Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to Bob Leftsett's podcast.

My guest today is Carl Stubner, CEO of the Shelter Music Group.

Carl, what is the Shelter Music Group?

Now, that's a good question, Bob.

We're still trying to figure that out.

Now.

We are a management company that started right like two months before COVID's hit, and so we've built this company over the last whatever that is, three four years.

In the first two years was hard to keep it going, but I had this attitude that in bad times grow faster, you know, and I just kept on bringing him managers and signing more bands.

And we went from fourteen bands to seventy bands and a staff of five to a staff of thirty.

So that is I've been over the last four years.

Okay, well, let's just go talk me through the transition.

What you were doing exactly before Shelter, What the vision for Shelter was, Why was going to be different?

Well, as I think, you know, I was at Sanctuary at the end of the run, right and then Universal bought it and I ran Sanctuary Management for Universal for a couple of years until I just had to get out.

You know.

It was not the right environment for me, and I don't think they shared my same vision of what a management company is and how to survive a management company.

And so I left and then I kind of did some other management company stuff with some other people, but I was getting bored and I happened to be out on tour with Fleetwood Mac and Hartwick, who was the chairman of BMG at the time, came out on the tour to say hi to me and check it out, and he's witnessed what we did as managers really for the first time, real managers, you know.

I think we playing Boston and he asked, well, how much did the band pocket, you know?

And I told him the number and he said, well, how much did you get?

I said, I told him the number, and he said, I want to be in your business, no risk, just upside, okay.

So I said, all right, well, I don't know if I want to sell my company.

I'm not sure even if I want to grow it.

At that point, you know, I was happy managing Fleetwood Mac's Easy Top and other bands, and you know, I was getting older, and I was like, well, maybe just fade out with those bands and that's enough.

And so he kept on calling me no, no, no, no, no, you don't need to sell the company.

I'm going to invest in your company, okay, and we'll just investor, you know, just providing capital to build a new company and do somewhat of a roll up.

Eventually I said yes, So we did that twenty nineteen in November October, and you know, we shook hands.

He invested in it, and three months later COVID hit.

Okay, so business shut down.

But my whole thing was, you know, in the depression, the Kennedys really succeeded.

You know, it was like those are the times.

So there were a lot of managers out there that needed support because they were making no money and they had great bands, but there was no one working.

So I went to them and said, hey, why aren't you come in and I'll guarantee you money.

And so I built this and then you know, we thought COVID would last six months, a year or whatever, and it just kept on going.

So I went to Hartwick and I said, I am not going to furlough anybody, I'm not dropping anything, and I'm going to grow even more.

So I need more money.

And he said, hell yeah, great idea let's do it.

And so he did that and we kept going and going, and then we broke through COVID and we had debt because we took money, and we're finally at that point where you know, we're a cash positive company and uh successful.

And it took two years to dig out of COVID, but now it's working and we have great bands and great managers, and you know, the whole thing in the beginning was, you know, the only reason I really am willing to the only way I'm willing to do this heartwik, is that I want to make this company like no Oether, a big management company, and we don't need to name them.

They are what they are and they're great, you know.

But I didn't want that.

I wanted to go back to my roots as a music fan when I was young and build a company.

And this is a I use this expression all the time and with people, but I really had this fantasy of doing making a company where music was why we were there, not the paycheck, okay, and make it like this thing in the early early seventies or late nineties of Rolling Stone magazine where they're sitting in one room and they all care about one thing, and they share ideas.

You know, maybe that's not what Rolling Stone was, but that was my vision of Rolling Stone, you know.

And so I said the online to it is, if I do it that way, we're there for the right reason.

It's not about the check.

It's about the artist and finding great artists and doing the decisions or making the decisions that are right for the artists, not right for the management company.

Where at Shelter excuse me, Sanctuary, it was a totally different thing.

You know, they were making deals with managers for what act they had at the time.

I did deals with managers who I believed in and eventually they will succeed or they'll continue succeeding, and that's working.

So it's a totally different environment.

And our you know, we are a fraternity of managers, support staff, et cetera, you know, shared services whatever, that really care about each other, trade ideas, aren't competitive on who we sign realizing one person's been the other, don't take it.

Don't worries about the company, not the individual.

And people bought into it, you know, And I'm like, okay, so that's kind of the philosophy of the company, if that makes sense.

Yes, Okay, BMG.

What's their ownership position, what's their deal?

Well, the deal's changed since Heartwork left, okay, and that's all in this that's something I really don't want to talk about.

Well, let me put it this way.

Are you the owner along with BMG or is every manager owner?

What is the ownership structure?

I'm the owner.

I was well heart Will Heartwik was there.

I was sole owner of the company.

Okay, So he was lending you the money, lending me the money on a return of profits, right, non callable, you know.

So, and then Thomas Coolsfeldt came in and he had a different direction, you know than Hartwork did.

So things got different and we're talking now, and you know they for them, for them relieving me of some of the debt.

They have an ownership, but I'm a majority owner.

I don't answer to anyone.

It's my company.

BMG has no say and never have of what we do.

Okay, who I sign, who I bring in as an employer or a manager?

You know.

So it's always been me running it with no one they answered to.

Now that that might be why they have a problem with it now, because different chairman, you know.

So, Okay, what is the deal with the managers traditionally, like with most of these, I give you a check you aren't it out, and then it's fifty to fifty of it.

Is that your standard dealers.

That's just that's those aren't accurate, exactly accurate numbers.

It all depends on the manager.

Okay, every manager might get a separate deal, a different deal.

I make it deals directly with the manager.

There's not there's not a blueprint of what the deal is because some people need lesser, some people need more, and some people earn more and deserve more or whatever it is.

So it's all it's all based on the individual, the individual's needs and they're projections when doing the deal, so they're you know, different than a lot of management companies.

I don't charge the managers for office space shared services.

That's something I from my side to provide a better service for the manager in return, and that then extends the artist getting better service, whether it's a radio staff or asset staff or social media whatever it is.

Okay, let's get down to the nitty gritty.

You make a deal with the manager, and it's basically a percentage of net, and NET just has to do with the band.

And the manager not with shurance services.

Right, so I make a deal.

Let's I'll do a hypothetically, right, Okay, ignore the numbers.

Okay, but mister manager, I want you to come aboard.

Are you in?

Yes, I'm in, all right?

What do you want to get as a advance draw whatever it is?

What do you need?

And then what kind of staff do you need?

Well, I need an assistant and myself and I need to make such such dollars and assistant such such, and you have to pay for my insurance, which I'm happy to and then they recoup that amount.

And then once they recoup it, it's a straight split.

And the split is depending on the person and how bad I want them, how bad they want in, you know, or what's fair to them, what's fair to me?

So okay, what is in the pot?

Then at the end of the day, that is split at whatever percentage it might be.

Well, it depends, you know, it depends on the cost of the individual manager.

So when you say pot, what do you mean by pott?

I mean so the shared services are not in the pot?

What?

Okay?

No?

So what is in the pot?

Not think?

But they're hard costs nothing but their salary, their teeny their insurance, and their employee that the assistant.

That's it.

There's no add on costs, so all they have to do is keep recoup those three things.

Basically, they said, I pay for the shared services.

It doesn't It doesn't charge back to the individual managers.

What am I going to get in shared services?

You're going to get radio, You're going to get asset developers, you're going to get social media people, You're going to get streaming people, you know those that type of thing.

Okay, tell me how this is different from red Light.

Well, I've never worked for red Light, but I've heard, but it is my understanding.

Anyone can correct me if I'm wrong, because I could be that they make the same deal I just said, but they add on costs, whether it's office space, shared service contribution, all those things.

So I didn't want to do that.

And maybe it's foolish for me not doing that, okay, But it was more the philosophy of the company, okay, And maybe that lessens my profit at the end of the day, but I'm okay with that because I'm in this still after all these years, to have fun, enjoy the people around, care of people, no different than how you take care of an artist.

You take care of a manager.

You develop them, you help them, you know.

That was my thing.

I wanted to cultivate managers.

And then there was a point two years ago that I said to a couple guys at the company.

I said, the problem, the problem here is we're not developing young managers.

We're developing young acts, but no young managers.

Who's going to take over one?

We're going not necessarily at the company, but in the industry.

Okay.

So I started this incubator team of kids and gave them a draw and over the two years, they're all succeeding.

They recouped, they make money, and they're great.

But I had to teach them.

So I spend more time working with these people, opening doors for these people, you know, guiding them when needing needed guiding, and that's working.

And that's kind of what I do for the established managers too.

I help them with things maybe they're not familiar with, whether it's a television show which I've produced shows, you know, whatever, those type of things, and or branding opportunities.

You know, I've had restaurants, I've had wines with my artists, I've had clothing companies whatever, Okay, So I have relationships.

So I help even the established managers to open different relationships to provide a better service for their clients.

So I manage the managers, you know.

Okay, in terms of your shared service staff.

How many people is that?

What's the head count?

It's not that big.

It's five or six people.

Okay, let's go to your farm team, so to speak.

Yeah, how many developing managers are you working with?

Just three?

But I only have a total of twelve managers, so you know that's thirty percent.

Okay, let's let's let's stay with it.

If you have those three, is it the same three or are you rolling them over?

It's the same three right now.

But I add to it.

I will add to it as these as these guys go up.

Then I bring another level in and they just you know that it hasn't happened yet, no, because it's been two years and it just got to the point that my lit Mitz test, you know, the proof of concept is proving that it was a good concept, you know, So now it's time to start looking.

Okay, where did you find these three?

Well, one is my son who was working who was young, who's twenty seven, but when he started twenty five, but he had been working for Live Nation up in Chicago, h running like the Aragon ball okay at a young age, great kid, you know, like me, a college dropout okay, but had a thirst.

And the other one was my nephew who who was Mick Fleetwood's assistant for like three years during a big tour during the whole period, so he learned that kind of you know, relationship.

And my son, Jackson grew up with me managing Fleetwood Mac and on the plane with us, you know, his whole life as a kid, so he knows how artists think at an early age.

So now it was really teaching these two cats who knew how to deal with artists, talk to artists, respect the artists, teach them the business part of it.

And so that was what the two years was basically.

But then they went out and signed all these bands and some I helped them with some I didn't, and whether they were established bands or identifying talent very young and getting him up to There's a kid that they managed called Hunter Mets who was just signed by Interscope and Sony ATV Publishing and is touring and has an immense amount of monthly listeners and it's just blowing up.

And they showed him, they introduced me to him in a room where the guy had three people in the audience, and so they introduced them to writers, to all this collaborators into a world and now it's blowing up.

All right, So there's a z the learning curve.

Okay, getting it.

Then they have some bands from the the late early two thousands, you know, like a Hinder or a or a bands like that in fuel and those say they bread and butter bands because those bands still tour.

Okay, So build your business kind of like I did, and you don't need to do it this way, but this is the way I did it was I got established bands right away, and then you start working on the development because you need to be able to afford to do the development and you also want to live and pay your bills.

So get those bands and then in that period develop bands at the same time.

So, okay, who's the third person.

Third person I'm not going to say right now, but it's there.

And wait, wait, wait, just I don't need to know exactly who this person is, but there's someone who started two years ago.

Who's also are he caman?

And he is doing essentially with the other two.

He is working with that team.

Okay, okay, let's go back a step.

The five people insured services?

What exactly do those five do?

A lot of them do crossover stuff, But basically what you're trying to do is cover radio assets because you know, in today's world, you've got to deliver so many assets, visual assets, you know, online, YouTube, whatever, TikTok So, there's a person who does assets radio.

