Billie Eilish Booking Agent Tom Windish on Touring, Opening Slots and Artist Development

the most important thing to me is the musical combination and for the headliner to feel like the the music of the opener is something that they want their fans to hear I want the fans who are buying these tickets to feel like they've gotten value out of the money they spend and the time they spend to show up I feel like the best opening slots are ones where the the headliner is really involved and is really passionate about the opener really likes the music like you'll go to shows and you'll see like the headline the singer or something will come out during the open artists set and sing with them or say like we really love this act really hope you pay attention and then sometimes that band will go and like sing a song with them in the headliner set like those are the best and where it makes the biggest impact on the opener's career [Music] what's going on welcome to the new music business I'm your host Ari herstand author of how to make it in the new music business the book Third Edition coming very very soon you can pre-order it now go check it out today my guest is veteran booking agent Tom Windish he is a superstar in the agency world everybody knows him uh he once ran the Windish agency with some 80 staff members and a thousand artists then he went to uh Paradigm and joined Paradigm and now he's with Wasserman but you'll know him as Billy eilish Lord the XX agent booking agent uh and he worked with tons of other artists as well that we talk about on the show he has booked everything from small clubs to Giant Arenas and stadiums and festivals and everything in between today what we talk about actually is is more about artist development and we get on uh opening tours and uh booking you know Club level tours and how those deals work and who gets paid and how they get paid how booking agents work if if you need a quick one-on-one on how uh booking agencies operate and and how booking agents work and just like what the roles are of an of an agent or a manager a record label all of that well start here you don't have to be embarrassed anymore uh asking these types of questions we break them down I ask them for you don't worry um but Tom was was very generous with his um all of his time and wisdom and answers really we went in discussing a lot of different topics and uh definitely don't miss the section on opening tours and specifically tourbillions that that was a very fun part of the conversation for me at least and uh and then later on he's also a manager uh he manages an incredible artist who is one of my favorite artists at the moment Danielle Ponder uh who's also an Aries take Academy student just an incredible talent and we talk about how he operates as a manager and then he also runs an indie record label and we talk about what it takes to release records and and his experience in the difference between running a record label uh being a manager and and most notably as a booking agent how everybody kind of knows him so this is a great interview I really enjoyed this one I think you're gonna dig it too please pause this right now and uh hit the follow button hit the Subscribe hit the like button however you're listening to this right now uh if you want us to appear in your feed hit that follow button give us a five star review on Spotify podcasts and apple podcast those really help visit reset.com get on that email list that's where you're gonna get the most up-to-date information of everything new music business oriented and uh we send out new episodes and all of that stuff there you can find all of us that make the show happen at Ari's take on Instagram Tick Tock and Twitter you can find me at rehearstand on Instagram all right let's kick into the show welcome to the show how's it going yes good um so uh you're uh you're a I I'm safe to say a legendary uh booking agent at this uh stage of the game I know that you started as totally Scrappy DIY uh Mr hustle Indie all of that but um I wanna I wanna start at present day and I want to I want to talk about we're at the end of 2022 right now um and I know you wear a lot of hats and we're gonna we're gonna uncover all those hats throughout the hour um but first off the the hat that most people know you for as the booking agent um I want to hear from your perspective what is the state of the live touring industry here we are end of 2022. how's it going how are we doing as an industry um it's uh it's yeah it's been an interesting year um I and I think how we're doing depends on who who you are um for the biggest artists um I think it's been an amazing year um I think for medium-sized and smaller artists it's been hard um I think there's a I mean there's a lot of different reasons that that contribute to that um there's a lot of things that are complete competing for everyone's attention these days um independent um a lot of people's habits changed uh and people realize they like some things um that they didn't know they liked before or they like certain things more than others um and I feel like you know people's attention got taken away from maybe listening to music uh or going to see bands especially um maybe maybe some people spent more time listening to music because they were at home and had you know nothing else to do or whatever um but going out to shows um you know people found ways to spend that time doing other things um and then when everything came back um and live live shows were allowed again um everybody went on tour uh or you know if not everybody a lot of a lot more people than usual went on tour um so every artist is competing against every other artist who's out there performing but they're also competing against all these other things that people do with their time like watch a movie at home on their you know 10 different streaming services right um or you know just go to all the other things that they they could do yeah um and I think that's