hi my name is Owen honey and we're sitting here in Marina del Rey at the edge of the ocean the edge of the United States and I'm here to talk about a few experiences that I've had a long way since 1902 in this business and hopefully shed some light and be helpful as well yeah I actually started when I was about 16 and I want to become a junior counselor at a summer camp in in Minnesota and I'm sitting there and one of the nights and traveling guitar players came through and I just said this is what I want to do this is gonna be it this is what this is my life and they showed me how to make a G chord or a D chord or something like that and so I spent you know the rest of the time at camp went home from camp and sold my clarinet which I've been playing for I don't know eight years and and bought a Sears silvertone guitar it was a very nice read of course you could slice salami on the strings but it was so far off but I 101 bought that guitar and then traded in something else much to my parents sugar in a camera what it was was something else for a reverb unit so I could emulate the surf sound at that time and be just like the Beach Boys I grew up being a little thinking left of center right to center whatever the the crazy creative part of you is and I was constantly chided and beat up in junior high and high school and I was the kid that you loved to lock in the lockers and and and do all that because I was this creative kid who didn't play sports I didn't go for football and I wasn't doing this kind of stuff so let's beat this little Owen kid up and let's lock him in his locker and do all of that so the story is actually one of those great you know one of those great stories that I started a band shortly after I really went down to my parents basement and just learned how to play that guitar like crazy and maybe about six seven months later came upstairs and said I'm starting a rock and roll band and I went to the school principal and asked the school principal of my band could play the homecoming party and he said well we've never had young kids play live here before maybe you youngsters could come in and play well we came in and for whatever reason we were good the pieces you know we weren't unbelievably proficient musicians but we had great attitude and style and on stage and everything and somehow we had that that passion and we came in and everyone showed up at the homecoming dance to watch the school nerd make a fool out of himself so the reason that it was packed at the homecoming dance was God the nerd isn't a fan we got to see this guy and I'm telling you that for whatever reason we were great and what came out of that was we played every dance after that and I went immediately to the you know number one guy in school much to the chagrin of the football players and you know the career you know the career was launched that summer after graduating high school we cut a little record my uncle owned a little recording studio and he was actually a big distributor in the business for a long time and he he had a little studio we went and cut the record in the studio and we pressed it up and brought it out I brought it out to the station back in the days when you could physically take your product out to the station and the DJ actually said hey I'll listen to it if it's any good I'll play it I had already had girls sitting by their phones and said if again this was wdg Y in Minneapolis Minnesota the big a.m. you know rock and roll station summer of 65 and I already had girls lined up to call and he did spin the record and all of a sudden his phone lines lit up was like right out of one of those movies and they said we got something here so the record went number one in Minneapolis and number one in Milwaukee the number one in Chicago the number one in North Dakota South Dakota Iowa Kansas City st. and it just spread to about 19 cities so suddenly I was you know went from being beat up and shoved in my locker too on tour you know it was a lot of fun I mean a whole lot of money and spent all of it so at the end of we toured for about five years and at the end of that tour my agent called up and said well I don't have that big you know three thousand seater in Kansas City for you to play anymore but I'll tell you what I got a week at the Holiday Inn and Duluth and I said I'm out of here you know you know we were really good at what we did but I knew there were a lot better musicians out there so I was a miniature one-hit wonder I was happy to do that and I figured my life is going to be helping musicians to get were they gone out because in the middle of all that I found that my manager was ripping us off so I fired him and I became the manager of the band gotten control of the money and everything that was going on well we discovered we were broke so I had to sell my Jaguar XKE the lead singer had to sell his Thunderbird and we had enough money to get an apartment and go to work selling aluminum siding for about four months and then there was a local booking agency and we actually sold so much aluminum siding that they gave us nicknames which I'm not going to tell you but we were able to sell a lot of aluminum siding for in that four month period the lead singer and myself and it was great because we were in a phone room and nobody could see you and we were very well known in our city at that time you know and so what happened was someone that I knew in town was a booking agent and I went to work for him we eventually became partners but one of the interesting things that happened was when the national promoters came in town they called our agency and said can you put one of your local bands on as an opening act so I just said to them