Latest / The BlackSheep Podcast: Presented by HM Magazine / Rory Felton: What's It Like Inside the Music Industry?

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Rory Felton: What's It Like Inside the Music Industry? · The BlackSheep Podcast: Presented by HM Magazine

0:30
Today, we've got Rory felt in with us. Rory, You've done a
0:33
lot of things in the world, and uh, we're really stoked to talk
0:36
about specifically Militia Group because Militia Group was a record label that has been important
0:42
for Colin and I. A lot of the bands that we grew up listening
0:45
to were bands on Militia Group, and so super stoked to talk about that,
0:48
super stoked to talk about all the work that you do in the music
0:51
industry. You're not necessary have you been an artist ever before in your life?
0:56
Like, are you Like only when I was like a young teenager.
1:00
I was fixteen when I realized I couldn't really write music. So that's when
1:04
I started putting out records for bands. Yeah, so I we're super fascinated
1:10
by like that side of the industry, kind of the more business side of
1:12
the industry. Obviously, some people kind of you know, there's there's always
1:17
contention between the artists and the music, you know, the business side of
1:19
it, and so I'm really curious to hear a little bit more about that.
1:22
So anyway, we wanted to bring you on talk about kind of your
1:26
involvement in the music world, especially music that Colin and I grew up with.
1:29
So super stoked to have you on man, thanks for having me.
1:34
Music is the only industry I've ever worked in, So I've been doing it
1:38
for a long time, putting out records for a long time, and fortunately
1:41
I still get to work with really exciting, up and coming musicians that are
1:44
just crushing at some times. So I love it, Love this space.
1:49
Where do you guys want to kick off? Yeah, well, let's let's
1:52
start off at the very beginning. You said that you were in a few
1:56
bands when you were when you were a kid. Let's yeah, how did
1:57
you get into music? You know what? What made you fall in love
2:00
with music? And how how did you? Yeah, what's the what's the
2:04
org for you to even get involved in the sure? So I moved to
2:07
America in the nineties from Australia, That's where I grew up my family.
2:10
You you're from Australia, I am. I do not hear an accent whatsoever,
2:15
although with a name like Rory, that's exactly what I imagined. I
2:20
moved here when I was ten, so I didn't keep the accent, but
2:23
I saw both, so I can go back and forth. So I moved
2:28
to Kansas City, fell in love with like the local music scene in Kansas
2:31
City. Grunge and pop punk really fell into like all the local musicians.
2:38
Unfortunately, we had a lot of amazing artists local in Kancy in the nineties
2:42
like Coalesce, Boys, Life Giants, Chair, the Get Up Kids Anniversary.
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We were right by Omaha, Nebraska, and so like Bright Eyes,
2:51
the Faint Cursive, all these cool like indie rock bands and well and then
2:54
and then there were some of the emo like Appleson Castle was somewhere in Kansas
2:59
right. What's great is they were from Lawrence, and you know, when
3:02
I became a young adult, I got to sign them to my label.