been really challenging I found uh you know I mean like one of the things I love the most is finding a new artist who sounds amazing and and helping them um and in the old days meaning pre-covid um a lot of them would like develop relatively quickly you know they'd they go and play little clubs and people say oh that's that band's great and then more people would would uh you know the word would spread more people go to the shows they'd get a support tour they'd get some festivals Pitchfork and New York Times write about them ksuw would play them and before you know it they're selling two three four five hundred tickets um in a lot of different cities and they started touring internationally and like it all kind of moved like at a pretty good pace and now I have a bunch of artists that are just as interesting and good and have just as much stuff going on as those artists did back then now and there's a lot of them I think are sort of staying finding a lot harder to get the same type of gains from the audience size um so maybe it used to go up like this and now it's going up like this and I think it's because of competition for for people's attention um it makes it really hard yeah I mean it makes a lot of sense uh you know the poll star numbers would have you uh believe that as an entire industry everything is doing well I'm glad you made that distinction between the top tours are doing just fine but those mid you know the emerging artists so what is your recommendation to those emerging artists who feel like maybe they're ready for the tour or or they really want to play shows but you're seeing that the audience reaction just overall at that level might not be way able to meet them at the place where they think they're at I mean I think my main takeaway is to develop develop a market or a territory before you start trying to conquer uh I don't know more than you can chew or I mean like I would I would encourage a band to develop let's say they're from the US like go develop the United States or a region of the United States before you try and also conquer Europe um yeah and Australia and Asia even though you might have data saying like well a lot of listeners in London we have a lot of listeners in Sydney um um I mean often like you find artists have a lot of listeners in certain markets you know right just so happens a lot of people usually live in those markets La New York London Sydney Paris um Mexico City um and I would I would encourage an artist to like get to a place where maybe they're breaking even or making a little bit of money in a certain place maybe a country or a section of a country before they start uh and investing in another place um because when like an investment is a bunch of different things it's Financial um it's also time and resources and like time and resources and money is uh it feels like it seems like there's a lot less of it to go around uh right now so you use it like very frugally and wisely um how much do you look at data um when setting up tours especially for your more emerging artists um not as much as you'd think um I mean I look at it I guess I I always look at it but it's very rare that um the data tells me that there's a really big fan base fan base in a place that I didn't realize there was a fan base um and it's because like the market does a really good job of uh of sort of showcasing what data showcases um what do you mean if there's a lot of fans in Portland Oregon there's a really good chance that the person who the people who put on shows in Portland will reach out and say I want to do a show with this artist okay I'm hearing about this artist you know from the street you know from my friends from my colleagues from you know people that come to the club all the time um we want to see this ban people are talking about them and often data correlates with what people are actually saying to each other like sure in person yeah and then they'll Reach Out um a lot of times like a lot of people live in those cities too and and those are markets that a lot of artists are going to um I mean another thing is that artists don't want to go on tour forever um and they you know let's say they want the tour to be a month long it's pretty long these days um and I could probably name 25 of those cities because they're the biggest cities in the country and also geographically like it makes sense to go to those places um and it's it would be rare that the data would say oh man you've made a big mistake when you went to Dallas instead of Oklahoma because there was a lot more listeners in Oklahoma sure if if there were like chances are the person Oklahoma would would have said something yeah which isn't to say I don't look at it but I look at it more in an international level um I think it's easier there to lose to not realize like oh there's a lot of people listening and this place in Asia you know we should reach out to the people that put on shows in Asia or in that Country and see what they're thinking you know or see if they want to book the band so you mentioned uh you know someone might reach out to you uh if something's happening in Portland and they're fans and they want to make a show happen um can you I want to zoom out a little bit and just for the people listening who might not quite grasp or have an understanding of how uh booking agents operate um can you just break down the business of booking agents and what you do and how the business works and how you make money and who makes money and how all that works just for people that just have no idea yeah yeah because I mean I feel like every day people a whole bunch of people reach out to me about things that I have nothing to do with yeah and I'm just like the the email address that they find um sure so you know the main thing that booking agents do is uh set up live performances where the artist gets paid to perform really mostly in front of like uh the public um so like we don't book television appearances very