There's a streaming specialist okay that works with the streaming companies.

There's a touring component person you know who helps And now that I'm talking so slow, I forgot the other one, but I come up with it.

Okay, Okay, I'll come back to you.

Okay.

Q Prime has a dedicated radio team.

Is that something?

If I go with you, I'm going to get the equivalent service.

Yeah.

Let me go back the other way before we get back to radio and streaming.

Ay, you say you have twelve managers.

Now, how does it ultimately happen?

Do you hear about somebody is somebody shopping?

How does it go?

You know, in the beginning it's different than now Okay, we'll tell me both.

Yeah.

So in the beginning, it was I would identify lone wolf managers people that worked on their own okay, not part of an infrastructure business.

And in today's music business you need so much help because it's management is so much more time intense, and your job description is so much different than what it was when I started.

So I can help you because I have an infrastructure and you can use my services too.

We'd like you to come in, you know, then you sit down and talk and you do the deal.

Now more people are coming to us, you know, looking for a home or leaving a major company, some that you have referenced to get a different situation.

Okay, to what degree is there someone who's saying, hey, you know, I don't want to work independently anymore, and it's making the rounds and talking to everybody, and you're part of that picture.

Yeah that happens.

Oh yeah, yeah, so you're pitching me.

Okay, I'm talking to the other big companies.

What is your cell?

What is it that you say?

The sell is totally the environment of our workplace, the services we provide, and me as a person.

Okay, someone like Irving always takes fifteen, doesn't have a contract.

Other people take twenty.

They get it all on paper.

Does everybody have the same deal with the acts in your company now?

No, Do you have a philosophy about that?

What percentages and whether we have paper?

I think yeah, paper is not always easy to get, you know, And so it really depends on the thirst for the manager or the artist, okay, because every manager we have or every artist we have is a representation of what we are.

Okay.

So sometimes no different than buying cars or in cars are more expensive.

I don't know, you know, but it's it's I don't like working with this or nothing.

It's all about, hey, dude, I dig you, let's do it.

We'll figure it out.

We'll figure out.

I dig you, let's do it.

You know.

So it's that kind of related.

It's a hippie in mentality, you know.

It's like it's it's I do and it could be the wrong way to go, okay, but right now it seems to be working.

But it makes me happy.

And if I'm not happy, I don't want to do this anymore other than you know, fleevand Macro, dis ease here, Crowdhouse or whatever.

Let me ask you this.

Do you have enough money so you don't have to do this if you didn't want to?

Yes, My people in my personal world, business world, personal business world, wonder why I do this?

You know, why are you doing this?

You don't need to do this.

He is all the money you have from representing artists everything.

Okay, I started, I started.

I started my company in a one bedroom apartment with my wife and a new child, and from there it just kept on going.

Just to be clear, what year are we talking about.

Well, I started in the mail room at Gallan Morey in.

Oh wait, wait, well let's let's hold that for a second, because.

When I was in the one room.

Okay, ninety two, ninety three.

Okay, let's go back to some of the things you said.

You talked about your young team signing someone who had a deal with Inner.

Scope, yet who didn't have a deal, who was inempenent.

We were putting music independentty but now has a deal with Okay.

In the old days, the record company was an integral part.

Okay, would you sign an act?

I realized everything is different because you have different managers, et cetera.

But talking about general philosophy, how important is the label partner at this point, and is it necessary.

I don't think the I don't think the label is important to you need real muscle or real funding.

Okay, So as far as the development, I think we're more equipped to develop than anyone.

We know that the artist is not one dimensional records only.

It's a truly a management of three to sixty, not like the three sixty the labels talk about.

My goal when I sign an artist is not putting out a single and having success.

Mine is having ten years what's in twenty years?

You know, and building a career.

And really that's where the rewards come in.

It's not off a single.

You know, it might be too a label because they monetize and do things differently.

Okay, not every act is a major label interested in right, if you found an act that does not fit into one of their slots, would you still work with the actors say there's no deep pocket, I'm not interested.

No, we would work because there's ways to put out music obviously, as you know in today's world that can get attention without without going through traditional distribution or or traditional record companies.

You know, it's it's it's different.

And then I think if we really believe in that artist, the labels will come and at that time we'll decide if that's the right direction or not.

I will sign an act or I will encourage my managers to sign an act based solely, not on algorithms or streams or monthlies, you know, on your belief or my belief in that artist as a human being, as an artist, you know, and and that they share a vision, you know.

And so that's how we.

So theoretically it could be a Klesmer artist.

Yeah, yeah, And theoretically yes.

Right, Okay, let's go back to breaking down some of these things.

You have.

Radio, How important is radio today?

One, it's very important to the artist, Okay.

Whether it's important in the big picture, not as much as it used to be, obviously, but the artists still sees in their mind radio and important thing.

So I have we have a band, okay that's on the Active Rock charts, and it's had three number one singles on the Active Rock chart on one record, and we're about to have the fourth single.

No one has fourth single, the fourth single number one that is solely no, I won't say so.

That's that's from the efforts of Tyson, who's had my radio apartment.

Okay, he works it.

He's on the road constantly for and he does all our bands.

You look at artists like Scott Stapp and yeah, Creed is on fire right now.

And we bot when Scott came back to me because I worked with him earlier on and he said, I really haven't had six sess since being with you.

Dude, will you manage me again?

I said, no, I can't manage you, but this guy my company can.

But now he's got the highest ranking single he's ever had in his career, you know, because of what we're doing and how we're doing it.

But okay, go back to the band with the four number one singles or three with potentially the fourth, Okay, is that changing their streams?

Their download is their record not physical record sales?

Not that much?

You know?

Is it helping their touring a little bit more okay than the other things.

So it's really about and it's it's all John of specific how you have to market and break a band, Okay in the active rock world, which is still somewhat touring driven.

Okay, And it's not a When.

You say touring driven, you mean that's where the revenue is or across pollination with the radio.

Yeah, that's where the revenue is really, you know, and that's how the band survives, and so you know, in other formats it's totally different.

But talking about this one example, they're touring goods bigger and bigger.

They open up for bigger acts, or they're headlining bigger venues, you know.

And so that's the goal because once you get a loyal fan base that buys hard tickets, your career can go on and on as long as you don't screw your audience or do stuff they don't understand.

So just because you mentioned it, what might an act do that the audience doesn't understand.

I'll tell you there's a there's a lot of things.

But if you if you go to a show and you know five of their songs and you love those songs, and you go to it, but they drop a new song that's a disco song, their fans react and say that I'm not into this.

You lost me.

You're not who I thought you were.

And this is a terrible, terrible, crass example.

But the reason McDonald's is so successful is you know what you're getting when you go to McDonald's.

There are no surprises.

You don't want to surprise your You want to do better and better music and keep putting out music because that's you know, legacy evolving.

All that's fine, but the genre switch is a very difficult thing.

Okay, So stay true to who you are and who your audience is or you jeopardize losing your audience.

Now, if it's so important for you to go into the disco world in this scenario, I don't know why I see disco, but what the hell?

And you know there's that risk, but you still decide to do it.

Well, that's your choice, then okay, and we'll stick by and let's keep on trying to make it work, you know.

But usually those relationships will go sou because then they're not satisfied because they didn't break in that genre, the new genre, you know, And so it can happen.

I haven't really experienced that with any of my personal bands that I manage, but you see it when when you have a band and there's one band member who's bored with what they're doing, so they're going to go out and do a solo project, and that solo project is so far removed from what the band's image was and music was that their fans show up from the band and go to the solo show and it's totally different things.

They don't come back, So now you've got to build a whole new fan base, usually at a later age that's almost impossible.

Just to be very clear, you're saying in this typothetical, I have a band five members were active rock type people.

Right, I make a singer song right around, let's not go totally up to Okay, you know see it's you know, hip hop pop whatever something you know you can sort of see.

While I'm a musician, I make a quieter record, and I make the record and I go on the road.

There are examples Todd run Green is run into this where he goes on the road.

Even though he tells people I'm not doing the hits, I'm doing X, they still come expecting the hits.

But with this scenario, I do my singer songwriter record.

People know who I am.

You are saying the negative experience that we're proposing is going to impact the band's business.

Ah, maybe not if there's separation, but it will pack the potential success.

But there are examples where my theory is wrong or what I'm saying is wrong.

You look at Stained and Aaron or you and he goes in the kind of country space.

He did a great job.

And not that I'm a Stained fan or anything, but watching the business of it, he did it, So you know, so that is you know, that is one of those cases, and there are other cases.

Well, let me just be very general, Okay.

The hardest thing today is to get traction at all and to get noticed.

And it's not driven as you're you're putting radio down towards the bottom of the pyramid, and it's not driven by the traditional methods.

So once you gain traction, to what degree are you saying advising the artists?

You've got to stay in the same path.

Dude.

First of all, I'm not putting radio way down there, and I don't want anyone out there to think I shut.

It out right, Okay.

I got somebody working there, so it's important.

And we have bands that work, can we let and record radio stations have been very good to us, so with all due respect, but there are other ways to do it.

Okay.

So what was your question again, because I focused on that one line.

Oh okay, let me say, is a lot of words for a general, let me enter it a different way.

There are some managers who are completely transactional.

I realize you have twelve managers and none are going to be the same.

Some say to the act, you deliver the record and I'll take care of the rest.

Others want to sit there and discuss with the act where the record is going, what they're doing.

What kind of manager are you me?

Personally?

I discussed with the artists.

I'm very the bands that I personally manage, right I am very close to Okay, extremely close.

I'm a well, since you're the manager, let's just name those bands.

Yeah.

With zz Top, I'm extremely close to the band.

To Bailly, he's doing a solo record right now.

He sends me a song.

Every time he's done, we talk about it.

I'd say, well, what about this?

What about that?

And you know, stay on course once again, stay on course, you know.

So that's you know, one example, Mick Fleetwood, who I've been around for thirty five years, managing Fleetwood, Mac, managing Mac, et cetera.

He is doing this crazy record and this is kind of out of what we're talking about, but since you bring it up, but he's doing this record and what happened when we ended the tour in twenty nineteen, the last Fleetwood Mac tour.

He's bored.

He goes back to his house in Maui and he's doodling on the guitar.

Eventually but ukulele to start and he's writing these songs and they're really rough, you know, really rough.

But he's sending like five hundred a day to me in the middle of the night.

Okay, you know, hard to follow.

Okay, hard to follow, especially for me.

But he has this guy he communicates with, which this guy named Carl Fok who's the Swedish producer that's part of the Max Martin world all that kind of stuff.

And he starts listening to these tidbits and he's like, these are fucking amazing.

These are amazing.

We need to get together and let's write songs.

So Mick and Carl write ten songs and record demos of him in mixed studio and Maui.

Keep in mind that Mick had been in Fleetwood Mac for sixty years whatever it is.

No one ever has asked him to write a song, right, No one asked him if he could sing.

He's singing on this too.

I mean we have other singers.

Nobody's singing.

No one ever asked, including his manager Carl.

No one said Mick write a song, So shame on me, shame on everyone.

These songs are so amazing, and we have big name artists doing one doing a song each on the record with Mick doing some of the vocals, or one song mixes the whole vocals, He wrote the whole music.

So aa level artists, okay, are all doing this.

So I'm very involved in finding those other ones.

I'm involved in the songs, which ones we should do.

So going back to that original question, you know, it's like it's that way or you know.

