another movie. They're going to use the song, and it's just going to keep going in might turning into another series. Um. So of that band, who never sold the record, had a whole career off the back of that song, kept them going to still going,

still do little clubs. Well, you know, I was a huge fan of that band, and I played an exile old Harbor Lane lot and Howard Thompson, the A and R guy. Yeah, Howard said, you gotta watch this new show, The Sopranos, And I remember it was a rainy day at a really odd time. It was like, you know, Sunday night or something, and I club it's out. I'll be able three. Thank you can't believe it. I know.

That's just as a fan. I said. You know, they don't have the whole introduction about the chest of me know, oh man, it's unbelievable. So they were there was sort of licensed to Geffen from the One Little Indian. You know. Mark Kates, who's again who worked on that with me, is still one of my dearest dearest friends in the world. Um and I remember the colleges gone, this is you kind of mafia pilot, you know, and we're like, who just licensed? We got to get something going, and that

was how it stopped um. But then geff and dropped them because they spend all this money, nothing happened, and then We'll bought one when he was running. Columbia signed him straight away. Not a big deal. That w the songs I hit. We gotta make this song a hit, couldn't make it a hit, you know, so they went deal to deal, made a lot of money with the

advances at the time. It's just one of those really really strange stories of a band who had one song that was never genuinely a hit, but everybody knows the song, which is kind of weird. I've never had that before. So then from there to Arcade Far Arcade Fire, where you know, just as they were bubbling under, they're still playing Mercury Lounge and they're playing really small clubs, the Echo and you know, and so on. In l A. Everyone knew there's this really cool band and you've seen

them live, incredible live show. I didn't want a manager, but I remember telling Bill Salona, their business manager at the time, and dealing bo there the lawyer. It's like, hey, if they just didn't need any help, you know, happy to help them out, you know, even though don't manage them, just sort their business out because they're doing all themselves.

And then about a month after that, Cold Giving Cold said, yeah, they they do meetings now and then, just to make sure I'm the last meeting, because they met with you know, Mention, met with Silver, and they met with everybody. They did the whole runs everybody, and I met them in London five minutes. It was chaos, and they went, can you come to Paris too? Were shown Paris? Like sure, and I went to Paris. Then I ended up set of

same thing. After Paris, it was chaos. Everyone wants to meet him, and I'm like, didn't get any time, Like god, this is never gonna work. And they went, we're going on a bus to Amsterdam. Do you want to come to it? Sure? I just got in the bus and I went with them and talked all night in the bus. Stay for the Amsterdam show. Then I think I went to the Berlin show. After that, I just kind of

went the same same clothes for about three or four days. Um, And that's how that one came in and they like the idea of working with me over all these other managers who are way way more successful because I work with Pure. And they liked the way her business was running, the way her career was handled, how she was completely in control of her career, the way they wanted to be. You know the fact that she worked with Independence and Majors and it was all mixed um and that's what

appealed to them. So how did it end with buerk in Arcade, fireing You and ended with Buyork two ten and Living? I think because she was making her album Biophilia, and it was the first project of hers that I had worked on that I didn't understand. And what I mean by that is and instead of for one of a better terms, the salesman, you give the product, I could sell it to everybody, all your partners, labels, anyone else, promoters? How are we going to do this? And I didn't

get it. I was trying to picture myself in her room. And if I didn't understand that, how is everyone else gonna understand it? Because that was an album where she custom build instruments. It was very scientific if you look at it on paper is sheer genius, absolutely brilliant. The show was incredible, but I didn't understand it, and that you know, we're still friends to this day. I just said, I'm not the person and with who can realize your

project the way you want to realize. You've kind of crossed the boundary between just doing sound based music into art. And at that time her partner was Matthew Barney, who was a brilliant artist, unbelievably amazing, had a career retrospective at that time at the Guggenheim. All was the Guggenheim brilliant artist for someone that I think he was the youngest artist at that time who had the Guggenheim retrospective, So there was clearly a big artistic ah I felt

like an underlying competition in their personal lives. Who is the most extreme you can who can be the most artistic and most brilliant and most ambitious. And at that point, I'm like, this is you know, I'm the wrong person to work this. It wasn't about finances and money or anything. It's just like, I don't know how to do this. And she never replaced me. She just built a team people who could help facilitate and work and it's worked

