i had four meeting today and met 7 people. all in the music industry and all who were willing to talk to me and share advice so here it goes.
okay so i talked to Randy at bluewater music first. so he started by explaining that there are three types of music publishing: 1. full publisher 2. sub-publisher 3. administrator (collecting money and licensing). initially bluewater was a full publisher with lots of number one hits and a large collection. but then publishing and sub-publishing wasn't as profitable so they started to join societies directly, including 24 foreign counties. they also added management. but now they have over 40,000 copyrights, and have worked with NeedtoBreathe and the writer for Imagine Dragons. Randy overseas sync licensing and royalties and helps sign and maintain clients. he had a meeting with a client after me about modifying their contract or something. he went to MTSU and studying music business and first he interned with a talent buyer and then they hired him. he saw a job opening here at bluewater and someone he knew, knew them so he had her call them up which helped get him the job. he really likes his job and he doesn't want to do anything else. he said networking is the key because it is hard to find a job posting and everyone wants a job in the music business.
also the US is the only country the handles music publishing the way it does. they are on a 200% scale and everyone else is 100%. the US is also the only place where the label pays the publisher directly, others have mechanical.
he also suggested that bands keep their own publishing. with an admin deal they only take 10% versus the 50% that a publisher gets. all that the music business will probably keep falling until 2018-2019. but Japan is reluctant to take on the digital and streaming because they are still making money off of things like ringtones.
After I talked to Randy I was waiting in the conference room to talk to Brownlee, the CEO of the company. and he walks in and asks if i'll go for a drive because he has to go buy a book. so of course i said yes. i could have defended myself if it went south so i was confident, plus i decided to trust him.
but he is an interesting guy. he is definitely a CEO, businessman. he reminded me of my dad a lot. so i was kind of intimidated. but he said no notes, plus we were in a car, so i have to try to remember. i think i started with asking him about management. oh okay right. so he was saying how the music industry was changing and how he had to change his business model and he moved towards artist management as well. and how he does stuff all day and is usually tired by the end of the day. there was more here but i don't remember it and it wasn't the important stuff. but then i asked him how he got into the music business...and he was basically like that is a stupid question you should ask me how i am successful and started a business. so i said "let me rephrase my question..." and i did and he approved and told me how started a business is two things: 1. finance and 2. personality. so on the finance side you have to make money last. so you have to know what to spend it on and basically last as long as possible because that is what a business needs: time. so the longer your money last the more chance you have of being successful. and then on the personality side was determination and there was a certain word he used but of course now i can't remember...i need notes. but basically it was like sticking it with and such gahh i don't remember. anyways. so that was good. what else. somehow we started talking about how i was interested in management and Taylor came up and i was telling him a bit about him and he asked me social media numbers and i told me twitter and that i wasn't 100% sure about facebook and he was like those are good numbers for a manager to know. and i said i'm not his manager. and he said you should pretend like you are a manager. so if you were managing him or some band what would you do. which was good advice. (btw i was right about his social media numbers). and then he talked about how you never stop working and how you are always thinking about the next thing and everything relates back to work and how you are always coming up with ideas. (which i already do). and he talked about how he doesn't go to shows anymore unless he can get something out of it. he won't just go for fun because he will see all the things wrong with the show and what he would do differently if he was managing the band and it just makes him frustrated. he barely ever sees a show where he wouldn't change anything. he also talked about how when you have a conflict with your act you are managing in the first 6 months, he first big conflict that it will determine a lot. like with his act, Kink Ador, they had a deal with Red Bull on the time and they offered a shitty deal and she wanted to take it but he said they needed to compromise because they wanted her songs forever but he said there needed to be a time limit. and ultimately they all got a deal they liked, but that could have destroyed the relationship but instead it strengthened it. but he was fired by another act. this act was surrounded by cheerleaders who all said great things about his music. so it started with Brownlee emailing him to sort of wake him up and the act took it badly. and then soon after he says he doesn't want Brownlee to give any input into the music - the music that Brownlee is going to be marketing and promoting. so Brownlee said no, that won't work, and then he got fired. so that conflict ruined the relationship,
i know we talked about more - oh right he called me shy for the music business, but then said that's alright. and i told him i know and i'm working on it. i am really. the fact that i am even going and talking to all these people. every time it's time for me to leave i don't want to go, afterwards i am usually happy i went though.