Then there's Neil Finn, who is, first of all, a wonderful person, Okay, like a really really wonderful person who I really like and I got to know when we asked him to join Fleetwood Mac when Lindsay left, and we built a great relationship during that tour, you know, and we talked about me working with him and I agreed because he was He's so talented.

I mean, this guy is incredible.

So that relationship has blossomed that we're close.

I was staying with my family and his family and his Greek compound on this island, you know, vacationing, and he was at my wedding and sharing his wife is awesome.

So we're family, you know.

And I become so close to my clients that no one, no artist needs another friend.

Okay.

But if you get along with them, you almost become like a brother.

Okay.

You fight like a brother, you love like a brother, You loyal like a brother, okay.

And that's really how it works with me.

And fortunately, my personality gets along with these people, you know.

And it might have to do with how I was brought up or whatever it is, or how I moved around the country my whole life because of what my dad did, you know, all this kind of stuff.

So I can adapt, you know, and I adjust.

Okay.

Tell me about saying something to the artist that's negative or they don't want to hear.

Well, you usually don't just say it out right.

You got a plan, okay.

So it's really like, you know, you're going back to music, okay, and an individual artist Okay.

Use that as the example.

So Tommy Lee, okay, Molly could CRUs not really happening at that time, and he has issues with you know, the past thema, his actions, his behavior, and he's really tired of talking about.

Okay, go write a book, and you be honest in that book and tell him every answer to every one of those questions, and you will not have to answer that question again.

He says, No, I'm not doing that.

Now you're doing it.

You're doing it.

I know the right writer who you'll understand.

He'll be tongue in cheek.

It will be great, but you're being honest.

And if they ask you again, say hey, read my book and walk away.

And so he didn't want to do it.

He did it New York Times bestseller, written with Anthony Bozo, who's fantastic, who also did Slash his book for me, and Mick Flee's book and a few others maybe and my thing I was doing.

And he uh.

But then Tommy after that, you know, didn't want to do the television show, which was you know, Tommy Lee goes back to college.

Yes, corny, but I wanted to make him.

I wanted to humanize him, okay, because he wasn't human.

He was known for smacking whatever and whomever and all that shit.

So so no, we're going to do you know, an NBC television show, and Middle America is going to not only see you as who you are portrayed in the tabloids.

So he's hating that idea.

But we come up with the idea.

You're going back to college, you're going to live in a dorm, and you're going to join the swim team.

What do you say?

You know?

And he goes, well, if I don't want to do that, well, how about this idea.

You're going to become a mayor of some small town in Kansas, some small town in Kansas, and you're gonna be dealing with parking tickets Fourth of July celebration, whatever it is.

No, I'll do the other one.

Okay, we're doing the other one.

So that's to your question.

You know, it's kind of turn it around the other what's the alternative?

Well, there's not Or Tommy, I want to you know, I want to make electric music.

Okay, you know, and that is not going to be easy, and you're fan base from Molly Kruz will not come over to that.

But that's your choice.

And he did it and he loves it, so he does it out of his own musical passion, and you don't want to stop that.

Okay, So but there's other things.

You know, every artist I have is that there's that time where there's that conversation you know, with all of them, you know, and a lot of the ones I don't want to bring up because yeah, I'm loyal to my artists and clients and I don't you know.

But Tommy's okay, because he's a wonderful guy and we talk about it.

You know, he's great, and I don't work with him anymore, but I still love him.

Okay.

Let's go back to Mick Fleetwood's record.

Yeah, in the pre internet era, you get this record, the record company would stir up all sorts of publicity.

There'd be a single that you would start probably on rock, reed you try to cross over to pop or maybe late ninety start on pop.

There might even be a video.

Most of the acts of his generation don't even make new music, and a lot of them that even the biggest acts Elton John got a lot of publicity with Brandy Carlisle put out the record.

If you check, the stream streams are anemic.

I know.

Okay, So what do you do with somebody like included?

First of all, you go into the project realizing those issues and those problems and making it clear to the artists that these are the issues.

But we should still make this because it's important for you and parton for your legacy, important for you.

Letting people know whether it sells or not is not as important as how it's reviewed, how it's thought of, Okay, and look at it that way.

Now cut to the realities of how you do work it once you do put it out.

Well, on this particular record, it's self financed, okay, and when it's done, which is soon, we'll go out and get a traditional record deal, okay.

And then how we're going to work that record okay, because radio is meaningless, although certain artists that we have on it it could work big time.

So it's really just to be clear.

Do you have pop artists.

We have pop artists, we have country artists, we have urban hip hop artists.

So cornicle wall genre you cover.

Yeah, yeah, it's a cornicop yes, say yes, a collage.

But this record will live by single download streaming world only.

It's not going to ever sell like a record, you know, because this pop artists their fans don't go along with the country artists.

Okay, So each individual record single song is a different release and that's how you do it.

But at the same time, yeah, you look at the Dolly parton record, Okay, didn't do anything.

There was so much hype on that, right, you know, nightfully, So she's a great artist, you know, but it didn't do anything.

Compilation records don't do anything anymore, you know.

Soundtrack records bear a few do you know.

But that's it And this is no different than that.

So it's a song by song effort, and it's utilizing the social media of those individual artists every time we put out a record.

Leit wait wait wait wait.

So we talked second ago about making these records this important part of the legacy.

Okay, But the way you're talking now is you are looking to get lucky.

Lucky sort of makes it sound like you're not making any effort.

I'm trying to say, you are trying to create sparks that might create a fire.

You're still trying to do that.

You don't give up, you know, you still try for the success because is that truly will even enhance the legacy and maybe create future projects like this for him, for that artist.

Okay, And so you want success because also the amount of effort we put into this.

You want to see some return.

You know.

We're doing a documentary around it with a great documentary team, and we don't know when that will come out because I've got the Fleetwood Mac documentary with Apple with Frank Marshall directing, So we've got to hold back on that or make it.

Let's just stop for a second of Fleetwood Mac.

How does the management work?

Okay?

Howard Kaufman is dead.

Irving represents Stevie.

No, No, Irving doesn't represent Okay, how does it work?

It's over the term that over the time I've been there, it's changed, okay, based on death.

You know.

So my mentor mentor was Howard Kaufman.

Sure, okay, because he could have tossed me at any time in the early years of Fleetwood Mac.

Carl you in the way bye, I'll tell Fleetwood we're getting ready to you or there's no tour because I have Stevie right, Okay.

He never did that.

He let me do my thing.

He didn't always believe in what I was doing, but it ended up paying off what I was doing.

So they looked at it from different eyes, and he taught me a lot but so back then it was just Howard to die.

Okay.

Then Lindsay hires Irving as his solo manager.

Okay, now Irving's the picture.

But Howard passes away.

So then Stevie for her solo stuff stayed with Sheryl Lewis, who worked for Howard, because there'd be a conflict with me because I want Fleetwood Mac okay and so.

And then when Lindsay Laughed left, well, Irving didn't have any artists in Fleewood Max, so he was no longer involved and it was just me.

Okay, but I've always been there half and half one tour or a third and then the whole type of thing, you know, So it's always changing.

But a tenth of Fleewood Max is an amazing thing.

So I'm happy, you know, I had I never had an issue with that, and they never had an issue Irving Howard.

They've protected me my career.

You know, we get along.

I love Irving.

He helped me get out of Sanctuary with the Universal.

He was the one who did my deal to get out with Lucien.

And you know, they're good people to me, and I'm loyal to them, and they've helped me in my career, and it gets it gets a bit difficult with fleetod Mac when there are so many people involved.

But the last tour it was I was the Fleetwood Mac man.

Cheryl Lewis was involved because she's Stevie's manager, Okay, Mick and John on the trademark the name, so that comes with me too, Okay.

So it's a complex thing, but it's been an awesome thing, I mean just awesome.

Okay.

What did you learn from Howard Kauffman, Slow down, Carl Wisdom.

He was a different kind of manager than me, though, you know, I just learned to be cool like him, because if you knew Howard, you know he was a guy who is never on the microphone or in a picture, you know, or doing press.

And one thing I learned from him was I was going to be the same way.

This is really my first podcast ever and that there was another interview the other day which was my first interview ever after thirty five years in the business.

Whatever it is, you know, it's like I never wanted that, you know, and I think that I think that that's how Howard was.

He was always he came from a financial background, accounting background, Okay, so he taught me a lot about that which I didn't know that much about.

But I learned from him, and I learned to pay attention of those to those things.

And the other thing.

He was always like, don't overthink it, make a move, just do it, just do it.

You know, any decisions better than no decisions, kid, you know, and that kind of philosophy, you know.

And little since you're close to Irving, what do you can learn from Irving?

Really?

How he's really an amazing businessman, okay, you know, and not coming from a business background.

I learned a lot about business.

I learned a lot about having an opinion, who you trust, who you don't trust, you know, staying close to the people you trust, and never screw with him, never, you know, because if you screw with a guy.

Like that, you know.

But I don't know, I don't know specifically, but I know if if I if I call Irving right now, he will pick up the and he'll call me right back and he'll answer any question or Irving, I have someone that needs to get into UCLA right away.

All right, I'm calling them now.

I'll call you right back.

Boom they're in.

You know, He's just that guy for me and for many people.

I'm sure I'm not exclusive to Irving's attention.

There are a lot of people, I'm sure.

But he's that guy.

He's on it.

He doesn't sleep, you know, and he does, but I mean bigularly, and he's available to me.

That must mean to everybody twenty four to seven.

He's the work ethic, you know, it's incredible, incredible, and I don't think anyone can reproduce what his work ethic is.

Let's go back to some of the core issues of the services you provide.

Tell me about streaming.

Anybody can get their song on the service.

What is your philosophy with playlisting, marketing other things with the major services?

I don't know.

I think that's a question which would have a different answer every month you ask that question.

I'm asking right now.

Okay, Well, playlists aren't as important as they used to be.

Okay, just to be clear, because because people aren't listening to it like they used to.

Okay, and you know, every artist wants a certain playlist or a couple of specific playlists, but then you get them and it really doesn't move the needle that much.

And although you still want to have it because it's at tension or it's a stat you know whatever.

Okay, I think everything's driven by unfortunately not YouTube.

I mean, excuse me, TikTok Okay, TikTok.

You know, but certain demographic don't understand TikTok, so it can't help those people, but it can help the younger people.

And it's so of the moment, and it moves so fast everything, And you know, that's why I have shared services people to educate me, because what the hell do I know.

I'm just an old dude who's been managing for a while, who has amazing artists, you know.

So that's why I brought this in if I was going to grow to have that, so someone could advise me or advise the managers who are a lot smarter in that world than I, you know.

So give me your snapshot of TikTok.

Annoying.

But I think it's annoying on a business level or annoying on an experience.

I think I'm both.

Okay, I think and on the experience level, that's only a personal opinion.

On the business level, it makes it very tricky because what works on TikTok isn't necessarily what works for me and my beliefs of art, you know, of art, okay, And so there's a conflict there.

Then you talk to a legacy artists say we'll go on TikTok, Dude, what the fuck am I going to do?

And then all of a sudden they're like doing it, and yet they're trying too hard and it's not coming off naturally and it doesn't work, or he needs it more scripted and drawn out, or she does and it just doesn't work.

You know.

But kids doing you know, machine gun and Kelly type stuff or you know, whoever and who are so persistent in it can really have an impact, you know.

But you can't get a a bono and obviously I don't manage bono, but an artist like that or Stevie or whatever to commit to doing delivering three assets a day that lives on TikTok, they're not going to do it, okay.

So without that impact, it's not going to really work.