really well. She never wanted to be famous, but she said I tried the pop start, think it was great fun. Not gonna be a pop star anymore, you know. And she's classically trained, so her music is very, very complicated and very ambitious and that's not my skill set. I wish it was, but it's not an arcade fire. With arcade Fire on the last album campaign, you have Winn Butler, who is unbelievably brilliant as a songwriter, so ambitious. In my twelve years with them and five albums, never had

a hit single, sold really well, live, unbelievable. You know. It got to a point in the UK, specifically the UK, who really welcomed them with open arms. Headlining Glass and Breed d eighty thousand people within a week, Hyde Park, sixty five people had any with Mom for the Son's opening up UM and three nights at Earl's Court two

people a night. It was huge. Everything soldau instantly. There's nothing they could do wrong, and when felt a failure because they didn't get to stadium level because he would look at Cold Clay and bands like that, how come they're doing stadiums and we're not doing stadiums. It's like, well, they're big hit singles, anthems, um, and they do a lot of things that you don't do. They're driven in

a different way. They work it. They do a lot of promo, they're playing the game, they're writing pop songs. And it's like he didn't get it. He's like, well, why are we not playing Yankee Stadium and Dodger Stadium on this album campaign? You sort of know in the air when you can do that, And if they'd had a hit single, they could probably have done that. They just didn't get there, you know, even you know, like the last two wasn't successful. They did it in a round.

It was really big expensive doing shows in them around is complicated in arenas. I didn't I didn't think they

should have done it that way. They knew that. The tour before it was like two nights in Massacre Garden, three nights in Barclays to three nights in the Forum, two weekends headline and Coachella, like everything was going great, and we looked at doing stadiums at that point, and then that's when it became a numbers game because they wanted didn't want to charge over a hundred dollars the ticket and doll the ticket you're trying to do a stadium on that you walk up no money because the

overhead to do the show is so high, cover the grass, you know, everything of the infrastructure you've gotta bring in, you know, and stadiums really only work when you have a lot of shows and stadiums and you can you know, aggregate your your production build and try and share stadium with someone else. Maybe there's two different artists can do the same stadium on the weekend, but uses the same structures and same grass covering. You split the cost um.

So they felt that it's really when all the rest of the band thinking felt that I wasn't getting into where he wanted to go. We're still friends. We hang out with drinks. A couple of weeks ago. You know, I spent I spent a lot of time in New Orleans because of them. They moved here and I still have a place here, see them in the same bars, restaurants. We're talking to He's like, how do you put music

out today? He's going, I've never proved so many formats ever, so they're about to at some point pop music out and we're talking about it and it's healthy, it's good. So I like the fact that I don't work with them. I wouldn't know what to do with them right now.

That's the thing because if you look at that genre, the Strokes, Kings and Leon our Cape for Vampire Weekend, you know, Jack White and are what are White Stripes at the time when there were all those bands from that period, that early in the two thousand's, Where is their audience right now? Where is their radio audience? We're talking about radio early in the conversation, interns of radio is pretty much gone. It doesn't resonate, So what is

there out there? They don't scream, None of them have streaming followers enough to get them over the over the hump of streaming. It's a physical audience. It's doing nice, cool packages for that audience. But then my big question that I try and answer for myself. If you are like a Stroke, Sa Kings, Leon, r K par or whoever, who've done at least five albums and your show is great, you have a loyal fan base, why do you really

need a sixth album? Or will you go and see them for the fifth or sixth time when there's maybe other new things that you want to go if you're on a limited budget. So I'm trying to think and that how would I have done? How would I do this? How would I present this to the world is challenging. Well, the interesting thing is since they've left you, uh, they've had no further success greater than what they had previously. It's gone in the other direction, and that's what's going

to happen. I delivered number one, number one, The biggest radio hit was on the last album. Their touring was globally successful. They're deal making structure second to none. They're in a great place. They also have great stock and Spotify. That's we'll see them financially right forever. And we negotiated ten years ago before was public, So they had so many great deals and in such an amazing position, and I'm really really happy about that. I don't think the