okay I'll give you the opening act and how about if we handle any arrangements backstage food for you by the way we do that and which I'd never done in my life you know but we do that we have a whole full-service you know company here we'll provide the food backstage we'll make your arrangements well the hall for you and the guy said okay you why don't you do that well so what happened was I started out being the guy I would supply the local band to go on for the major artists like when Steppenwolf and Janis Joplin and all this came through I was the guy that fold the baloney in the back you know in the dressing room and and made the arrangements but the great thing about it was while I was folding the baloney and making sandwiches out of it for the backstage food for these major artists that were coming into town I got to hear a lot of the discussions between the artists and the managers and the rest of the band members well still you know stuff and Wolf would come in and I was just silent the back room making potato salad or whatever getting ready for them to eat but I was privy to all of their discussions between the managers between the artists you know it was very similar to the discussions that went on in my band in the in the mid-60s but I began to understand how it worked and what the problems of the business were and the malaise and the egos and you know all of that stuff that that went on then one day I was I went to see an act it was Richard Harris and Richard Harris had won an Academy Award for a man called Horace and then he had a song written by I think Jimmy Webb which was MacArthur Park someone left a cake out in the rain and so I I went to see him he had a full orchestra I like the song MacArthur Park it was huge it was number one and there were I walked in with my date and doubled the audience and I thought well this is a travesty this has guys got a number-one record he's a star he's won an Academy Award he's got a hit record no one's here and I was looking around I thought you know there's some college kids here this isn't the right audience his demographic his his main target profile is a 35 year old woman that's who he appealed to so I wrote him a letter and dropped it at the hotel and I said you know I am able to go out on tour with you and build your audiences it's terrible mr. Harris that there's only you're you're not selling out you should be sold out packed I have experience and I've been doing this forum in which I had never done in my life I can go out and build your audiences on the road for you know this is a Minneapolis and I dropped it off at this some big letter and I dropped it off at the hotel well two days later I get a call from his manager and he says boy you're pretty good at what you do I said oh yeah I've been doing it for years and blah blah blah blah he says well we're gonna fly you down to Miami Beach tomorrow can you be on a plane I want you to meet with Richard Harrison myself and tell us your plan and so I hung up the phone it's like oh god what am I gonna do I've never done this before what am I gonna do now so next day I'm sitting in there with Richard Harris and his manager was the next day on the tour and I had presented a plan for me to go in a week ahead of Richard Harris into all the markets and get all the midday shows which were all these 35 year old women were you know that was his target demo and get all these shows well they all wanted to see Richard here so I went in a week before ahead of him he was with his road manager and then I would line up all these daytime shows going to the market and talk to the radio guys in the afternoon guys and the midday shows all that stuff and long story short was and he he would come in and he would do all these shows for like a couple of days and after about three weeks of doing this nothing more than three weeks we started to get to half audiences and 3/4 audiences and I had never really been out on tour with anybody like that you know and and it started to work actually and to the point where we've got sold-out shows and then he asked me to do the Tonight Show with him and be there with him and do all that kind of stuff I can't remember the whole thing about this and I'm going back to ancient history but I think his wife was leaving him at the time for George Harrison or something and he was just despondent he was you know may he rest in peace he was he's a great and gifted human being and he wised up a lot later but I mean this is the man they could sit down and do 20 drinks at once and so I found myself carrying him out of more places and breaking up fights and so I learned that part of it and then after that I went out on the road with other artists oh and I was Sonny and Cher I went out with the stones I went out with Alice Cooper and doing their their publicity out there everything was leading up to being a manager which I did not want to be I felt it was a really stupid thankful estaba which it is about them and what happened was I came back to Minneapolis and got off all those tours and then I started partnering with the concert promoters so then I became the promoter over there in my wall as my first show I did the Doobie Brothers with argent and the Bob Seger the Bob Seger group and then from there we I did tons of shows into the Rolling Stones and I was the guy that you know was the promoter and partnered in a lot of different cities in the Midwest you know I was the concert promoter and I had a little recording studio and I was kind of the you know the guy about town and there was one band that I saw and I never wanted to be a manager but I thought I could really make him happen I can't remember oh remember there's their record