So it's it's got to be dedicated and the artist has to be dedicated towards to that for TikTok to make the movement, the bar movement all so okay.

You know, for years now, acts have had social media teams.

Oh yeah, I'm posting on Facebook.

You know, I'm putting up stuff.

Hey do you still do that?

And to what extent be when it comes to like TikTok, do you say, if you're not doing it yourself, we're not even gonna do it at all.

I don't know if I say if you don't doing it yourself, we're not doing it at all.

I say, if you're not going to partner with us to do it and provide access and the energy to do it, then there's no point in doing it.

Okay.

What was the other part of the question.

Well, I think that kind of answers it, and okay, so let's assume you have an act.

In the old days, there weren't many opportunities outside the music, and then in the late sixties and seventies, the philosophy was we're not going to do endorsements, not going to do sponsorships.

They're going to hurt us.

Now there's some classic examples here.

I mean, the Beatles set the trend, not because they knew what they were doing, they just did it.

But then you had people conscious like Neil Young said I'm not going to do it, and he maintains credibility.

The other three do not, even though certainly Steven Stills has incredible talent.

David Crosby now dead.

Okay, so what is your philosophy with an act saying sponsorship, endorsements, merge that kind of stuff.

Yeah, well, first of all, TV changed the world, okay, of how artists look at that, and then the Internet changed the world how you look at it?

And I think it's hard.

If the brand you're associate the brand the artist is associating with makes sense for that artist, it's great.

Okay, it's great.

And or the business they're getting in makes sense for that artist, I think it's great.

I think that if Fleetwood Mac did a Jack in the Box commercial or whatever, it would kill It would be bad, just bad, okay, But if they did, if a McK fleewood did a Louis Vuitton like Sean Connery did, Okay.

That won't hurt.

I mean because he's a traveler or whatever.

You know.

It's like, it's like that, and I think, you know, the sponsorship of tours is pretty much going away, you know, because they didn't do anything for those brands, but building lifestyle or products that make sense for that that individual band is good, I think.

And what it does is it protects the artists from living in a cyclical world of dropping music touring, dropping music touring, you know whatever it is, okay, and it builds a business for them that continues.

And if you have a brand like a Zeezier, Fleetwood Mac, those are worldwide recognized image in Nay, okay, how do we do that?

So Mick Fleetwood did Fleetwood's on Front Street in Maui.

It was extremely successful restaurant.

People loved it.

He would be there every night like a matre d you know, he'd play when Steven Tyler was don Maui or whatever.

They get up and jam.

And we had a restaurant that was doing probably top two restaurants in all of Maui, you know, revenue wise, and then the fire burned it down.

Heina, but it was a great asset to Mic.

You know, it was a perfect environment for him.

So was a wine because he was in the rest from business.

He outside of wine, okay.

You know with Tommy Lee, we did the television shows.

We did a t shirt line, a G line, Jane line that made sense for who he was.

That's what he wore.

T shirt ripped off T shirts and you know whatever.

So it was okay, you know, if you're talking about if you're talking about Adele doing a.

Okay, wait wait, wait, let me stop you.

I think your concept is clear.

A manager only gets paid when the act makes a deal.

When the act is making money, agent the same thing.

So, certainly in the twenty first century, it looks like a lot of people have made deals because the percentage partner is gonna get paid, especially in a world you're dealing with a lot of legacy acts, especially in the world where the acts come and go, the business people remain and they say, I'm gonna take this money off the table.

Okay, I'm gonna do this.

They never say the artist, no, not good for your career whatever.

What's your take.

There, Well, I think that's selling your I think that's selling your artists down the road if you take it just because there's money involved.

It's never that black and what.

It is to me though, it is to me.

But give me tell me something you told your artists not to do.

God an actual example.

I can't think of one, really.

I think that there's been there's been examples.

But oh, one of my older artists a huge paycheck for cialis commercial.

Nope, don't do it.

No I should do it.

No, don't do it.

Wife, Yes you should do it.

I say, no, you're not doing it.

So the act wanted to do it, Yeah, but I didn't.

Can you tell us how much money was involved?

No?

It was seven figures.

And then there're what about z Eezy top cut your beard, Gillette, Well to a commercial cutting your beards off and we'll give you a million bucks.

Okay, We're not doing that.

Guys, it's foolish.

They agreed with me, but I mean they come in and I don't sell them on it.

I'm like, hell no, I don't need that money.

That's the beauty of how we set up this company because I didn't need the money, okay.

And I'm not bragging about money, but I didn't need it, okay.

So everything we do or I do, is really about doing what's right, enjoying it, and what's good for the artist.

You know, it's not about me.

Okay.

Well, let's stay with some of the deals that are offered these legacy artists.

What is your viewpoint on selling your rights, publishing, royalty interests.

And yeah, we've sold I've been involved in a bunch of sales, okay, and it all depends on the individual artist, okay.

And I think if the artist is sixty five or older, okay, it makes a lot of sense to do it from a financial standpoint.

But a lot of deals, you know, when you make that deal, you have to have some ability to veto what they might use your product and what's your music.

And I've been fortunate too, by way of relationships to put those stipulations in an agreement.

And it took a while because we'd fight back and forth.

But there's also stuff I put in an agreement that if we overperform in any one year, they still get a percentage passed through to them, even though you own one hundred percent of it now okay, So there's safeguards you put in there.

But they're collecting the money up front, okay.

Just to make the numbers easy.

I'm over sixty five, I'm only selling and publishing selling it for a hundred minus.

Just to make the numbers of you.

You're saying you have a clause in the contract such that I can get paid again.

The band can get paid.

Yeah, yes, and not in all the deals I've achieved it.

When you've achieved that, how is that clause written?

Because if for no other reason, you know, you can have a big year because you're featured in an end title on a Netflix show.

In In addition, there can be steady increases because of new avenues of monetization with you know, Twitch, discord, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

So how do you actually construct something like that?

You just merely say you're buying this on an average of the catalog that you're selling makes a millionaire?

Okay, a millionaire anytime we go over a million a year in revenue that you've collected, we get a piece of that above a million.

Okay, just to be clear, how big a piece might it be depends on the artist.

I mean, is it five percent?

Is it twenty five percent?

I gotta calculate it because I just got another check million.

It's it's like, okay, now they're not buying these assets and one thing that people buy them there other than merk, maybe all these people are very sophisticated financially.

They're making the money, so they're expecting to both get their money and make more money.

Otherwise they're not going to do it right.

Okay, so there's a issues of inflation.

Be give you an example which you don't represent, but I know, okay, Toto, they didn't sell, but they're just like this, all of a sudden, Wheezer does Africa and it blows it up with your contract.

I'm going to get with pulling the number, I'm gonna get thirty percent of the upside.

Let's just assume that stays at a high level.

And it keeps going.

But that's why none of not many companies would have done that.

It was a relationship thing that they did with me.

Okay, I don't have that on online.

Okay, but let's just say in your particular case, the number that you get in excess, let's just make it easy.

You see a million dollars, so you're making a million dollars.

Now over a million, the act gets thirty percent or ten depending on the Okay, we're just talking.

I know.

But what about my y Okay, you put it just to be just to make the numbers easy.

So you went to middlebary digit, Yes I did.

We can talk about that.

But let me just finish this point.

The million dollar floor would not inflate.

It might last for thirty years.

Yeah, well that's the risk.

The thing was they early on on these deals three years ago, whatever I ran was okay, it was about market share too.

Okay, it wasn't about just business.

It was market share and press releases and saying then that would gather then.

So it's a lost lead or whatever you want to call it.

But that could be the case.

You know.

The other important part to the artist is some creative control or veto right, which some of the agreements have that specifically written in it, some don't.

But then it's a relationship because if you're just selling the publishing, well, I'm never going to prove the master then, so you're not going to get it anyways.

Okay.

So there's a lot of ways to protect.

There's a lot of ways to enhance, get gather more or save you know, save the name.

And it's not in a political campaign.

You know that you don't believe in it.

Okay, So there needs to be this.

Oh okay, when you've made these deals, how much have you done the negotiation and how much has the attorney done in the negotiation.

Managers not allowed to negotiate.

Okay, Well, under California law and no, but it's a manager for resident.

I'm a Tennessee resident actually so.

Yes, but it's got to do where the contract is.

Really.

But but the thing is is I'm I can say I'm very hands on.

I find the deal.

I don't negotiate it, but I set the parameters of the deal and what we're looking for.

And then the attorney gets involved and comes back to me and say, Nope, not doing it that way, doing it this way.

They call me, they work me talk to the attorney, and I go back to the attorney, you know, and he's doing the negotiations.

But I'm very involved my attorneys.

Uh, and we have a lot of great attorneys, you know.

But I go get the deals.

Okay, I get deals.

I don't rely on on whomever you whoever, big name attorney to find me deals.

I do them all myself, you know, because that's and you can draft it and you can do specifics.

But I like making deals and I like going out and chewing it up with the guy.

You know.

It's like, okay, let's switch gears again.

So your anchor in Fleetwood Mac is Mick Fleetwood.

How did you get connected to myth Gleewood.

A great story.

You know, it's unbelievable.

You know, when I worked at Sandy Gallen this is right around right before then, I was fortunate enough to work for a guy named Barry Josephson.

And Barry left Gallen Morey to work for Joel Silver, the film producer.

He was working on an artist named Andrew Dice Clay.

Okay, so all of a sudden he leaves.

I become close to Dice.

Dice convinces me to leave Sandy and be his director of development because he had a we were going to do a film deal, television deal, director of touring.

He was selling out Madison Square Garden and run my business like really a manager's job.

So I took that job on.

We had huge, huge success, and that was my first client, you know, And it was like an experience because it was in all businesses.

Somebody who in mixed business manager's office knew me and was telling the story of my success with Dice.

And keep in mind were a lot of people involved.

Okay, so I'm not taking away, but what I did and how I got in and I was young, okay, road and so he goes, I want to meet this cat, So I get this call from a business manager says, hey, Fleetwood wants to meet you.

Will you come in?

Yeah, I'll be there tomorrow, no problems, problem, what you are we in?

Let's see, I got to go back to Clinton Clinton ninety four.

I guess, yeah, ninety two, Okay, ninety two, Okay, thank you.

So that was ninety two, and Fleetwood and I sit in a room with his then fiance to be ex wife at some point, but a wonderful woman.

Okay, she and our friends still.

But within an hour of leaving the meeting, I get a call and I go, Fleetwood's hiring you come back or whatever.

I go back.

He goes, here, here's what we're doing.

We got the band the Zoo out okay, which we're selling pretty good records, that band that was happening, And he says, but my dream is getting Fleetwood Mac up and running again.

How are we going to do that?

So I came up with this plan and we ended up doing the dance, which was the MTV special five million records Tour of the year, you know.

And so in my way working with Fleetwood, we got everyone together.

Okay, how I did it?

I don't really want to sing.

I'm going to jump back before it jump forward.

Now, let's say you're involved in selling somebody's rights.

Seemingly all your big acts you were not there for minute one, you know, zsy.

Top, none of them Bokay, so I was forever last, but he fired me, right.

So what it comes to an act that's had a forty year career and you're selling the rights of the publishing.

How do you decide what the commission is?

Is it your standard commission?

Now I give him a reduction because they're getting forty million, fifty whatever it is, you know, off of one person, okay, in a band or it was easy, it was the whole thing, but the whole band.

But I reduce it.

But it's still a substantial percentage.

And I think I've been really fortunate with my clients that they were willing to always take care of me.