next album is going to be number one. It's not going to be number one because of what you need to do together. Did they do they have a manager presently? Yes? Yes, is he Vikovich who used to work with Kanye. Great guy, really really good guy, which I'm happy about as well. How did you get Paul McCartney. He co called me. Why it's a really fun story, but this is the Stars in Line. I'm sitting in my off as them

in London. I've worked with r K bar Bjork and a couple of smaller acts and my phone goes it's a private number. I just answered it when he's that Scott, Yeah, this is Paul McCarty and I stood up attentions he had walked in the room because you knew it was his voice, and I'm like, why am I standing up? And I'm in my room on my own. He sat

back down again. I'd never spoken to Paul, didn't know anyone on his team, and he said, yeah, here your manager said yeah, I don't really like managers, went me, neither other than the couple, and he's gone, I'm working on an album and I need some help. You want to him in the office and we'll have a chat about see if we can do something together. You know, I'd love to get your thoughts and a few things. He said, yeah you might, great, I have my assistant

call you will set up. That was a call really short and I'm like, WHOA, that was weird? Where did that come from? And then he assistant calls, choose day, tentacle yet perfect. We stop and meeting in his office. And but ten minutes after that, his lawyer calls because he went he went rogue. He didn't check with anyone, so Afric called me opens he called his lawyer, and lawyer called me said, okay, that's the way the deal works. NBA is coming over. Give me your email address. You

know all that stuff started. I'm like, okay, clearly he just went rogan and tell a single person he was doing the call. The next day, I got a call from a really good friend of mine, Jefferson Hack now Jefferson as a journalist. Him and his partner of the photographer rank and the business partner that is, they started a magazine, Dazed and Confused in the UK that was kind of a lifestyle fashion music magazine. Since went on rankings like Superstar. Photographer Jefferson started a few of the

magazines they still continues. He's Etra. I think he's the publisher another magazine, another man magazine. You know Sally he's a big and fashion and works with all the fashion houses and things. You know, just someone who was really in touch with the here and now music fashion culture, and obviously he was friends with Stella McCartney. I wasn't friends with I am now, but I wasn't then. So Jefferson Cortey, Hey, Stella McCartney called me instead. I need

someone new and interesting to work with my dad. Do you know anyone? He went, I don't know anyone in music except for me, you know, because he was big friends with The York and we knew each other and I knew each other since the magazine started. And so I hope you don't mind that. Gave her your number. So Paul my call and I went, funny, you say that he's already called, and he went, damn, sorry, I

should have told you earlier. Um. So this is the thing, just Stella trying to like, which she still does to this day, how to breathe in life into him? How do you know? She's like a mini me of Paul in a female form. You know, she's so dripped and she's like, how do I just get my dad to do things are exciting and interesting, you know. And that's where the number came from. So it was this little chain. They didn't do the beauty parade, he didn't go and

meet ten other people. I went and had a meeting. They went, well, let's get a few months and see how it goes. In the first few meetings were really hilariously funny looking back on them. You know, I'll never be the first time you like, he said, Okay, and pull the team together, up the system, somethin the label going to meet over at my house. We're going over to his house in London. We're sitting down and wait, okay, the albums are in eight weeks. What are we going

to be doing? And I went, well, first thing, Paul, can we put it back four weeks so we've got a bit more time? He went, Listen, when I was in the Beatles, we finished the Friday record would be out, but in three or four days, probably on the Monday of the Tuesday. Now records coming out. It's fine, It's like, okay,

that was like one of the first meetings. Um, but that I thought it'd be in there doing some consulting for him and helping out just on that album project and a few of the things he had going on. He did Complation DVD at the time of my can't he years and we're pulling all this together now, just stop?

That would sort of be it. He got away for a few years, but then we really got into it and we started getting creative because he one thing he said, and the first meeting was he said, I hate getting bored. I hate it. I still always want to be fair, ideas and stimulating. All these things resonated to the point where I started looking back, Oh, he hasn't want a Grammy in twenty years, and why is that? You know?