their single or their demo that they gave me was called long arm of the law and so I started trying to say oh maybe I should manage these guys maybe I can put him on some of the shows that I'm you know promoting and I got into a big battle with them because I think it was black sabbath's manager at the time was also on to the group and he wanted so I got into this big battle going on in the midst of that battle this kid calls me up and he says I've got the next greatest thing on the face of the earth and I said you know I've heard that a million times and he said I've got the next greatest thing on the face of the earth you're not gonna believe this so I said yeah see you later meanwhile he comes and he's sitting on my couch in my office and I won't answer the phone and I won't answer that I mean I won't let him see me and at the end of the week I finally felt sorry for him and I said all right come on into my office play me this demo of this next greatest thing so he he puts it on and I listened to the first song on there I said you know what this is real this is the real thing I mean who's the group he says sit down I said come on I don't sit down do you know he says I'm telling you sit down and I said no just tell me who the group is he said well it's one kid he's 16 he's playing all the instruments writing everything and singing all the voices and it's all him so I sat down and I said well does he does he live here and and he said no he's in New York visiting his sister so I got on the phone and I called him and he came back and it turned out that that was Prince so at that point I decided that I would probably try to manage him and get into the management business and you know and be a part of all that and I call him I came back and I met him when I saw the fire in his eyes and the the attitude and the direction and the focus and the passion that this kid had when I saw all of that I thought okay I've got to devote my life to this because this is the real thing I knew I needed to raise money for it all so I got a doctor and a lawyer to put up $50,000 each and we got him in the studio my studio was just a demo studio I went to a bigger studio and we did the demo you know there's a lot of other stories that reasons that you know how he got signed and why he got signed and all that but I did it you know I did a pretty famous trick as is we had the demo done and I knew that who knew me I'm just just Schmo from Minneapolis Minnesota who cares about me and the big business out there in Los Angeles California so I got on the phone and I called Warner Brothers and I said you know Columbia Records is flying us out they're paying for everything for this child genius and you know while we're out there would you want to hear it too and the guy was like yeah sure no problem I got off the phone with him and I called Columbia and I said listen Warner Brothers is flying out to hear this child genius you know and there's like yeah no problem which please see us you know when you're out here you know we'd love to see you they're freaking out son Warner Brothers nickeled Warner Brothers thinks it's on Columbia then I called A&M records and and I said listen we're being flown out by by Columbia Records do you want to hear yeah yeah yeah so I got into all those we put together the demo I called in a friend of mine who actually was in my band with me to produce the demos he actually has not become a pretty famous producer produced a lot of major hit records and I called him into the to do the demo and you know the whole point of the story and everything that I've done is to be really stupid because if anyone would have ever told me what I would have had to go through you know if they would have said okay you're gonna have to do this and you're gonna have to do this you have to be in a band then you got to think about doing this and you have to manage an idea I never would have done it it would have been way too much work I would have been free so the whole secret to this business is a never give up and be just be stupid just you know when they tell you you should get out and don't do it just do it that's the whole you know and and and that's what I kept doing is I just kept moving forward moving forward with it and then finally to the point where we had the biggest artist signing of 1977 I stayed for a while we did a few albums there and you know he prints actually lived with me so my then wife and myself we brought him into the house and and he lived with us when he put everything together and and and did all that and we became surrogate parents for probably three or four years and there came to be a time where it just got to be so much work for me and it was getting crazy and I there was a lot of other things that I wanted to do and there was other acts that I wanted to manage and I knew that he it was my first time I just decided you know I was lucky I wanted to be in a band in my life and all of a sudden we had a little miniature hit record you know I wanted to be you know a concert promoter and I'm bringing in all the major acts I wanted to go on the road I'm on the road I was very very lucky I wanted to be a manager okay now we found a superstar but at that time I really didn't I never managed anyone before and there are a lot of people who were much better at it than I was subsequently you know I managed for many many years after that so I had to make a decision I didn't want to hold him back because and that's a very good thing for aspiring artists is you know the first time that you become an art you know you decide you're gonna become to become an artist you know you can't get a manager so who do you get as your manager oh you know my friend's