You know, if you look at ZIZI.

I've been with zz for seventeen years, how many managers you know, except for a few, you know, Tony demitriotis Petty, Dave Matthews, and but there's very few.

And they're loyal and I'm loyal and they know that, you know.

And and these were all done during COVID, and it made sense, and I'm happy they did it, and I and I did very well during COVID.

So you pull the number out of your ass, how do you get a number to sell it for?

No?

Your percentage?

It's a conversation just between that person and I.

Well, no one likes to give up money.

They I don't know if that's true.

I don't want to get into artists.

One thing new, I won't talk about artists.

That's not necessarily true.

No, No, here is the story with artists.

This is the one and only thing they can do.

Their name is on the marquee.

You can always get another act.

You're behind the scenes.

There's for desperations, got a negative quality.

But the nature of these acts at that core they know that somehow, and they're not like regular people.

They wouldn't have become that successful without it.

That doesn't mean they can't be reasonable.

But these are not your everyday.

People, clearly not.

But what's your question then?

At what's your point?

Well, I think you know.

I don't think there's a specific question there.

But let's go back to think.

I can only speak about my experience, okay, and my experience is that all my clients have always been fair to me, and they have never except I feel little small things, ever questioned.

And then and then I'll go to them and say, hey, you know what to be fair?

So and so I'm not going to take fifteen percent across on this.

I'm not going to do that, Okay, but I will take I do think I deserved this much.

So you won't toss out an initial number on a huge p day.

Yeah, or some people of some artists, based on a relationship, say what do you think is fair?

And they might say that I said, well maybe this, well maybe that the okay, cool, let's do it.

I no, have you ever had an experience with the artist says well, this is what I think it was fair, and it's less than you think is fair.

No, no, no, And I'm not bullshit.

I'm serious.

It hasn't happened to me.

I've been lucky.

I take it.

You know, you know, let's go back to Fleetwood Mac.

I know on some level you said they didn't want to get back to what do we know Fleetwood Mac.

They performed to Clinton's inaugurations, singing don't stop whatever?

What was the impediment?

John mcviee's seeming legals show.

Well, we're doing it, we're doing it.

Okay, he's there with Mick Mix.

More of the business guys managed the band for an interim there.

What was the hang up in getting them back together?

I think it was just individual lives.

I think Stevie was doing her thing, Lindsay was doing his thing.

And at the time they got back together, Lindsay was in the studio making a record, and at that he had a manager at that time, and they called a manager and I said, hey, why don't you get Mick and Lindsay together.

You know, Lindsay's had a lot of success with Mick in the studio with him and Mix not a producer, but he's a vibe you know, he's a vibe guy, and he knows the sound and all that.

So maybe you have him come down and let's talk, you know.

And so that happened, and then all of a sudden, well why don't we get sell and so down?

Why don't we get sell and so down.

Then they're all in a room, you know, recording on Lindsay's record.

Then you're out there looking at opportunity.

Okay, let's go to a promoter and see what they pay for a fleeting back tour.

So I did that without the band really being aware of it, but just to see so I could be honest and educate the band.

Why not, you know, number was insane.

I wonder if MTV would do a special if they got back together.

I can remember Howard, I think it was Howard.

There's no way that will happen.

Okay, well let me just see, you know.

And so it happened, and it made sense that they did it and became and they did they all got it and did it.

We recorded a concert.

We peppered the audience with current artists too, to make it look you know, make they were fans, but to make sure people on television realized, you know that this is cross genre, this is cross demographic, okay, whatever it is.

And we did that and cover Rolling Stone popped up and just kept on going, you know, it kept on okay.

But generally speaking, the members of the band were saying, if the numbers line up were in it, you didn't have to do any arm twisting.

No, there was some politics, but not arm twisting.

Christine was in right away because wonderful person, you know, and just she didn't want to ever be a She was a person that didn't want to be a star.

Okay, respect to that, okay.

And she didn't mind sharing the stage.

She wasn't about going doing another solo record, you know.

So she was just sitting there in her castle and Edinburgh or whatever the hell it is, you know.

And John's out on his boat crossing the Pacific, you know, and Hi cool.

You know.

Mick eager to keep his band because he started it in the sixties.

That's all he's ever known is sleeping back, you know.

It is it's more than a band, or it's more than making money.

To him, it's what I do, you know.

So he's in.

And then Lindsay and Stevie have their solo projects and both very successful.

So how do you find the time to get into their schedule based on their success?

And it just worked out.

Okay.

You said that Mick was at your wedding.

That would imply that you've been married multiple times.

Well, no, Mick was only at Mick was at my Yes, I've been married three times.

One time was for two months right before I got married, right before I start in the mail room.

Okay, that lasted two months because I got in the mail room, met Dice left.

Okay, we're still friends.

Okay, we're still friends.

Then my other wife was the mother of two of my boys.

We got married in Vegas after a mix show and we did it like at the Elvis Chapel or one of those things.

And it was Fleetwood who put the whole thing together.

And it was like Beck and Bramlet, Dave Mason, all these people were in the audience all, you know.

And we got married and she was pregnant at the time, and they made me marry her and I was happy to and I shouldn't say maybe, but they created it.

And so he was at that one.

He wasn't at this last one, which was in twenty January twenty twenty with Dana, who I share a four year old son.

So I have I've had three boys.

Neil was there.

Neil Finn was at that one.

The second marriage.

How long did that last?

Twelve years?

And why did that end?

Because my career was blowing up and I wasn't the best best husband.

I was a good father, I thought, but I think but I was gone the whole time.

I had influences around me that made me a little crazier, you know, and my priorities might not have been in the right place.

And we still talk.

You know, everything's I you know.

Okay, So the present wife Dana, When and how did you meet her?

It's a good one.

It was fashion week in New York City.

Zz Top was playing the John Varvados show.

There's a cat named Jordan, she who ran Geffen, you know.

And I was in his office one day with Pete Jorn okay, and Jordan pulled out a picture of his wife and next to the wife was this girl, stunning girl.

Who the hell is that?

And she goes, oh, that's Dana Rossi and I said, wow, I want to meet her.

And so they hooked it up because she hadn't been be in Philadelphia, where her parents were live, and she took the train up to New York to come to the party, got her hotel room.

Because we didn't know each other, but I just wanted to meet her, you know.

So she came in for the night.

She was a model.

What was she doing?

She was not a model.

She owned a boutique in Santa Monica called Dame and she's stopped.

Yeah, she's really American, Italian, American or whatever you call it, but really beautiful.

And it started there and she didn't like me in the beginning, and I had to work on it and it ended up and then we ended up getting married.

And now we have Rome and our four year old son, and we live in Sun Valley, Idaho, and still have our home in La, office in La Nashville, home in Nashville, office in Nashville.

But my four year old goes to preschool in Sun Valley at a school called Community, which is amazing school.

And that's where they are all the time.

I'm there all the time unless I'm traveling on business.

I end up in Ketchum.

When I the end of from ninth grade to graduating high school.

I live in Seattle, Okay, and Ketchum harbors a lot of Seattleites, especially back in the day less now now because more draw there.

When I dropped out of college Eastern Washington State College, I was a skier all my life, you know, I was.

I went to private school in East Coast where we ski all day.

And where'd you go to private school?

I went to private school in New Jersey, actually a school called Farbro that had uh it was like a school without walls, and so they had this guy John franz And who was part of the Swiss ski team, who was a teacher.

So he would bring me up to Vermont and we would study till nine and then I'd ski with him, and then we'd go back study some more, and then we'd crash out and did that for a month like every year type of thing.

Okay.

And I was really into skiing, and so in Seattle, I was really I was a teacher in tenth grades teaching skiing, and and so I dropped out of college and I said, well, I'm going to work in Seattle for a little bit, figure out what the hell I'm going to do.

But then I said, I'm going to Sunvalley, going to Ketcham.

So a couple, me and my friends go to Kitcham.

I immediately get a job running Trail Creek, which was Hemingway's ex fishing cabin.

Okay, so I'm running that.

I'm young, you know, and they let me work nights so I can skiet during day.

You know.

I was one of these setups, you know.

So I loved Ketcham.

And what year are we in?

Eighty eighty one, I think?

And I loved Ketcham, and I left Ketcham to move to Vale, Colorado.

But I always knew at some point I was going.

To wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, this is you know you speak in my language.

Why did you leave Sun Valley for Vale?

Well, we were trying to think figure out a long term plan for Carl, meaning my dad and I am home, you know, and my dad knew.

My dad knew the president of United air Lines.

At that time, United Airlines owned Weston Hotels and they were opening up brand new Weston Hotel there.

And why doesn't Carl become head of food and beverage down in Vale Because he loves the ski and he loves the mountains.

They gave me that job.

I moved down there after two and a half three years and Sun I moved down there and did that for two years.

But once again, I worked at nights pretty much, so I skied every day.

Okay, let's go back to the beginning.

How did you end up in Sun Valley?

Now?

Oh, like I said, I was drempt of owning a house there, and then h COVID hit and really before everyone started moving out of La I went up there on a vacation with my wife.

Okay, and it's a good place to get away, open air, it'll be cool.

So Rob my real estate I call him up.

He wasn't my agent.

Then this is the guy I meet, you know, to sell some to the house.

I go, here's the deal.

I only got two more days here.

I'm going to look at every house, every house, and I guarantee you I'm going to buy one.

So show me thirty houses in two days.

He goes, Okay, dude, okay, you showed me thirty houses.

I bought one.

We closed a month later, and then Dana and I went up there.

It was August.

Then Dana I went up there, said well, let's get out of la and go to the new house and open it up.

And then we just never left because Dana fell in love with Sun Valley catch them.

I always dreamt that that was going to be the plan.

We all learned how to work remotely, all right, Well, when COVID's over, we'll figure out what we do.

Well COVID's over, I still couldn't work remotely.

My clients live around the world, not in La.

Record companies are not that important to me, or I have other people to do it so it's easy.

So I keep my house in LA in Nashville, as I said earlier, and I less two weeks ago in Nashville, freight days here in LA for three weeks, and I go back to Sun Valley, and then I'll come back four weeks later.

Generally speaking, in a year.

How much you in Sun Valley, LA, Tennessee, just on the road.

How does it break down?

Well, if you factor in on the road too, you know, outside of LA, and add that in the outside of LA, in Nashville, in Sun Valley, figure doing it, probably sixty seventy in Sun Valley?

Okay?

To what degree you know, there are other people in this business who live in Sun Valley.

To what degree are you integrated?

Are you just in your own world?

Here's what it started, that I wanted to be in my own world, okay, and then people start talking that I'm there and they don't really know me, but they want to meet me, you know, that type of thing.

And then you know, for the first three years we were secluded, okay, and then your sun starts going to preschool, people start meeting you in restaurants, talking to you, and then they start calling on you, you know, and they have an idea you know or whatever, and so you get involved in other things and all of a sudden Hebert a Fred you know, and you're walking down the street and you know people and it's kind of a personality I have too that I'm not.

I'm not a dark corner guy, you know, kind of kind of bright you know.

And so like we did that, we did the ear Skiar the World Cup final.

We're in sun Valley this year, sunvill Catch them.

These two people, the guy owns the Whiskey, which is one restaurant brand, and Jenny Dupree wanted to do a festival during that period.

So they come to me, they say, will you help us?

We want talent.

You know, we don't know what we're doing in that side that respect, they knew how to plant it.

Okay, all right, fine, I'll help.

And I put together all the entertainment and the show and it was a big success to the show.