And well I started doing all these things and then we since one about fifteen grammy since I've worked with him, you know. So it's like we just changed the course and the energy behind what he was doing, you know, and again making sure that the PR was on point. And I learned that with him, how we do things

that are great and interesting. I think the first piece of PR I made him do when I work with him was a Pitchfork interview when Pitchfork was very different, still run by Ryan back then, you know, and this is two thousands seven six, and you know, and I thought, this is why we should do it. You would never talk to them and they would never think of talking to you. And remember, Colin Ryanson, what do you think about this? He went, we really get to talk to him. Me,

you really get to talk to him? Oh, hell yeah, we're in and that just and that just traveled and he loved that interview and he still refers to that interview today. So it's just thinking, how do we do things he hasn't before? That was like me, but I'm probably gonna get fired after this one. He's never done an in store, you know, so let's do the in store. And then we got Grammy nominated from the twelve inch final,

were released from it and things like that. You know, it's a didn't win the Grammy, but at least we've got nominated. So we did a bunch of fun things. You know, he's one of the biggest also on the planet. How do we go to do things that's on the ground, pool it right back down and then rebuild it back up. That was really really good fun. And he was always open to ideas, always open, never shot him down, didn't say yes all the time, but it was all be great idea, not for me or not for right now,

but great idea. And it was really healthy dialogue. So again I'm done year sixty, so happy, heavenly fired yet, Wow, this has been fantastic. Scott I wanted to thank you for all the time you've taken for those who were in the trenches of the business and for those on the outside. This is really quite a primer of what's going on. Certainly demonstrates how you have your feet both on the ground and in the cyber world. So thanks so much for taking the time, Scott, Thank you, Bob,

thanks for inviting me. You good to chat, been long overdue, and hopefully see each other in person at some point. Okay, just one question. You had this insane accident where you were hit. How are you doing. How's your body doing? Yeah, I get hit faced on by car. I'm doing it other than my knees at one surgery. Didn't do the second surgery because I didn't like the feeling of the first surgery. Doesn't feel that great. So but I'm good.

Train every day except on place. And just one more question, to what degree has your attention to business affected your personal life, relationships, etcetera. I think and do what we do, it's always going to affect him because and I'm trying to get that balance right between you know, pre COVID. I think I did a hundred thirty five flights back cut down to about forty last year, who's back up about eighty, you know, And I'm trying not to get it to a point where I'm on a plane every

other day. You know, I love what I do. I love the people that I work with. I love my team. The artists are phenomenal. I couldn't ask to work with better artists. So I'm really really lucky with regards of that. I'm not trying to let all the people in my team who have been with me so long, who are so great, they can do a lot more of the traveling. They can do a lot more FaceTime. I know exact place when I have to be somewhere and then I'm there.

But I'm trying to find that balance where I actually don't have to be in a plane. I say this, but you know, you know, we could multiple shows, some in the same city in the next couple of weeks, and I'm in Atlanta and in Vegas and in l a butin three days. So you know, what I'm saying isn't really living up to what I'm trying to do. But I'm trying to slow down the pace and balance that sort of quality of life with quality of work and then since you mentioned shows in COVID, I mean Elton.

Elton restarted his uh final tour, he immediately got COVID. Okay, the laws, certainly in America are different depending on what state you're in. There's been some super spreader events. You know, how do you decide to go on the road, what precautions do you take? What do you think what's gonna happen here in the next six months? Every every artist has different levels of there, that's how you put it.

How strict they're going to be with the policy if you you know, there's something went round online with the deadening companies COVID policy, which was the strictest that I think we've seen. Finding balance what we've done on all shows from from October and I've been having a lot of big shows arena show since October last year, still running. We have a COVID protocol so on every tour, everybody going backstage has to be tested before we get in

the room. That includes building staff. All building staff have to be vaccinated. Everybody in the touring on trash has to be vaccinated because of good a singer or you've got four guys in a band or whatever, happens to be. They go down, there's no show, so you have to keep them protected as best you can. Everyone has to wear masks backstage, but ensuring that you keep this backstage bubble.