okay so after that i went to TKO artist management and i actually talked to four girls: Cassie, Amanda, Kelly, and Misha. it was like a round table style and they were awesome. they gave me actual advice and such. let me go look at my notes. okay so they look at management as the center and then surrounded them are different parts of the industry, like promotion, etc. they also compared management to like a firefighter and just spending your time putting out different fires. their biggest act is Toby Keith and everyone sort of works on his projects but the rest are sort of split among them. one of the girls, Kelly got an internship there by calling and calling and emailing her resume until they finally hired her. and then she just stayed around until she got the job. she sounded like the perfect intern though who would go above and beyond and everything (made me feel like a slacker in my internship and like i'm not doing enough...). but i'm just going to go through some of their advice and what they talked about.
you have to be your own advocate and how it is all about the relationships. it's the little touches and going above and beyond that set you apart. you need to be openminded. you really don't know how to do the job until you do it, they don't teach you that stuff in school. social media is so important to know because people over a certain age don't want to deal with it so if you know the backend and can understand analytics, etc, that is great. the industry is changing so quickly that you won't find it in a textbook. read biographies to see how they did it. it's important how you say things in relationship in order to maximize and get people to do what you want them to do. fake it. everyday you are making it up. it's about managing stress throughout school and beyond. make mistakes and own up to them and don't make the same mistakes and when you own up to them have a solution. be present. be vocal about what you are interested in and ask for more projects (i really need to work on this). volunteer. go to different groups and meet people. also add them all on facebook (which i did).
really what i got from them is that i am doing the right thing by networking and meeting this people. but also that i am failing at my internship right now. they will probably forget me. i should work on making a better memorable impression. that's hard for me because i like to just be quiet and get my work done. it's a small office too and it's kind of awkward. i don't know. i am going to try to just do a few extra things and put myself out a bit at the office. if i am not the world's best intern this summer that is okay, i will know for next time.
okay then a little bit later i met with Katrina who works at Carlin which is a music publisher. they represent songwriters and own the copyrights to songs and pitch them. so the label owns the master but each song has it's own publisher. and when the song is used by someone half goes to the publisher and half go to the artist. or the artist can keep the rights to a song and they get all the money. Carlin has a lot of vintage music. their base is in New York but there is an office in London and the one in Nashville where two people work. they focus on creative ways of pitching and finding new ways to pitch their catalog. Katrina came from North Carolina with no background in music but she wanted a job in the music business. she worked at 30 Tigers and then in publicity for a bit but she really likes publishing because you are so close to the music. she is able to have creative freedom. and publishing is more slow and steady working on something instead of putting out fires.
the typical way that publishing works is that there is a list of people looking for a song, like a big artist is putting out a new record. so all the publishers pitch to them. but since Carlin has a lot of older songs it is different. the way Katrina approaches it is that she wants to make them a fan of the music. so she will send them songs for them to listen to. and if they don't use it for this project then maybe they will use it for the next one. she wants to send music that they will like and that will inspire them. she doesn't need to be the one who came up with the idea for an artist to work with a particular song, they can be the hero.
it's also important to see what music stands the test of time, learning music versus a fad. i need to take the time to study music to see where it came from since a lot is just a derivative. oh it's also cool that one of Carlin's songs was just used in a Kayne West song. and i just realized i forgot to thank her in the thank you note for the CD she gave me. oh well. that's alright i guess. not worth rewrite and wasting my notecards.
wow that was a lot. but i hope i captured a lot of the wisdom shared with me. i'm really thankful that i was able to talk to everyone i did.
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