often that's generally the the the publicist or the record company um there might be a handful that like an agent might have a relationship or be involved um but that's not the main thing the main thing we do is book them at um a venue where people are paying to get in um there's there's always exceptions you know like we'll book them into college maybe you don't have to pay to get in but the artist gets paid to perform for an audience you know and then sometimes we book them for corporate events private events um depends on the artist you know we have a few that do a lot of that um but by and large you know they're playing these uh the other places where the Public's going to see them I think festivals um what else do we do um we're really involved in the marketing of the concert appearances where people are buying tickets okay we're not like the exclusive people that are doing that you know like we don't really log into the artist socials and do it for them but we're kind of making sure everyone's talking to each other timing is coordinating coordinated artwork is coordinating and coordinated and that like the artist is announcing things the venue's announcing thing everything's working um because we're in a position where we're kind of at the center of this the tour um and you know it's part of our responsibility is to make sure it goes right um something we don't do is like we figure out how much the artist is going to get paid to do that show by the club and usually there's like a guarantee and then if a certain number of people go you can make more money um if you play a festival usually you can't make more money you just get like a flat amount um um we so we make sure the artist gets that money at the people who make that offer like honor it and we'll do some calculations afterwards to make sure everything goes according to what everyone said it was going to happen um but something we don't do is tell the artists how to spend the money that they get paid so we don't go out and like rent the bus for them find the tour manager for them um the guitar player manager's job yeah sure uh or someone else's yeah um so yeah like often I don't really know how much the artist is making on the tour how they spend it you know is someone you know other people's uh job sure and uh you know they can spend a lot of different ways they can fly first class they could fly on a budget Airline sure so um let's talk about kind of who you're setting these shows up with are they promoters primarily um are they Talent buyers at the venues I guess it depends on the level of the tour I suppose and then when you say you're making sure that the artist gets paid how are you making sure they get paid and and or is it direct deposits are they getting paid before they play the show is it after it's probably no longer handing them a check at the venue I'd imagine or maybe it is uh it might be like that a little bit I mean usually um yeah we get some of the money up front it depends like okay we generally have really long-standing relationships with the people that are paying artists to go perform I don't know what the percentage of shows we do with those kind of people is but it's a lot like 80 percent um and you know we've got strong relationships so like we will collect some of the money um a bunch of the time but even if we didn't like they're gonna pay us um because they do a lot of business with us and if they don't you know it's going to mean they're not going to get to book all these other people and the way they make money is by putting on shows um generally we don't like Advance um the money that we collect before the show to the artists okay um you know there's some rare circumstances where things are dinner different but usually they get paid after they after they play gotcha and they so the promoter or the the club or whomever uh they send a check now are they always sending the check directly to the agency or do they give it to the artist and then the artist is required to then pay you their your commission or your cut from that if that's how that works part of the reason we get paid up front is uh so that we get the money that the artist shows us um so that they don't have to pay us at the end of the tour um you know I mean just like our relationships with people who put it on shows we work with our artists for a long period of time too so you know if they do end up owing US money after the tour because maybe it went really really well uh and we collected less than I'm anticipate they're gonna make or something or I don't know a certain checked in comment or something the artist will pay us um but yeah usually some of the money comes to the agency um not 100 of all the money uh a much smaller percentage than that and then the rest is paid to the artist and it could be through a wire it could be through cash or check it depends as things get bigger and bigger it becomes more and more official and less there's less and less like checks or cash flying around and it's more and more wire transfer and uh just to be clear um you only get paid when the artist gets paid right booking agents model uh is a commission of what they make exactly okay which agents generally get paid 15 of what the artist gets paid at the show meaning like the gross fee that they get hmm so if they get paid ten thousand dollars we get a thousand dollars if they spend eight eight of that ten thousand dollars to get there to stay in the fancy hotel all to you know all about whatever you can spend money on we don't collect 10 of 2 000 we get ten percent of ten thousand uh to clear you make ten percent or fifteen percent you said ten ten percent and that's of the gross okay for eight for the larger agencies and most of the more established smaller agencies ten percent is the industry standard gotcha cool um so I want to talk about um opening tours and opening slots for a minute um you know how does that operation work in terms of uh let's say there's