cousin was in a band he knows us he can manage you or remember Uncle Ed he was in a band in 1952 he knows the business he can so you get with these people that aren't and what happens is the band is learning at the same time that the manager is learning that's not good your manager needs to be ahead of you and have the contacts and so I knew that at that time you know I was okay when it was smaller but as we started to get bigger and bigger and bigger I came to the realization that I could go on so I sold my contract to two other managers and I held on to a lot of Rights which I settled later on so everything everything turned out very nicely no complaints here but you know there was a time that I knew that either I was going to look like a fool or I was going to damage the artist and I didn't want to sue him or have him sue me so I just I just did the most prudent thing which is to sell the contract make it all clean and let him go on I think he's one of the most gifted artists that will ever pass through our our gates here and on this earth he is Prince is talented beyond anybody's understanding of what he you know of what he of what he is and he is but he records all the time there's stuff in his vaults that when it comes and maybe even posthumously we're gonna look back and then he might be one of those Beethoven Mozart guys he has he is of that ilk he may have painted himself in look in a corner you know by doing some of the antics that he did but you never discount the talent of that individual from me from one of the greatest jazz players I've ever heard I mean just a total natural pure gift and I'll tell you something the true gift of a manager is to understand who that artist is and make that artist happen by not exploiting that artist or turning that artist into something else I mean case in point Prince was a very very shy person he's always been shy he's been that way since the day that I met him so I wasn't gonna put him in a three-piece suit or turn him into a James Brown or you know somebody that's gonna walk and talk and do all that what I did and I developed this press kit which is on the wall here is I left his mystery in place so I took what was that artist and made that bigger than life the best thing that a manager can do is look out for the needs and wants of their artist and be able to communicate the reality blows of the business to that artist and to be totally honest with their artist and know when not to bring certain pieces of information to the artist you may not want your artist to read certain reviews you might advise them just don't read reviews anymore because they're all gonna come at you you're putting yourself out there another thing that a manager has to understand is that an artist especially I only work with people who write their own material I don't I don't I've never worked with anyone who hasn't written their own material I I'm sort of I don't go that route I enjoy the true talent is to understand that that artist who's being creative is putting their mind out for others to accept or reject is they are putting they are putting themselves on the line so when we do a showcase and there's a writer and there's a band and that writer has you know here's my song and then somebody flat-out rejects it it's not like we're here and we're selling we're stocking salesmen you know and we go to a store and somebody doesn't want to buy your stockings and you can go well alright maybe the design wasn't that great whoever designed it okay I'll go home was a bad day they are rejecting your mind they're rejecting your soul they're rejecting the vulnerability that you've made you you've made yourself completely vulnerable for someone to accept or reject so a true manager you know while they're making sure that the food is in the dressing room and making sure that you're you know you're out there and making sure that you're getting the dates and the bookings of getting you you know trying to get you a record deal Alma also has to understand what that what that artist is putting out there and when they get rejected it's it's deep it's a thousand million times deeper for that and it's to be able to understand and work within that and even work within that in the studio and to communicate the you know the reality blows most artists who have been tremendously successful had very poor first albums and to you know be with that artist and get them to get to that next album and convince the record label that they've got to be and fight for your artists you've got to be as passionate about what you do is what your you know what your artist does you know so what is a good manager able to do good manager is able to surround himself with the right people you know you know over the years I've learned a lot about Entertainment Law so I can look at contracts and know what's good bad and ugly about them but I'm not a lawyer so the first thing I do is I go out and try to find the best available entertainment lawyer now there because that could only make you look good you know there's a lot and if you can't find the top and go out get the number one in New York or Los Angeles or Nashville or wherever they'd Chicago or wherever it's going to be there's a lot of good mid-level lawyers around but there's a lot of questions that have to be that you have to take care of there's a lot of things that have to be taken care of for your artists you know the publishing the write contracts agent contracts all of this kind of stuff so you have to look out for your artist it can't be any guessing you can't have uncle head from down there down the road doing uncle ed can do it to help you get to that next stage but uncle dad's got to know that