You know, I don't know financially, but the event was successful, you know, first time festival successful.

So then I met all these people around there and they saw what I was helping there, well, will you help us with this?

So it kind of snowballs and you know, people, but the people are awesome there, you know, and it's like it's really cool, you know, and it's really really unique gathering of people.

Funny story off subject.

Okay, when I first moved to La from Utah because I failed to Utah.

Then La, you moved to go skiing in Utah?

Yeah?

Yeah, what'd you do in Utah?

For how long?

I've worked in Salt Lake at the Hotel Utah, which was which is a morning and they had a rooftop restaurant called the Rooftop and there I met Robert Redford eating or do O eating or whatever, you know, because it was the only real spiffy place.

But it didn't open till like six.

So I'd got a park city skiing, you know, or wherever sundays Alta, you know.

And so but I wasn't there that long.

I was only there for a season.

Season.

So I go to LA and I need a job.

I moved to La not knowing anyone, not one person, not one person on my own, and I'm staying at a Western hotel because I had free room nights.

And I go in I apply for a job at the Ruth Chris Ruth's Chris Steakhouse in Beverly Hills, Okay, and the cat who owned it was a dude named Paul Fleming who was from Arizona via New Orleans, Lafayette.

And they hired me.

And that's where I met my first wife, by the way, she ran the place.

Okay, So so I worked there, get in the music business.

Blah blah blah.

Cut to Sun Valley, Okay, catch them.

I'm talking to Brandon who owns the whiskey, and he goes, dude, do you know a dude named Paul Fleming?

Yeah, well I was probably you up to him and he said you used to work for him, and go, yeah, I used to work, but well he lives up here too.

Now he goes, that dude thought you'd be dead by night, but you were the best dress host they ever had at a restaurant, okay, because I was always trying to pimp and get in the world, you know, of entertainment of the world, you know.

And so now he and I are in a restaurant, are going to be in a restaurant together in some value, one of the classic restaurants of all of Ketchum.

And I don't know if you've been to Ketchum, but oh yeah, Okay, where did Hemingway eat his last meal?

I don't know.

A restaurant called Michelle's.

He ate every night in Michelle's.

That kind of a frame thing.

Okay, ate his meal, went home, shot solf of the head.

So we're dealing with that, you know.

So he's in business, but he's just blown away, you know.

He goes, are you still did you ever?

Mary Carey?

Yeah?

I did for two months and he he was laughing, and it's like, it's so amazing how you meet people you know or other people you know or are you know.

It's such an eclectic group of people.

And it's like any vacation place, whether it's the Outer Banks or get Cut or whatever.

Okay, there's the haves and have nots, Okay, which makes it difficult for the have nots because the prices go up, you know.

But they're cool too, because all these servers I love, you know, and because I understand I can't.

I was a hustler, I get it, you know.

But then there's really successful people, you know, and which you can learn from, you know.

And so I have an office in downtown ketch them.

That's the shelter of Rocky Mountain Office, and so it's it's fun.

Okay, what'd your parents do for a living?

I'm a I think we call it a corporate brat.

Okay.

My dad, at the age of eighteen, was installing phone lines in southern Illinois, no, no, outside of Chicago as a job.

He came from German immigrant family, okay.

And he won some award as a student in high school.

Then he met the president, and then he was working for AT and T or Illinois Bell or whatever it was called there, and they said, this kid's great.

So he went from installing phones to being executive vice president AT and T, and in doing so, we lived Seattle, we lived in New Jersey.

Wait wait wait, executive vice president of AT and T the national corporation.

Yeah, before the divestiture.

Before you know, this is not a Celtone.

There were a lot of steffs between installing fold lines becoming executive view you know.

But went he worked for Illinois Bell, Pacific, Northwest Bell, going up the chain.

So what's his skill, because it's very hard to do, ye know.

His skill was he was very intelligent, but he was a people person, and they kept on putting him to more school at and t Okay.

So he went to University of Illinois, he went to special school at Wharton, he went to Dartmouth for another part of his learning, and they just kept on grooming this guy.

And in those days it was like that.

It wasn't jumping companies.

And so he only worked for one company and retired at sixty five his whole life.

And so loyalty, you know, and that.

And plus mom was just mom, and we had five kids, and she was able to move us every two years and she took care of us and it was wonderful.

So I had a great background.

So where are you in the hierarchy?

I'm in the middle, and what are the other ones up to?

Everyone's healthy and successful, you know.

It's like my brother James, the oldest.

He is an attorney Seattle real estate, Transactional real Estate.

My brother Todd lives down here in Los Angeles and does events, produces events for like Nissan and stuff like that.

But that's what he likes.

It's his independent, doesn't have to work all the time and has done well.

My sister lives outside of Anatchi, Washington, the wine business, okay.

And my other sister, Erica lives on cape Cod, where we spent most of our summers.

She has a house on Cape Cod.

We're in gape Cod, h Brewster.

Okay, let me ask you this.

There are five kids in the family.

Obviously, the older brother is an attorney who graduated from college.

Did the others graduate in Podcasah, So you're the black sheep.

I am the only one who didn't graduate.

But are you, generally speaking, the black sheep in the family.

No?

Okay?

Why the music business or entertay?

Maybe it wasn't music, maybe it was entertainment.

What was it at first?

Well, for the two months or three months to college, I was going to be an URTV major radio television major.

Okay.

I was a high school DJ, you know.

It was DJing in college for those three months.

But I hated college.

And I was a music freak, okay, and not because I knew so much about it, but in high school, every day after school we would find someone who had a car.

I would go down to a record store, smoked up and thumb through the bins, you know, and then hopefully once a month you could afford to go to a shell and you'd stand in line at ten am when the gate would open and you'd buy your ticket then stand in line to the out door open.

And we were vested in our artists.

Back then, it was a totally different thing, and we didn't see our artists unless you saw him live or on the back of an LP, front of LP.

Okay.

So that excitement of seeing Jesse, Colin Yell or you know whoever, you know, it was just like Wow, that dude's cool, you know.

And so he bought into the art.

I really bought into it, and I loved music.

So what happened was I was working at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse and my brother was down here and he opened up the Hollywood Reporters.

He came to my house and I'm on the roof top of my place.

I was living in Beverly Hills, and he said, dude, look at this, this is you.

This is you.

You got to do this.

And it was a catlecall advertisement for the mail room at Glamory.

So well, I'm getting married next week, just let's go do it.

So I go over there do it.

I was marrying carry Alice, whose father was herb Ellis, who was a great jazz guitarist herbalus So Jim Moury and Sandy both knew who Herb was and s yeah, I'm Mary carry Alice Herbs.

Well you're hired, dude.

Sure, And then I say to Jim.

I go, Jim, there's one issue.

He goes, what's the issue?

I go, I can't stop for four weeks because I'm getting married.

Then I'm going to Saint Barts in Saint Martin's.

Well you still have the job for me.

They looked at me, they said, too, if you got some balls, I go, all right, we'll hold the job for you.

So I came back and started the job, and things just happened.

Well, okay, you're working at Gallan Morey at the time.

How many people are working there?

I can count the offices cale pressman one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight nine to about about about fourteen, And what was your gig mail room?

I would go buy every desk and collect the mail.

Back then there was faxes, print the foxes or copy the foxes.

And then I would get a call from Sandy's assistant saying, hey, you got to go down to Farah Fawcett's house and deliver the script.

No way, dude, really sweet sweet or Streisand's house or yeah, there's a great there's a great story.

And you know, I got a got hired for the wedding, but I really started in November, okay, and Dolly Parton to a Christmas party at Sandy's house all the time, okay, and they would import snow from the mountains all this, and so Sandy goes, hey, can you come to the party.

I go, yeah, for sure, dude, I'm there.

And some I probably was serving him a McDonald's hamburger, taking off the pickle, so something like that.

Menial shit.

Okay, So I dude, honey, I hadn't been divorce.

Shit, honey, We're going to Dolly Parton's Christmas party.

We go and the whole thing was no, he wanted me to work the party the front door, and it was so embarrassing to me.

I was like, okay.

But what happened was once everyone was in, I went to a round tablet ten by the pool and it was like quincy, all these people and I just pretended like I knew everyone wast hanging out with the like hey, how you doing.

And so it's a great story because it was so humiliating, but I made the best of.

It, exactly why did you break up with the first life.

I went out with Dice on the road, and I came back and realized I got too married too early, and there's this whole new world opening up for me, and I don't think I can really focus on this when I've got this, and I really think I can do this, you know.

So it was a selfish kind of move.

But she didn't like the fact that I was getting into the music business because her dad was in the music business.

You know.

She wanted me to be a restauranteur or whatever it is.

Okay, So I think she was relieved and we parted great friends and she knows people in my world still, and.

You know, it's all good.

And I thought, okay, so you're in the mail room.

It's well known that's getting your foot in the door.

When do you actually do more than deliver mail?

And within a month and you're doing what.

Barry Josephson was still there, and he he did an assistant.

So he put me at his desk as his assistant, which was a horrifying situation.

A I couldn't type, okay, you know, so I'm taking messages, dialing the phones back in the old days, you know, rolling calls for him and uh, trying to deal with problems that I knew nothing about, Okay, because it happened to so quick, and so I was terrible.

But what happened was all his clients loved me, so he had to deal with me, okay, and and he was a very hard boss, but they all were back then.

You know, it was a different world where they could abuse you, like, here's your Christmas bonus, like one hundred and one dollar bills, Throw them on the floor and I'll pick it up and get out of you.

That kind of attitude.

Okay.

There's that movie with Kevin Spacey and what's his name about a guy in the mail.

Yeah, so that was really written by the guy who replaced me at that desk.

Okay, who wrote that?

So that was his experience.

Okay, So it's like that.

But then Barry leaves and there needed to be someone to help with his clients that stayed Dice, okay, and so bye bye.

Three months in that could be off a month.

Three months in, Dice pulls me out of that office, says here with me.

Oh, this is gonna be fun.

You know, it's a great I'm gonna learn every aspect of the business over a year.

You know, I'll be involved in shooting Ford Fairley in the movie for twentieth Century Fox.

We have an ABC deal we're going to get We're going out on tour.

Dennis Arfa great agent, is his agent, so I'm going to be around him.

Rick Rubin's going to produce the record.

So I got all this experience in a short period of time.

So I was fortunate.

Okay, Dice had this unbelievable vertical ascension.

Then he theoretically got being from him to then he was over.

Then he came back, you know, on TV for a while.

What is misunderstood or what were the missteps by Dice?

When I started with Dice were Here's Comedy Store, okay.

And then we did the Beacon Theater for New Year's Eve for HBO okay, and that kicked it in.

And I was still an assistant for that HBO show.

And then it was January after that, and his his stick was so unique and so raw and so offensive and politically incorrect.

Before there was politically incorrect, But there was this change happening in the entertainment industry where it was becoming politically incorrect, especially because the people that were running the business, Sandy, Barry Diller, David Geffen, Okay, so he wouldn't stop himself from going farther and farther.

And also what happened was we were doing what was it, the MTV thing or whatever, and Dick Clark was producing it, and I'm on the side of the stage.

It goes, we're running short.

We need you to stretch your material, and we had to clear the material with television because he couldn't curse, okay, and it flipped Dice out, not anger, just fear because he didn't know how to stretch.

You know, a comedian works on the tight ten or tight twenty, whatever it is.

So he had to ad lib and he went into protection mode and went into the dark stuff and cursing and you know, lighting Cerrante on stage or whatever it was, and sudden the Redstone is dialing in said get him off the stage.