a a tour that's completely set up for the headliner they're playing maybe let's say mid-level clubs uh 1500 cap room something like that um and for I guess on your end when if you've set the tour up how do you find appropriate openers and then on the other side if there are acts out there that want to open these tours what are good expectations for them and how should they approach it um often the the artist headlining has a point of view about who they would like to open they're fans of a bunch of different bands they follow them on social media they may have worked on music played shares with them before whatever whatever um their friends and they want them to go on tour very often that's what happens okay um sometimes they don't have an idea or the ideas they have aren't going to work out for whatever reason and in that case we'll go and ask every agent in the business for ideas um and then we'll present a list of like we call them submissions to the management presents them to the artist we usually give them some information about each of the submissions you know like when they're releasing music um maybe a little bit of tour history um that type of thing a link to listen to music uh maybe like some information about socials or Instagram or whatever um and we send that over in they make a decision or they ask some questions and we start we get into conversations with the people who submitted those those artists um sometimes in artists like maybe they want to play that room that fits 1500 people but they can only sell a thousand tickets and then they're looking for an artist who's gonna sell 500 tickets um that's a little bit different um so then we'll go out to all the other agents in the business and ask for you know more specific things we're looking for someone who can sell about 500 tickets or maybe it's not exactly that but you know between whatever between two and 500 tickets and the amount of money that will pay them varies um yeah the budget for openers is kind of all over the place too depends a lot of it depends on how much that artist is worth like how much they've been paid to play those cities before how many tickets they can sell on their own [Music] um yeah it's not always based on that but that's a big factor well so give me an example of uh maybe let's say you're you have a mid-level 1500 cap style level uh tour and Headliners are doing just fine uh you know they're gonna sell out the whole tour with without needing any any help um what could an opener expect uh to open that tour and how does that work as the headliner providing uh are they paying them are there expenses covered are there hopping in the bus is there food lodging like how does all that work so I'd say um paying 250 250 to 500 a show okay would be pretty standard um sometimes it's more um I think that would be pretty generous if it was an artist that didn't have a history of selling tickets anywhere sometimes the number fluctuates depending on the size of the market because you know artists get paid different amounts in a larger market than a smaller one um uh because more people buy tickets people pay more for a ticket and a big you know whatever it is um and you know in terms of like what else is supplied to the opener it depends um there are cases where there's space on the bus or the artist will carry some of the equipment for them so that they can travel in a smaller vehicle carry some of the merch for them sometimes they'll let them use their front of house sound person or um whatever the case they don't really provide hotel rooms um but even then like it's more often than not like it's the artist's responsibility to show up at the venue at a certain time with all your stuff get out on stage sound check and play um and it's just all on you to figure out how you're going to do it with the budget that is uh supplied there's always like an exception and with that there's a lot of exceptions but most of the time that's how it works so um what is your opinion of tour buy-ons where uh the headliner is requiring their openers to actually the money flowing the other way where the openers are they're asking for the openers to pay them for the opportunity to open their tour I've been doing this for around 28 years and I've never done that I've heard about it yeah um that's I don't know I mean I I yeah I'd say probably most of my peers don't really operate with that either um like I've never I've never had a band like get offered to go on a tour where they had to pay to be on it I've had people offer to pay our some of my clients to be on the tour yeah um but that's kind of a red flag the big red flag in in my book um the most I mean the most important thing to me is the musical combination and for the headliner to feel like the the music of the opener is something that they want their fans to hear um you know I want the fans who are buying these tickets to feel like they've gotten value out of the money they spend and the time they spent show up um um I feel like the best opening slots are ones you know where the the headliner is really involved and is really passionate about the opener really likes the music you know like you'll go to shows and you'll see like the headline the singer or something will come out during the open artists set and sing with them or say like we really love this act really hope you pay attention and then sometimes that band will go and like sing a song with them and the headliner set like those are the best and where it makes the biggest impact on the opener's career I'm glad you said that it's a red flag and I'm and I hope that everybody listening to this right now uh heeds that advice because you know we hear um we've heard the horror stories like years a few years back it came out that that mod this is well documented that Motley Crew uh charged their openers uh like a million dollars to open their tour and then their stage hands would come out during their sets and and shoot them with Super