he's out the minute of profession but you know professional comes in and you know it's it's difficult to explain because I I've only done it by second you know it's just kind of second nature oh I need to have a really great attorney behind this but I think that most managers are just out there fighting the fight for their artists communicating the reality blows for their artist to you know the reality blows that happen in the business to their artists taking care of we taking care of them understanding who they are not trying to turn them into something else or change them and that goes the same for a lot of producers in the studio you don't want to take an artist that Zin and say okay listen let's add you know cowbells unless have you sound like you know captain to Neil you have to take what is what is central to that artist and make it bigger than life not try to change them or in print you are sound or do anything like that on there the relationship between a manager and artist is you've got to be not only their father and their mother but you've got to be their best friend and you have to be their business manager it's a very tough role to be in you get a percentage of their career and you get a percentage of you know you get a percentage of their recording career their royalties their publishing if they're a writer they're touring their merchandising there are placements of their songs into film television and commercials which is called licensing you know I'm managing a group right now it was being romanced by every major label out there and the first thing that the writer said to me is I don't want my songs used in commercials I don't ever want to look up and see my song that I've written used in a hemorrhoid commercial or a car commercial or a cigarette commercial and that's you know I've gotta fight for that if I believe in that artist even though it's very lucrative you know I just saw I couldn't believe it because he's from my hometown to Bob Dylan and a financial planning commercial that's that's beyond but I thought people are doing it Led Zeppelin in a Cadillac commercial I guess all the hippies grew up and are now you know upper-middle class and they were looking at Cadillacs and they're all my age so they all want Cadillacs oh wow here's Robert Plant so you have to fight for the rights of your artists you have to have enough of an understanding you have to be their best friend you have to really know the business I've heard more people tell me these days get everything you can out of a record label because you're never gonna see anything again and you know in a way it's true in a way it's not I mean if you become you know go out and sell five million units you're gonna make a lot of money off your deal but it is true that you can make a ton of money on tour and your merchandising and a lot of Acts and everyone there making a lot of money if you're not a writer you know your putt if you're a writer you know there's two forms to making a CD or a record there's two forms to it the person that performs it and the person that writes it so like in the case of the Beatles for the most part they wrote and perform their own stuff so your publishing deal is for those who wrote it and your your record royalties are for those who performed it on the record so maybe you and I could have written you know you and I could go out and form our band right now and we could form a band we could do let it be by the Beatles we'll get the money for the record sales but Paul McCartney will get the money for writing it so there's two forms you know two forms to that and you know how those duffer got to got off on a tangent on that but I wanted to explain that the two parts to it so a lot of times you can make money on your publishing as well you might write a hit record that is a flop for your own group but it goes on to become a number-one record for someone else so you're still gonna get a lot of money doing that there's so many income streams involved in being a music artist you know you have your performance for your record royalties you have your publishing for if you wrote this on you have your merchandising you have your touring and you have the licensing of though of those songs into film television and commercials to be very lucrative you know most artists these days get caught in that big trap and that trap is okay we're gonna you think you're great you know your band the four chairs we think they're the greatest thing we've seen we will give you a half a million dollars to sign you know to sign your band all right we're then gonna put you know we're going to give you another hundred and fifty thousand dollars in tour support then we're gonna give you this advance then we're gonna give you that advance then we're gonna put money into here well you have to pay the record label back they just don't give you that money and you've won the lottery out of that five hundred thousand you're gonna probably make your record 450,000 dollars then you're gonna go out in the roads you're gonna take another hundred and fifty thousand and tourist support then you have living expenses out of that gee pretty soon you're what we call Unruh cooped that's when you have to pay what they gave you back comes time to pay the piper so you go out and have a big fat gold record wow we're hot we've got a gold record gee that cold rut you're still all the records company money after that record because let's say I'm just using some round terms here let's just say you're only getting a buck fifty an album back and you sold 500,000 records you could still be Unruh cooped now the label says well we think you're either they're gonna drop you and say get out of here