He's blackball bloomoom boom boom.

And from that point on it just kept on crippling down, you know.

But it was an amazing running had and I got there.

I had a lot of fun with the guy.

I mean, here's a guy that got really fortunate, stayed at it, believed in it, and once again McDonald's.

You know.

Theory is people knew what they were getting when they went to his show, and they loved it, you know, and he stayed to that and he was really good to me and his parents.

Freddy, it was it was awesome to me, and you know, it was just such an amazing experience.

And he was he was a good guy.

He was basically a sober guy out of just not trying to be sober, but he wasn't partying and he didn't do anything, you know, and so it was great.

You know, it was a great dealing with them.

I had great footage of just us on a tour bus together or whatever.

It just was a moment and it was fantastic.

It failed because he was put in a situation that he couldn't handle and that was the beginning of the end.

That night was the beginning of the end.

So did with you and Dice?

And what did you do next?

Well, maybe it depends on who you ask.

How how I look at it is is that I we found a comedian in Kansas City who did fairly well.

Eddie Griffin, Fast Eddie a bunch of Joel Silver movies.

Stand up.

He's a great funny guy.

Okay, we find Eddie while we're on the road, Eddie.

I'm managing Eddie.

Now, Okay, Eddie starts kind of happening.

Dice is kind of you know, slowing down.

And he didn't like the fact that I managed Eddie, and I said, well, fine, you know, love you, Dice.

I'm ag Eddie.

And that was, you know, before I got into music business.

Really I was in the comedy world.

So that happened.

Then the Eddie thing didn't work out, even though like he lived in my office, you know, and he was just starving, you know, and I'd feed him and get his teeth work done or whatever, you know.

And that didn't work out.

And so I was looking for my next entertainment thing and it was a It was with a guy named Matt Robinson.

I don't know if you know Matt.

He was a DJ and we had he had clubs, portable clubs, you know, move around clubs, peace posse and all these things back in the early nineties.

And he needed like a business partner kind of as he was unorganized.

And so he and I were working and we had a club every Friday night on Pico at the Chicken Shack, I think it was called.

And a lot of celebrities were coming to our club.

We had great DJs and it was kind of dance hall, hip hop, reggae kind of club.

It was cool back then.

Chris Blackwell would come into the club.

So Blackwell gave us our own record label, Peace Polsey Records, and there's an We signed Ikamause, who was a dance hall awesome guy, crazy dude.

And I did that for like a year and a half, two years, but the label never worked and I was getting bored and restless, and that's kind of you know, around the time I met Mick and and I was working with some other another gal.

We were partners as managers type of thing trying to make and she had Delight and I was doing some stuff for the Fix, and then it was Fleetwood and then it just kept on going, the Cult, House of Pain Everthelass, Boston White Take, you know, Tommy Zzy, It just kept on going.

So how'd you get involved with the Sanctuary guys?

Merk saw that I was making money, you know money, and I had very strong roster for a manager coming into that place, okay, and he knew I I had a big tour coming up with so he wanted to buy into that revenue.

So he bought in and then made me co president with Peter Asher right down when he bought in, and then Merk I had to leave, okay, and they made me seeeo or champed to see you of Sanctuary and it was really.

Wait wait, just to be clear, when you start, is already owned by Universal?

No?

No, I started when it was dealing.

But it was already public when you were Yes, it was public.

Okay.

How long did you work there before it was sold to Universal?

Five years?

So tell us about Merk.

Did you read his new Yeah?

I did, Okay, Yeah, he and I are two totally two different people, Okay, as far as our philosophies, the way we operate, he said, dude, that will always find a way to land on his feet.

I don't necessarily agree with how he ran Sanctuary, and I wanted to make sure if I ever did a company it was polar opposite of Sanctuary.

Seriously, just to be clear, how was it run?

He made deals based on the next six months year with managers.

Okay, not how great that manager is and this isn't my opinion.

He has done extremely well, so I could be totally off.

But he was not ever worried about a year from now.

It was really like I said that quarter or that half year, okay.

And my philosophy, as I said earlier on, was long term, long term.

We can sustain long term.

So that and I questioned the other managers there, and I know a lot of them and I like them, but you know, it's like huh, and and we accounted to things differently, okay.

And so when he moved on the board, brought me to London and asked me if i'd help them get it to a point where we could have someone buy it off the street.

Okay, and I did.

But murk Is is a unique person.

I think he knows music.

He's a music fan for sure.

That's sure.

He knows it, he cares about it.

But there's other influences in the way he conducts his business.

Okay, that's in his own head.

Okay, let's go back.

What's different now that it's sold to Universal?

What's different about working a Universal?

Why do you have to get out?

I don't think at that point Labels Lucian understood what I did, okay, and really understood the music business.

I think they were more a business once again of the immediate.

And I don't think Lucien ever understood why I would manage is Easy or Fleewood Mac No No, find me a Gaga, Find me a Gaga.

Okay, forget the old mans, but the old mans are making me a lot every year, like more than looking for Gaga.

That company won't sustain itself, and then I'm fired.

I don't want to do that, you know.

And it wasn't hard conversation.

It was just a different philosophical way of doing things.

So I wanted out and I got out thanks to help from Herring, you know.

And I just kind of did my own thing with my bands that have been with me ever.

You know, it's like until Heartwick, you know, just knocked on my door.

Okay, let's jump to today.

You're making a deal with the label.

You know, we went through the old school.

We went through twenty first century, three sixty deals.

Now there's leverage because you might have a TikTok success.

How have you found the deals changed?

And what are the deals today?

Deals are one don't come with the same advance okay, a lesser marketing commitment, okay, a lesser commitment to the individual the artist, and you're really hoping you throw something against the wall and it works, you know, but that doesn't change how we think.

But that's what the label thinks.

Okay.

And you have to cough up any rights beyond just the raw recordings, and you can you get those back?

Can you have re record?

What are your deals like with all this deal.

The deals now are more licensing deals for a term, a ten year term.

Then everything reverts back to you.

Okay, and the re record rights followed that term usually.

Okay, let me go back a step.

You talk about, well, I went to NBC.

I'm doing this special.

You're a guy who works in restaurants.

You say you're a hustler.

It's not like you grew up in the business and your you know, your father's friends came to the house, et cetera.

No, how did you make these relationships and how did you make these deals?

And how do you do it today?

I learned quickly, okay.

But how I was able to function in that world?

You know?

Early on, when I was in the restaurant business in La I would go to the right places, and I happened to meet certain people that were artists okay, that liked me and tagged me along, okay, And whether it was hanging out Roxbury if you remember Roxbury, you know, or whatever club, China Club, whatever you know, and I was always there with the right people.

And they grew and I grew and a group and I I look at myself.

This is a dis on myself.

Okay.

When I was a skier, my name was in Carl.

I was called c W, which is my initials.

My father called me that, my mother, every friend I still have back then calls me that.

When I came to La, basically I changed to Carl, and I put on an act just to be able to fit in.

But I learned that act by moving around with my father, parents and family.

Because when you move from Seattle to Jersey, totally different.

You're not You're not wearing swabies, You're wearing Levi's and ducksiders okay, new wardrobe, you know.

So so I know I acted this role, that I knew what I was doing, and that that that I fit in with this culture, this world.

And in doing so, you open your ears and you hear a lot of stuff, and you're willing to learn, and you never pretend like you know everything, but you do live in that world.

And it just kind of worked that way.

Okay, let's assume your brainstorming in the office, we're virtually however, you do it and you go, you know, we need a TV special on this, or we need a movie.

You have the concept.

Do you then work backward and say, you know, I know so and so.

Who knows so and so will put me together?

Where do you say?

Oh, that's Netflix, that's Hulu, that's NBC, this is the person who runs it.

Let me cold call them.

Well, it can work like that, and it's also can work that.

If it's today not when I was younger, it's different.

So I'll call CI or William Morris and this is my idea, put together ten meetings for me.

Then I'll go take the meetings.

Okay.

If it's you know, if it was like Rockstar Super and Ova with Mark Burnett at CBS produced, it came up with it with Mark.

It was not just called Mark, you know, and talk to Mark about it, you know, because I'd met him or whatever it was.

You know, it all depends, you know, where we're going with the project, what type of project it is, and where it fits with the NBC show it was.

I hired a showrunner who handled them setting up the meetings, and I would show to the meetings because I knew how to sell what my view was, and that's how it was done.

I would show up and I'd be there, and I'd come up and create it.

You know, you know, wine or liquor spirits.

I know people in that world, you know, So I'll make the call.

It all depends on what.

But yeah, let me help you get there.

We'll get you there, you know.

Okay, one way or another, I'll get you there.

Live Business today there are two behemoths.

Live Nation is very much in favor of making tour deals, being on the other side of the fence.

What's your philosophy.

I think it depends on the act, and I think it depends on the timing of when you're going out and also the history you have.

So in other words, Live Nation has been very good to me with a lot of my acts, but not all my acts.

Two deals, okay, one usually Fleevo Mac we deal right, but you know there's deals that we don't take money.

We just want everything right.

Everything, okay, and it works because you know, you sell tickets.

Okay, then with as easy.

There's some ag shows, there's some Like Nation shows, there's some independent shows, and I won't do a whole deal okay, crowded house, same thing, you know.

And that's Neil's mind too.

He doesn't want to just be owned by Live Nation.

You know, we like Live Nation, but we're not on and we'll do this and that and that and this with these people and then the younger acts.

We're not really making deals with one agency.

I mean, I know those deals and I've seen them, and I see where they don't work for the artists.

You know, there's a there's a big size band that did one, and those deals are different thought the FLEETODMAC deals.

I mean it's like, okay, we get the next hundred shows or the same amount of time, and we'll figure out when they are, where they are.

All that kind of shit.

And it takes these bands years to recoup.

But what happened was their business skyrocket.

But you're living to that old guarantee.

Not a good deal.

You know.

Since the insolidation and professionalization of the live business, how does that work to the advantage your disadvantages of the acts.

M hmm.

I think there's there's, like you said, there's advantages and disadvantage.

You know.

It's like but with you know, Ticketmaster all that kind of stuff, you know, and the way life nation is with that kind of thing, it's potentially taking money off the table for the band.

It's really taking money away from the van, you know.

And but then again it's how you structure those deals, you know.

It's it's you need to can't do that, you can't do this, you know, and just negotiate it.

But it's it's it's certainly also hurt.

What I think is the marketing of of the tours of the bands.

So you go up on sale, you have a breakout, and then it's gone, okay, So you shall generate all your revenue over a week period of time, and the show's not for six months.

Nothing happens after that, even when you're going in market, unless you're stiffing, then they'll put a little more money into it.

Where when Don Law or Golden Voice or whatever, back in the old days, they would be firing stickering and there was really a presence of that band coming, which helps record sales, which helps everything else that's not there anymore.

It's like void.

I go to a Fleetwood mac shown Chicago sold out three in a row.

But if you didn't buy a ticket, you don't even know if they're there.

Where before even if you didn't go, you would see it and there was present.

Okay.

So that's a lot of the problem of the monumentality of how it is.

But it's radio is less important, so they don't win the radio.

You know, the Internet that's of the moment.

So is it a product of the way media has become or is it a product of way a major kind oft promoter saves money?

I don't know.

Let's talk about it a Can you talk about Fleewood Max an instant sellout?

Let's use zz top?

Did you bring them up?

Most of the gigs are non instant sellouts, So how do you ultimately fill the building?

We?

Yeah, with zz we have an insane database, okay, that we deal with.