Soakers full of urine and they were like forced to open and like play before the doors open and and it's just like you know no respect whatsoever um and I've I've also heard of tourbillions where the headliners just couldn't draw and weren't selling tickets even though maybe their Spotify numbers were doing really well and so to kind of help Break Even they charged their openers a lot of money for that where for the openers they would play by the time they were playing there's five people in the room and so it's just like not a good deal all around um you know so I appreciate that that is your perspective and that's where you stand and that's how you operate because uh frankly I think it's it's flat out unethical to uh charge your openers to open for you and if you can't figure out how to make money by selling tickets and running a music career then maybe you should be in a different line of work um and so yeah that's that's nice to hear on your end as well I mean I do think like my peers you know and there's yeah there's probably a few hundred agents in this country that I would consider my peers yeah they all kind of operate with the same standard uh the buy-on thing I think is very unusual um for the types of Acts that I'm working with yeah that's great when you're looking um I guess what does it take for you to kind of start working with a new act and maybe you can kind of give us some examples of artists that you started working with I mean most famously uh Billy eilish of course you know you started with her very early on in her career I believe I heard somewhere read somewhere that you signed her before she'd even played a single show is that right yeah yeah um yeah I started working with her young I mean that I need to love the music okay um and you know that I meet I meet the artists and the people that work with them um when we start talking about working together and I mean I want them I want to get along with them too and I have like you know I mean curious like where they see their career going sometimes it's it's hard to say you know if you're young or just or at the beginning of your career like um you don't just sit there and say I want to play stadiums um that'd be kind of unusual before you'd play the show um sometimes you might say that um and I wouldn't really bulk if someone did say that um but I mean I need to love the music um and I mean I work with a bunch of artists that don't sell 1500 tickets a night but I love their music and uh I'm very proud to work with them um and you know I listen to their music in my spare time um I listen to all my clients music in my spare time um that's nice to hear I mean I love all the the artists I work with um there I feel like my wife has asked me this other the other day like if I'd ever booked anyone because because of the money and not because of the music and and uh there was I I can't remember which band it was but a long time ago I did that um one like once one or two times and I sort of convinced myself that wasn't the case that I loved the music but I could tell when I made like my first phone call that my heart um and passion uh was not in it the same way it was for everybody else you know it's very easy for me to do my job I call it people put on shows and I tell them you know you should book this artist they're amazing yeah you know yeah I'm not making it up like I believe they are amazing yeah um and I want them to listen to them and I hope they enjoy them and if they don't it's fine I I don't take it personally um I've been told no you know way more times than I've been told yes in my in my career it just kind of comes to the territory it's fine but yeah I love the artists I work with maybe to a fault [Laughter] they're very very early in their career because I just think they're fantastic and um it takes more than just a passionate booking agent or even a connected booking agent to become successful um even if I got a ban a bunch of Tours um if they didn't have other key members of the team um like it's hard to connect all the dots it's an incredibly complex business with with a very unclear road map of how to develop um yeah there aren't many books to tell you how to do it you know I can I know one I'll uh um no that that makes sense um so but but when it comes to working with new artists it's great to hear that I mean you have to love the music but I'm assuming there's other factors that typically go into that because at the end of the day it is a business too and if they're not making much money I mean I I guess you're you have the luxury of having enough artists that are paying the bills where you could probably take more risks on emerging artists that maybe it takes a little bit more time before you start earning from them uh versus some other agents which you know need every dollar to kind of keep the lights on um what does it come I guess in when it comes to you when when do artists typically we come to you where you're considering them and who and how are they coming to you um I mean I I have artists email me every day a bunch of artists yeah um are not just artists but you know people from labels lawyers managers publicists sure um agents in other parts of the world promoters yeah um and you know the artists are at all different stages of their career um it's really nice when there's a label involved or people to help release the music that have a track record of releasing music and being successful at that it's nice when they have publicists on board radio promo you know the more established the team the better chances of success you know um but it's I mean I I still take things on relatively early when a lot of those pieces are not in place um sometimes I help get them in place um I do feel like there's been we're in the midst of kind of a seismic shift in the music business where Pete there's more artists than ever you know we read all the time about how more and more tracks are being uploaded every day um and I