or they're gonna say gee we think you're great let's do another record now you're getting another six seven hundred thousand dollars that you're gonna owe the record label back you can be a million dollars on recoup to your record label have a platinum album and still not have any money out of your record label now again I'm using very loose terms and I'm very using loose numbers and doesn't always happen that way but more often than not it does happen that way or you get a whole bunch of money from a record label as in advance and you go out and sell 75,000 units and the label says you're out of here and your career is washed-up it's a real balance of how you spend that money and where it comes from but you can have you can be a mediocre success you can go out and have a gold album and you can go out on the road for 7,500 bucks at night and you can play three nights a week and so that's what is that somebody it's 15 that's 20 let's call it twenty two thousand a week and you can play 50 dates I can't do the math but fifty times twenty two thousand there's a lot of money so that's there there are ways to go out there and make money happen if you very shrewd about your money do you sign with these big behemoths these big behemoth record labels versus the indie route for some artists it's good to go an indie route now you may instead of getting you know two hundred and fifty thousand to make your record you might get five thousand or ten thousand and there's a lot of you know quandary do we go in D do we go to a major label what's the best for us I'm even struggling that with you know with my group right now you know do we go in D do we go to the major label well there's pros and cons on both sides yes if you sign to the big behemoth major label you're going to get a bunch of money you could be unridden your career could be over tomorrow however if you are going to be successful then you better be on a major label because when that chairman says gee this record by the four chairs is getting a lot of play around the United States I'm going to push that button when he pushes that button or she pushes that button your records are in every store in America probably in Europe when they decide to get behind your record and push that big button so you if you believe in yourself and you think you're fabulous then you're going to want to be on a major record label because they're gonna get your records into the stores I don't call them CDs I call them records they're gonna get your records into the stores everywhere and they're gonna get behind you if you flop you're gonna flop big-time in a major label and they're gonna kick you up and you could be you know washed-up indie label you can get a lot of attention on an indie label you can get them working side by side with you getting out getting you out on the road helping you sell your CDs off the road you know from your car from wherever you're going to be doing it which is what bands nowadays should be doing anyways they will help you they an indie label can send you out under the radar you can build a fanbase in a lot of cities like so you're not going to sign for a lot of money you're not going to make your CD for a lot of money but they will pay you the absolute attention and they have a lot of connections to get you into this club in Tulsa and this club in Phoenix so the first time you get into that Club maybe there's nine people that see you the second time you come back there there's 20 people you're selling your CDs the third time you come back you know to Ann Arbor now it's there's 500 people in the club and so of what a band really wants to do in that situation is they can an indie label will get behind you you can get out on the road you can build a base at colleges and do all of that and you can get knowing that bands have to tour these days they have to get out and build that base in each of these cities and build a fan base you've got to do that and then you take your stack of CDs and you sell them at the gig for you know $8 a piece so let's say you're getting you know $300 to play the gig and now you sold another $300 in CDs you're getting $600 you know you move on to the next city and that indie label supporting your problem with the indie label is they don't have the funding to be able to get you any kind of airplay properly in this day and age which the whole state of radio in America right now is abhorrent and they're not going to be able to really get the giant funding let's say your record stars to take off in Phoenix and all of a sudden you're huge and then it spreads to other cities and they may not be able to react fast and if their distribution stream may not be as large but I believe they both have functions but you know just in the case of Nirvana nirvana they were on what Sub Pop eventually they had to go to a major to real I think they went to Geffen to make them happen there are a few good labels out there these days there are some systems that aren't broken there aren't labels that have been bought by you know other companies that have nothing to do with the music business and then they fire all the good people within them because they're crank in the numbers even the big behemoth record label should have true little indie offshoots that just do nothing but get bands out there and build fan bases in these cities and then if the band starts to make it they can just walk up stairs to the behemoth that to me would be the the good model for it to happen cuz then your band isn't you know you're not Unruh cooped for all these millions of dollars walking into your next record you're not spit out place you know what happens is at the majors you get all of this money and it