The only time the bubble breaks, it's down to the artice. Oh, my sisters coming in, my brother's coming in on my whatever, my auntie, my cousin, my Nick donaghbor's best friend, and people start coming backstage. They we want them all tested, We want them all vaccinated tested, you know, or to make sure that you're still trying to keep some kind of safety level, because that's the only way that the artist is kind to go down. Um. We had a big issue is the chelly through two nights of the

Garden in December. You know, like then we had a few shows in Florida, like Miami and a couple of other shows. Time we got to the Garden, two guys in the video team, they were on a bus. Two of them went down. Managed to replace one of them, but not too often. Then the audio team started to go down to the other shows. We were on a skeleton staff from the very last show about the December. You know, it's because we couldn't hire people people didn't want to come up, catch COVID and be out for

ten days for Christmas. So people we couldn't reheart staff. They went bell ill. They didn't want to be in a bus sleeping on a bus. Of other guys might have it because they've been exposed to the guy who did get it. That became really complicated, and that's how shows are going down. So I can see say, I don't know what happened with the Dell show in Vegas, no idea. I know as much as you know, and the next guy knows just from what you read. Well,

I know that a lot of it's not public. Oh yeah, yeah, I'm sure. But what I feel is like genuinely you know, like if you aren't strict about it, as soon as someone in your audio team goes down and someone else goes down, there might be someone by No, that was all horseship. There was only one. There was only one person. It was an excuse. I mean, I'm not talking about your concept. But in the case of Adele, the concept is really the case of a Yeah, the case of

a Dell, it was an excuse. But keep going. No, but that it's easy. Soon as some departments start to go down because those big shows is have the whole video team, they've got a whole electronics team, or you know, things that move on the stage. They got your projection team, you've got your lighting team, your audio team. Is a lot of staff there. As soon as they start to drop.

If the key man goes the designer, director, the main sound engineer, who's the best guy in the world, he goes down, you can replace them, you know, you find someone else to go in. That's when shows can get in trouble when it's nothing to do with the autist. So these staff members, this is where it becomes complicated. Do you force everyone to stay in their hotels and

not go out when you're a day off. They have to live in their hotel room to stay isolated, because if they've got the hotel bar, but hanging up with another guy. The two lighting guys are going for dinner somewhere because a great sushi restaurant. Oh but they caught it because they've been out and went for a drink at the bar before. Then that's the point. Do you not allow anyone to leave? They don't have to stay

in their rooms to keep it pure. It's really tough and to what degree our acts hesitant to go out and work. I think the older officer perhaps hesitant to go out. And you see Aerosmith just canceled it. To think this week or wait last week? UM, yeah, I think I see a lot more shows being canceled. We're scheduling a bunch of things in Europe. They're definitely getting hit hard over there, harder than it feels in the US.

But this late recent wave in the past couple of months, the kron uh you know, strain definitely was so yeah, that's probably the thing the worst we've seen, because it's so infectious um in comparison to previous strengths. UM. And my hope is it's hopefully starting to die off and go down, just the numbers of stating that, But then I'm sure not too far behind. It will be another string. How we keep navigating this? And how about yourself? Have you gotten COVID? You know what I did? I caught

it second of ganguery. I've been all over covering a bunch of shows. I was in London, it was in New York, it was in d C. We did a show at the White House with Pcelli in l A I was on a plane. It felt like every other day in December. Got home. It's fine, fine for New Year, had lunch of friends the New Year's Day, walk up in the second in January through a little you know particularly but it's just just the cold, because we could forget that you can still get a cold. Just got

tested and it was positive. Fortunately, you know, double jab with a booster. It was lighter than a head cold. You know, it's a little you know, block sign us. Um, it was co feeing a little bit, it was it was It's fine. I was working as a normal you know, just stay at home that first week in the year. So I feel like I'm glad I got out of the way. And if that is as bad as it will be for someone like me, then I'm okay with that. You know. Um yeah, still said that. I caught it.

I felt like you see all these memes going to run with someone with beer and someone's like dodging, dodging, dodging. I felt like I was like, great, I've gone around the world, have been so many flights, I've skipped this thing. I've been everywhere, and then I felt like, where did I get that didn't go at any New Year's Eve events or parties around anything that was really good. Super quiet, mell time still caught. Wow, we can talk for days.

We're gonna leave it here. We can, we can, we can. Okay, It's always great to talk to your Scott YouTube lo YouTube Till next time. This is Bob left Sex