think a lot of people that provided a lot of different services in the music business are less willing to take things on until it has a certain amount of momentum you know either on its own or with other people doing the work right um it may not you hear about labels that are like well we don't want to talk to you until you have whatever you know a million Instagram followers or this amount of Engagement or I can sell this many tickets or [Music] um and and then I feel that too you know because I think it takes longer for an artist to develop yeah um and if they can't get to a certain place on their own um maybe it's a sign that they're not going to get to the next level or several levels higher um yeah I think I'm quite a bit more flexible with that type of those types of things and I take things on sometimes very early yeah um but you know in my position I need to be careful of having too many artists that can't sell tickets yeah yeah or can't sell many tickets because you know it's it's always on me to like get another support tour get another festival and then I need to go out to people who are headlining and who book festivals and say book this artist that can't really sell tickets uh and then they'll go do those things and they still can't sell tickets so I need to go do it again you know and if it and it's hard I can't always just deliver either you know I mean I have asked that yeah I submit them for a lot of Tours and they don't get any of them um and then at a certain point the artist is looking at me saying what are you doing you know like isn't your job to get me on tours and festivals and and I'm like isn't your job to have people listen to your music and you don't want to buy a ticket um um but yeah I think I'm I'm more flexible than than a lot of people that do what I do so let's talk artist development a little bit um you know you are now a manager you also uh kind of run an indie label um and uh you're co-managing this artist uh with Chris doritus who a previous guest on the show as well uh Danielle Ponder and uh I had the uh Good Fortune of catching her at school night uh one of the best shows of the year in my opinion I mean she's a Powerhouse performer I I'm curious um you know and it was actually fun uh Chris calls me one day um out of the blue um he does that sometimes it's interesting he's called me a few times just randomly out of boots it's always a nice it's always a nice call he called me one day and he's like hey Ari I'm with this artist I just started uh Danielle Ponder and um you know she's a big fan of she's a student of yours she's in your courses and she's read your book and uh just want to say like hey you know we're working on this stuff together and she's right here and she he hands the phone over to her and we start talking like oh that's so cool and I actually didn't I wasn't familiar uh very much with uh her music and I hadn't seen her live or anything and then just I mean it seems like she kind of came out of nowhere incredible powerful Talent um not you know I guess we could say the opposite of like a Billie eilish who started when she was 13 I mean she's um I guess she's older now I mean she I know she's had a full career as a I know corrections officer and all of that stuff talk to me about kind of how you and Chris and and that whole development of Danielle Ponder and and just like now she's on all the TV shows and playing festivals and headlining rooms and is incredible and has absolutely exploded over the last year but I'm curious how that all happened um so I mean it All Began because uh I've done a lot of shows with Chris and school night over the years Trump booked a lot of artists there for a really long time and at the beginning of the pandemic um I kind of have this like Business Development role um which just means I talk to a lot of people that are building things that that they think will be helpful to artists and a lot of times they're like talk to Tom he loves he loves hearing about this stuff and I've invested in things like that and have helped things like that and listened to a lot of different things so in the beginning of the pandemic there's a lot of live stream talk um and I probably listen to 50 people with different live stream platforms um and I started calling up Chris um and saying you know what's going on with school night you guys you know you don't have any shows um I'm talking all these live stream platforms I think this could be really helpful for you you could start doing shows again and there's probably people out there that would pay you to put things on on their platform and I probably called them about it like five or six times um and then eventually I helped him do a deal help them do a deal with twitch twitch um so I was talking to him a lot um then they started booking shows you know uh was it like virtually or um you know like online showcases and then yeah in person and and because we were talking more often um we were talking to each other about new bands we were hearing too that's that's kind of the thing that I think both of us enjoy a lot uh finding great new artists and he had found Danielle she was singing on another band's track and he thought you know that track is you know pretty good but that that singer is amazing what's her deal he reached out to her um and eventually got in touch with her and then he called me up later that night or sent me sent me a song what do you think like this is amazing and he said would you want a manager with me um and at that time I had a lot of extra time because I wasn't booking concerts you know I got the story I got on the phone with her um and I was like this is this is great I would love to help and we decided to manage her together and that was about about a year and a half almost two years ago um we eventually signed um a short record deal with future classic um Wasserman the agency I work with bookserve but I'm not our agent um she got a great publicist she's got an amazing