really comes down to a bean-counter within that label because the bean-counter in the meetings that they all go into because there it is a business there's two words to show business show and business artists have to understand that but it comes down to the point where you say god we really love that group the four chairs we all think they're great but geez they only sold 70,000 units so the bean counter you know he rolls up the sleeves and he brings out his pencil and scratching his head and he says we got to get rid of so you're done at the behest of a bean counter it's endemically the problem with record labels today that they do not spend the time to develop artists so if I could give any artist or any band the greatest key is build your fan base get out on the road however you can demonstrate that you've sold 5,000 CDs because the record labels today want to deliver it on a silver platter I could never have signed prints today in this atmosphere they want to come out and see you they want to they want to the labels that I have seen want instantaneous hits they don't want to develop you they don't want to what you know waste two or three albums it's too expensive radio promotion is too expensive marketing is too expensive so they want you to come intact like you've been on the road and you're the Rolling Stones after the fifteenth year and they want you to have you know five hits under your belt you know Warren the greatest thing that happened at Warner Brothers back in 1977 was I had to go convince the chairman of Warner Brothers mo Ostin that a 17 year old kid who had never made a record before was going to produce his own album in the studio and he looked up at me and he said okay I believe in this artist I believe we're gonna have to waste an album but I'll give it to you I'll stand behind you and he did that and that will never happen today in today's and it just won't happen they'd look at you like you were crazy they don't they want it all delivered on a silver platter it's what it's wrong record labels the record label should be developing artists that's their business not bringing it to them on a silver platter because what happens is you have an A&R man at a record label in our person at a record label and they're not being groomed and developed because if they signed the XYZ act and that act doesn't make it they're out of a job it's like instantaneous it's McDonald's the biggest problem today is the lack of development of artists and and and people within companies that passionately in outside of companies managers people inside of record labels that will passionately fight for their artists case in point with prints again the senior vice president who became eventually the the chairman of Warner Brothers a guy named rusty rat he was senior vice president of radio a promotion at that time and we became best friends at that time he's one of the reasons that Prince got signed to Warner Brothers he walked into a meeting and said if you don't sign this kid I quit this company there's no one that would ever do that these days plus the system is a little broken done I'm gonna get my hands hit with a ruler for saying this what the behemoth record labels do these days and they've always done it but now people are growing tired of it and I think the internet is gonna eventually in the next 20 years is gonna throw some competition at it is the the record the big behemoth record labels will loan you 500,000 to live on and make your album okay and then you incremental II pay that back to them through your record royalties maybe a buck fifty or two dollars an album you pay that back to them and gee one day you've paid all that money back isn't that terrific but guess what they still own you're a creative work your album you'd be like if you came to me as a painter and you said can you loan me money I'm a van Gogh and you create the most wonderful painting and I'll own you you know a thousand dollars to make that painting and then you pay me that money back and I still own your painting that's gonna have to get changed but I don't think it's gonna happen this year I don't think it's gonna happen many many moons you know down so what happens to an atmosphere where bands aren't developed anymore you have these McDonald hit bands you get these boy bands that come up and you get these bands that you know that's why people are complaining about music these days for the most part it did you get this McDonald's atmosphere this you know this music is pushed out on radio and you have to pay promotion men to go out and get these things played on radio you can only push the most instantaneous thing you get bands that are never gonna leave their mark on this earth I'd love to name him right now but I'm not going to but we all know who they are they are not going to leave their mark on this earth we haven't seen a band come along that's gonna I think maybe you two nirvana for me was one of the last bands that you know I'm sure a lot of people argue but you know when I first heard Nirvana 92 or whatever it was it was like oh thank God we're back to some real music again I don't see that happening I turn on the radio and slate oh my gosh this is pablum this is you know it's just BS and it's begin and and yet it's moving out there the development is gone and that is a sad state of affairs for truly creative artists the nurturing the passion I had a band that we gave a showcase they flew us to New York the this is a huge record label everyone here on the west coast loved this artist they thought this is the greatest thing they've ever seen every person that worked in the label every secretary came to the showcase every day and our guy every senior VP