We don't give it to someone and we're active in the database with our fans and they're aware of it.

We're not like blindsiding them, you know.

And that's a band that can still organically sell out over time for some reason.

Okay, are we doing that much different than the other band now, but it works.

And Zzi is an interesting thing because here's a band that does under shows here every year for seventeen years.

They've done it with me and they want it.

It's not manager saying to it I pull back, pull back you no, no, no gigsters.

You know, we're fucking gigsters.

All right, let's do it.

We got to be creative, we got to go into different markets.

Whatever.

But it's it almost becomes to a ZZ fan like an annual thing.

Okay, it's annual, you know, and those fans are so loyal to that band, and yeah, and we still you know, when I took Zzy on, I didn't really understand z Easytop, not musically, I mean the business I didn't understand.

So I went to Houston to the Houston Rodeo where they were playing in front of sixty five thousand people, and I decided just to walk the parking lot, you know, check out the vibe.

And because I was so focused on the coasts, you know, and so I see a grandmother, daughter, husband, their kids, like five of them walking into the venue, all ages, and they're all got ZZ shirts, Zazy cooozies these the acts, thesey everything.

I go, dude, these are loyal fans.

This is a business that I have not been in and I want to be a part of it.

And it's been successful.

But before I got involved, the manager prior didn't want them doing television, didn't want them doing articles, didn't want them to be exposed at all, and hit them because he thought, well, and he was right back in the old days, it's a mystery.

You don't give it all the way, you know whatever.

But in the new world of post MTV and social media and all this stuff.

So I did a documentary that did really well on Netflix with them.

I got them on television, I got them doing you know, big event shows, you know.

And so I took him out out of the fair business and brought them back into the hard ticket business that was Michael and I had some great agents that worked with me, that understood my vision, you know, and it worked out.

And now you know, we're bigger in Europe than we are in the United States.

And when I started with them, they hadn't been to Europe for ten years or something, you know, But we worked them in Europe and then they became Americana cheeky you know type thing over the real deal, the real deal.

We went to Australia this year, sold everything out, everything.

It was crazy doing eighteen bucks ahead and T shirts, all this stuff on fire, you know.

So we built them in other markets and we made it an international act and I Chase.

I spent a lot of time with Billy even about microphones you know or whatever, you know, and stage dressings and sets and all this kind of shit.

And Billy's a really smart guy and a very very spot on you know, but he was He was great, you know, he listened, he talked, we'd riff and we became close, you know, like all my clients and I'll have ten bad ideas and if there's one good one in there, we're winning or we're winning.

So okay, zz top one hundred dates a year actually don't represent sticks out every year, deaf leppards seemingly.

Everything ARD's amazing.

Okay.

In the old days they say let it lie fallow, Hey, what's your philosophy on that?

And b is this just going to go on forever?

Well, I think that the general philosophy is take those breaks, you know, because it refuels the T shirt business the ticket business all that.

Certain bands can get away with it.

I don't think many bands can do what sticks does c Z.

Cheap Trick another one of my bands, you know, Cheap Trick.

We took on Cheap Trick just four months ago.

I had them out with Easy.

This band can be something still.

This is an interesting band, you know, but it's kind of like they're working too much.

They're going into the wrong rooms, all that kind of stuff.

So I met the band, they decided to go with us, put two of my guys on it, and we're doing well.

And it's the same idea as Easy.

They you had to weed the garden.

You know, it's a dirty garden.

Let's make it a clean garden.

You know.

That's weed it to make it pretty, you know, And how do you do that will put them in the right place.

So let's talk about a band like Jeep Trick, well known rock and roll Hall of Fame members.

Is there any upside you're talking about Zezy Top business increased in Europe, but they haven't been there.

Is it more about maintaining the business of these acts or is there anything that could make it grow.

There's plenty of things that potent could make it grow.

Maintaining is not what our goal is when we get involved, you know, because once again, I was never a big cheap trick fan, Okay, but I knew they could play.

I think they still look good and they wrote some great fucking songs.

Okay.

So how do we expose them to different audience to not lose audience but gather more people that weren't ticket buyers, record buyers, whatever it is.

How do we do that by putting them in places they haven't been or giving them looks they've never had.

Just give me an example of both of those places they haven't been there.

We'll go out and open up for a band that you haven't opened up for ten million times, okay, go out with fucking Rod Stewart okay, or get them on a late night television show, even though that doesn't move the needle of sales, Okay, it doesn't, but it does impact the image and the perception of that band.

Okay.

Do things like that, you know, do a real documentary about the band in Rufford, Illinois, you know, or whatever.

It's like, it's it's educating people because I can play a cheap trick song surrender, Okay to my wife or to a friend and they, oh, I know that song, Well who does that song?

I don't know.

So it's educating people too on who wrote those songs and who's behind those songs.

And that is through proper articles, documentaries, you know, educational pieces.

And what's your philosophy on soft ticket sales soft ticket shows?

Well, dependents if it's if it's sometimes they're needy because it's part of the routing.

Okay ah to be a country act that only does soft tickets, which is not unique in that business.

You know, I think it does nothing for the building of the growth of the band, the loyalty to the band, all those things.

If I know I can see such and such act at a radio show every year, welly, I'm ever going to buy a ticket.

So how does that band make money in touring?

They don't.

Plus they're there for twenty other bands, and so what's the point.

You know, festivals that are heart ticket festivals, you know, like a bottle Rock or a Lolla plusa whatever.

I think are great, but not too much of it.

You know.

I think when we played and Zeezi played Stagecoach or Creed.

This last year played stage Coach, it was a fantastic moment because it was playing in front of people that never would have bought a ticket, and that brings even if you got half a percent of those people, that's growing business.

Okay, and word of mouth.

Boy, I saw a Creed.

I was in the gym and Sun Valley and one of the gym rats comes up to me and says, here, you work with Creed?

Go yeah, he goes, dude, I was at stagecoach.

Greatest show I've ever seen in my life, never seen them before, you know, And it's like, wow, okay, sweet, you know, but that just that alone.

They're talking.

Let's just talk Creed for a second now.

Scott Staff has a horrendous reputation.

Yeah, and uh, Creed.

A lot of people don't like, how do you rebuild Creed?

Well, it's working, okay, because if you look at the tickets out, it's huge right now.

Okay, it's huge.

It's it's arenas, it's sheds, and it's bigger than it's been for a long time.

How do you make them more acceptable to not their core?

Well that's a challenge.

Okay, Uh, but we kind of if you last Super Bowl, we had a commercial, you know, I can't even remember who it was for, but it was a commercial with a Creed song and the band briefly in it and all this kind of stuff.

That was one impression.

You know, they were down in Indianapolis five hundred performing with Tom Brady.

That was all over the place all sudden.

Okay, you're with somebody different, something new, and then people go to it and they're like, wow, this is pretty awesome.

You know.

And once again, wasn't a big Creed fan.

But I managed Scott a long time ago, okay, and he came back and asked me to be.

About Okay, So what's the future of rock?

All your big acts are rock acts.

They certainly have little participation in the Spotify tough fifty.

What's the state of rock and where's it going?

Well?

I think rock something changes and it changes every year.

Okay, But if we looked at where's going to be in ten years from now a few point of today, where can it go?

You know?

Ai TikTok.

All these different mediums and technologies will erase the organic band and rock was based on real bands, real writers and working hard to build a handbase, not of the moment.

Okay, and rock Rock's hot now, but I don't know how it survives social media, okay, and long term I'm not sure.

Okay.

So finally, what is the future of the business.

Some people in certain businesses they said, well, I'm not going to live that long and I'll just ride into the sunset and that's it.

You're obviously not that guy, because you said you already have enough money.

You know, you're not working for the money or the money's always nice.

I like money.

Everybody likes it's solid.

I'm not that right.

So where is the business going?

What changes do you see and where is it going to end up?

I don't know the answer to that, because you read Gibbons sent me this podcast guy and I can't think of his name.

It was talking about music sucks now Rick Beatle, Yeah, did you see that thing?

Yeah?

And you start what the hell you know?

Or that you know?

And I watched that.

It's just so scary, you know, and it's so anti what I think.

And it's about art, you know, it's even if you the Bob Dylan movie okay, okay, whether you like it or not, Okay, the Bob Dyler movie.

It showed a moment in music history.

Okay, when it was pure, when they really cared and worked hard, and yeah they wanted success, they needed money, but it was like a community and it was fucking cool, you know.

And if it's going farther and farther away from there, so if that continues that path, it will be artists that aren't real artists or music that lives for five minutes and gone, and there won't be the Bob Dylan's, the Fluid Max, the Zzy Tops whatever, you know, they won't be able to come back.

It's not geared that way anymore.

It's not so eventually what happens then, well it's all synthetic shit, you know, And so who are the artists?

Who cares for the artists?

I just like to listen to the song.

Listen, you listen to your favorite band from the seventies, it brings a memory, you know.

These songs are not memorable.

These songs are not a memory.

Watermelon Sugar and I love Harry Styles great, I like them, But is that going to ten years from now, twenty years in somebody's life be a memory, you know, like like a Zeppelin song and Pink Floyd the Wall or whatever.

Yeah, but the record we sat down I had my friends come over, we played it.

I shared the record with them.

You know, that whole community, it's not there anymore, and without community long term is scary.

Okay, you're going to do it till you drop.

You ever gonna rend?

No, Well, at some of them probably, you know, at some level.

Although watched tomorrow announce that I'm retiring and I'm going to some valley and I'm working on a pick a ball game and skiing every day.

How about that?

But I got fifty days in this.

Year, so I got one hundred and two.

Where three of them in Aspen, the rest in Veil.

But that's a separate conversational.

That's a separate conversation.

But you're obviously building an asset.

Yeah, yeah, so at some point you want to sell it.

Yeah, at some point, could be soon.

Uh well, let's just assume.

Just assume it is soon.

A lot of people I know are in your boat whose money is not the primary driver.

They don't want to be on the outside.

They don't want to miss the action.

Could you literally say, Okay, I'm done and I'm living in Sun Valley, I got a young kid.

Everything's groovy and I'm happy.

Are you going to say, shit, you know, the email's not coming in.

I'm not on a plane.

This is weird, No, I take I think I'm a little different than that, you know, I think c W.

It's this shoulder, carls that shoulder.

C W's still there.

S kee bum, okay, skey bum.

I'm acting Carl every day.

Well, maybe that act is over.

I go back to CW.

And by the way, I own pieces of restaurants, I own a musical, I own this.

I'll keep those things, you know.

But if I if I was to sell the company, I'd have to stay with the company because the company's predicated on me as the driver.

It's a service business, so it's not an asset, so you have to stay for a while.

I'm not necessarily forever.

But then it becomes like an emeritis chairman or whatever it is, you know, and you're still involved, you know, and your kid's going to be successful in it, Jackson is going to be you know, and you're advising that there's plenty of action in my life not to have to be day to day okay involved.

However, for the next probably three to five years, I'm definitely day today.

You know, there's no outing because I'm not prepared to let even if I don't.

If I weren't selling, weren't going to sell it, and I'm not saying I'm selling right now.

But if the plan was for always, then I got to still build it bigger so it survives better chance of survival.

So I'm committed to that.

And on that note, I think we've come to the end of the feeling we've known.

Carl, thanks so much for spending this time with my audience and going through the history and philosophy.

Yeah, it's my pleasure, you know.

I just hope I didn't say too many times.

He's got that right on.

I don't think so.

Until next time.

This is Bob left Sex

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