team and we're out there you know doing everything you're supposed to do when you're trying to become a successful musician and it's it's going really well um but it's uh it's going really really well when people hear her and see her they regularly say you know she's amazing I love her you know I see people cry at every show I go to people who've never heard her before um she's really powerful um and what I one of the things I've learned uh is you just got to keep doing it um she asked me a few months ago you know what's the plan for next year and I said we're going to do more of what we've done this year tour put out songs do press radio do everything um and eventually things are gonna you know stick in a different way um but everything's going great and we're like a snowball right now that's just getting bigger and bigger and bigger but she's kind of like I don't know if she'll reach a point where she like blows up overnight or if it'll just be like a steady growth it will probably be a little bit of both sure um but if she does blow up overnight or like reach a new level like she's gonna have to keep doing you know what she's doing now putting out more good songs doing more great tours yeah um and that's what she's doing and it's going great it's really it's really awesome yeah that's awesome she was a public defender not a corrections officer ah excuse me public defender thank you um yeah and uh and she was doing that when uh when she kind of you started working with her she was working her day yeah so um she'd been she she grew up with um six brothers and sisters her father was a pastor and she sang in his church and everybody said you were put on this Earth to be a singer and that was what she planned to do and when she was in high school her brother was sentenced to 20 years in prison and she decided to become a public defender wow and and she then shifted gears went to you know went to school for that did that um did that for about 10 or so years um but that whole time she was recording music herself putting out records herself booking tours um herself with her uh with a woman she collaborates with um and they had gone you know around the us around Europe um and right before the pandemic she quit her job and she had decided like this is what I I want to sing this is what I wanted this is where I'm happiest on stage um and then the pandemic happens so she went got her job back um and then Chris found her wow wow Chris called her up it's a pretty great it's a pretty cool story it is that's incredible and you know it's a testament to kind of uh taking that leap and and knowing when it's your time and knowing just kind of that leap of faith and and it's essentially like manifesting she knew like well this is the time for me this is when I need to and and uh obviously you can't control the pandemic and and you can't control those things out of that but she knew that this is it and when she kind of quit that job that's when the universe decided to take over it's like all right this is now going to to start happening for you because you decided that this is you're ready to make it happen and that that's that's really cool that's really inspiring and I mean the reason I decided to do something I've never done and manage an artist uh yeah is that I I fully believe in her and and I I do think she was put on this Earth to sing yeah and when she's on that stage she makes me very happy uh and I I really believe in her ability to make everyone very happy uh it's she's extremely powerful um yeah it's been really cool it's been really cool and we're just getting going absolutely yeah yeah no for sure and it's been really exciting to watch uh I mean from a distance just has kind of seen her trajectory grow but more so being at the show which you know even in that that uh electric but small room of school night at uh Bardo um it was you you get it I mean it was it was so powerful and so inspiring and uplifting and um yeah it's it's uh yeah she's incredible and that's that's great so um but you also started a a record label um while the records um talk about that why did you do it what's the experience been like that I it's a wildly different skill set in different Avenue of the industry than than uh booking so I'm curious about that um I I started a label with future classic um probably six months before the pandemic and then the pandemic happened and I had a lot more time to spend on it um and you know one of the reasons I wanted to do that and to manage was that I wanted to learn about other sides of the music business that I had never had time to explore um or like actually do and you know honestly like even though I've done this agent thing for like my whole adult life um those areas were kind of like uh like behind a curtain or something you know I didn't really know what it meant to put out a record I didn't really know what it meant to manage not that I do now um but I know more and uh honestly I mean I wish I had done it 20 years ago I think it would have made me a much much better agent at a much younger age and build a better agency that better served um you know other people in the business um I mean I think it's incredibly difficult to develop an artist these days um you know you're dealing with a really small group of people that are on this team that are you know they're they're task is to develop the artist um but it's not as coordinated as I as it should be um often the agents like over here doing this thing and they talk to the label once in a while the manager is kind of in the middle trying to keep everything together um and when the reality is like we there's a handful of people here or may you know and a really big case like a dozen or or maybe 20 or something uh and we're all like trying to accomplish the same thing yeah um and we should all be talking more together about how we can do that you know yeah what do I need that would help you know what do you need um and often like those