and they all could not believe it they wanted us to play for the chairman of their company in in New York and we went out there and played for the chairman of that record label and the chairman was like not a hundred percent on the group all of these people fled for the walls and completely abandoned this group because they were worried about their jobs because the Emperor wasn't a hundred percent couldn't get him on the phone again they were calling me five times a day now we're in the business who's gonna fight for you that's got to be your manager now who's gonna fight passionately for you I mean I've been on the phone passionately fighting for this particular band because it's stupid the passion is gone so you have to create your passion and you have to fight and you have to do this so I'm sorry I know I'm an older guy but I grew up in a day where if it was good it was good and you fought for it and we weren't worried about the numbers that much we were worried about your development as a creative artist so my thing for bands today is do as much of your creative development early on guitar just get real about your songs try to surround yourself with some people who can pull you up rather than you're having to pull them up isn't you know get yourself around better musicians fine coal lights don't be hung up and writing by yourself get yourself to some other people to co-write start getting your band out on the road and selling some of you know anybody can press up a CD these days so you can cut you anybody can record Pro Tools or whatever there's a million systems out there that you can make do you're gonna have to do a lot of the work yourself these days you're gonna have to get your Pro Tools rig or whatever you know rig is out there record your stuff get that CD pressed up on your little you know burn your CDs get as many gigs as possible and you're gonna have to get into as many cities or wherever you can and start selling these CDs out of the trunk of your car there's so many avenues for bands to make money that are not dependent upon record labels but they can use to cause attention to get the labels in gosh if you could self you know 100 CDs a week at $8 hundred bucks a week now let's say you're playing two gigs at 150 or making a lot your band is bringing in 50 grand a year you've got to be businesspeople yourselves as artists and and I do believe a lot of artists are more astute these days as to the business you know back in the 50s and early 60s oh you didn't get your record royalties well hey I bought you a Cadillac instead why don't you just take that Cadillac and drive it off those days are gone artists have to be smart about the business they have to be smart about getting their bands together rehearsing their bands cutting their music and then cutting through but it can be done so you may have to leave your hometown and you may have to leave Des Moines and you may have to move to LA or New York or Nashville or Chicago or anyplace where there's a music scene you know Bob Dylan there was no business entity in Minneapolis he was from northern Minnesota there was no business entity so he had to believe and he had to leave and become a New York signing because the business ain't gonna be there in Des Moines or you know Biloxi maybe not your chances of getting yourself to a manager is to move you got to move to where the ducts are as much as we hate it a lot of people make a lot of jokes about Los Angeles but you know the band that I'm managing if you if you're lucky enough to get a gig at the Viper Room or at the Key Club here even though some people don't like those gigs and there happens to be an A&R person just you know having a drink there or see their to see another band and they catch your band your debts where they are that a an hour person chances are they're not winding up and you know in you know three quarters three corners Illinois it's just so you really have if you believe in yourself you have to at least take that shot in your life to get to a place where these people are and then when these managers come to you and they say man I used to manage the Rolling Stones I can't tell you how many people I bumped into that managed prints that discovered prints that told me to my face you know I discovered prints you know so they're always out there but you can you can check those people out and you can start reading some of these books online as a wealth of information you don't have to become a lawyer or anything you know just have to have a general sense of what is publishing how to record labels make money how do I make money from record labels and it's out there now my biggest word of advice to managers and artists and anyone who wants to be in this business is there is really no such thing as luck you know how you hear god this guy was so lucky you know and I and I camera who told this to me early on it's not original I wish it was but and I'll tell you my one which is original luck is preparation meeting opportunity so if you're not prepared when the opportunity comes along it's not going to be right I mean you know if you can't play your guitar or sing and you know you know you know mr. a and I our guy comes into your town you're not gonna make it if you're prepared and then an opportunity comes along that's luck gee that A&R guy came into town discovered this artist but there are have been practicing in their basement for you know 5000 days and had been out touring and had gotten in front and worked and wrote songs and did it so luck is really preparation meeting opportunity that's what it is and then my other saying is you can fool all the people some of the time and that's enough to make a damn good living