those things are not communicated um until much later you know until the night of the show you know can I get this person on the list or something and I I could have taken that I could you could have gotten 30 people on the list if you had asked me six months ago no problem you know um now we've sold all the tickets or whatever you know right um um but yeah I I did it mostly to learn about what it was like to put out records um and also um for a long period of my career I would the way I would hear about new artists was they're calling up labels and managers and and everyone else in the business and saying what are you hearing about yeah um because I want to book them yeah and I really didn't go to those people with uh like things to bring them you know opportunities for them and at a certain point I thought to myself some of these people must think I'm kind of a jerk for asking them what you know what they're hearing um but I never bring anything to them so then I like very intentionally would go to people and say like I found a band that I think you should put out their record or you should manage and you know I'd love to book it if you're you know if we if you get involved um and that worked out really well for some bands um but I also realized like most of the time they don't put it out they don't you know they don't release the record they don't um um manage it and and I decided like instead of just telling people about it in some of these cases I'm going to put my money where my mouth is and I'm gonna do it myself um so that's what I did um and really I mean it wasn't like I thought it was going to be incredibly successful I really didn't think about that at all um yeah I just found an artist that I thought were great um but I do find it incredibly challenging um I had I had some records go really really well um I had others that I did this pretty much the same things for that didn't go well at all and I don't really know the different you know why did that work and that didn't like I like each of these songs the same amount yeah um and uh I find like I guess the way my brain operates like I find that really challenging I can't I have no structure to like what makes a successful record sure um anyway it's been really it's been fun and I I think I'll put out some more records um at some point right now I don't have any plans to I've been really busy booking this year and then sure yeah yeah no that makes sense uh when it comes to well I'm curious uh what have you seen the similarities um and differences between when it comes to marketing and promotion uh when you have your label hat on versus your manager hat on versus your agent add-on I mean you're you're not talking to totally different people but I mean agents talk to very different people then then labels uh and manager kind of has to do everything okay um God I mean I've learned like I have so much respect for managers I I feel like it's one of the hardest jobs in the world I feel like running a restaurant is one of the hardest jobs in the world but I think it's easier than managing an artist yeah at least when you when you uh run a restaurant you own it yeah you know you own the brands yeah brand can't fire you yeah but uh you know right your boss can't fire you yeah um and the manager just got to do everything they get you know you just don't know what's what's gonna come up on a daily basis that could it could throw you off the tracks yeah um and man I mean it's just it things have shifted so much to the manager in the last decade or so and it used to be like the record company did a ton of stuff and the manager had to make sure the artist like kind of fulfilled the obligations and you know promoted the record and showed up and and everything and man now the manager's got to do everything yeah yeah yeah that's that's great and I and I think every manager that's listening right now is not in their head in agreement and so appreciative that that uh you just acknowledged how how challenging uh their their jobs are yeah I'm not I'm not knocking you know everyone else I mean right it's it's difficult to develop artists no matter what hat you're wearing yeah um I wish I wish it was easier no that's great um well Tom this has been incredible uh I so appreciate you taking the time and uh you've dropped so many uh gems and and I know that everybody listening is is so appreciative of everything um that you said I I have uh one final question that I ask everybody who comes on the show and that is what does it mean to you to make it in the new music business um it's a good question um and that I think that answer has changed as I've gotten older yeah um you know right now I want to work with artists that I really believe in and I want to help them realize their dreams or what I think they're put on this Earth to do whether they're selling out stadiums or Arenas or selling 500 tickets a night or 200 tickets a night yeah um you know I I work with the I work with a band called Low that I've I've booked for the last 28 years I think saw them in Minnesota I think probably 20 years ago yeah yeah yeah they're incredible band I mean sadly the drummer just passed away um which is really really sad but uh you know that ban is incredibly successful to me and I think to them too like um and yeah no matter they're the biggest they've ever been uh right now or last year they put out their most successful records They sold the most tickets um and I mean I love them as much last year as I did 28 years ago um being able to work with them is uh I guess my definition of success you know and they're amazing like I feel very uh [Music] very fortunate that I get to work with people like that Tom Windish thank you so much that was great thanks okay all right [Music] today's episode was edited by Maxton Hunter theme music by brass Roots district and produced by all the great people at Ari's take [Music]

2022-12-01 07:34

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