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So it was cool to grow up with them as a teenager in high school
3:08
and then sign them again, which was kind of fun. That is Yeah,
3:14
what was the main spot there in Kansas that you get that you would
3:16
go and watch these bands? What was the main hub? It would change
3:21
a lot because it was such a small scene. But there was a venue
3:23
called g coffee venue called El Torreon in Lawrence, Kansas. It was the
3:27
Bottleneck that was like the main go to club where I think I saw a
3:30
gimmet world with like fifty kids, you know, and I stuck into the
3:36
back door to see Sunday real Estate carrying one of their drum kits, you
3:38
know, like because I was under eighteen and they wouldn't let me in the
3:42
front door. So all that type of stuff. And loved music and played
3:47
in bands as a teenager and was like, I'm going to start a record
3:51
label. I'm not having any idea what that meant. I just thought it
3:53
sounded cool in high school to do that. So I somehow connected with my
4:00
buddy Jason, who lived in Louisville, and together we signed a project from
4:05
this band called The Juliana Theory that went onto to Nail and later to Sony
4:10
and we got to put out that first EP with Dawson High. It was
4:14
a split EP. I was sixteen, and this was my first experience trying
4:17
to manufacture a CD, call record stores, called distributors, just trying to
4:23
figure out how you distribute music. In nineteen ninety eight and fast forward to
4:28
Yar two thousand, I moved out to la to go to a school at
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USC to study music industry and was kind of bored my freshman year and was
4:34
like, you know, I want to start another record label, but as
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a business, not a hobby, And fortunately I was able to get a
4:42
little bit of a bank loan with my parents' help and signed five artists and
4:46
co founded with Chad who was doing booking at the time, and together we
4:51
formed the Militia Group record label Wow, and we signed our first five artists,
4:57
which were bands like Rufio, Noise Ratchet. We're part of those first
5:00
ones. Rufio to this day, their catalog does extremely well. Noise Ratchet
5:05
got signed to American Records, which was Rick Rubin's label, and then broke
5:10
up. But we had these bands like go out to Cornerstone Music Festival,
5:14
which was a music festival and Brent, do you guys I guess familiar with
5:17
Yeah? Yeah, yeah, So I I should preface I went there like
5:21
my whole high school life. I went to the Cornerstone every year and that
5:25
influenced me sort of like the underground music world there, and that's the music
5:30
I wanted to work with. So we would have bands come out and play
5:31
that that festival. And so let's positive for a second, how would you
5:38
find these bands? Like obviously it's gotta be terrifying knowing that, like,
5:44
hey, I've got a loan on this, like kind of like the first
5:46
part of my life is writing on on signing bands that are going to be
5:51
popular enough but are gonna sell some records, and like, how do you
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what is that experience? Like, Yeah, as a as a eighteen year
5:59
old, you don't about the risk at all. You're just man. I
6:00
would have been I would have been an anxious mess. I had zero concept
6:04
of risk in my life. I was, and to be honest, I'm
6:08
a little bit that way too. But yeah, we just went for it,
6:11
and we were fortunate in that our first record did really well. It's
6:14
sold hundreds of thousands of copies and that allowed me to fund the label.
6:18
Yeah, it was Rufio. It was a big one. And then we
6:23
had some modern we see to have success with artists like the Rocket, Summer,
6:26
Copeland, the Apple Sea Cast, and we signed artists that didn't do
6:30
as well, but we did it out of passion, like Dennis and Whitmer
6:32
and Umbrellas and a bunch of artists came in sort of the later generation,
6:38
i say, of the label, like Cartel that was a big breakout.
6:41
They went gold, they signed to Sony, a bunch of our records because
6:46
of our distributor was owned by Sony. We had a partnership with them,
6:48
and a bunch of our artists ended up in the Sony system as well.
6:54
And yeah, we we ran that label for gosh about ten years full time.
6:58
And then, you know, quite frankly, I got a little bit
7:00
exhausted and burnt out working with artists for ten years. It was It's a
7:04
lot of work to work full time running a label, and you know,
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Sony ended up acquiring all the major assets of the label I did. I
7:15
was able to keep the catalog and have a bunch of that catalog still to
7:17
this day. But then, yeah, and then since then, you know,
7:23
just to give you the short version of that, like, I've been
7:26
just really excited about technology for new artists, and I've really been building technology
7:30
and launching projects that kind of benefit artists either to sell their music and merchandise
7:35
better on social media or nowadays it's mostly focused around distribution and publishing amin which
7:42
is still a big problem. Music artists often aren't aren't collecting all the royalties
7:47
that are owed them because of just misunderstanding in the way music rights work.
7:55
So obviously I was kind of like alluding to this earlier, has always felt
8:01
like there's generally a little bit of a tension between the artist and the business
8:07
people, which obviously in this case, you'd be kind of one of those
8:09
business people. And it does seem like in certain situations we have heard from
8:15
people that like, oh no, that's like a business person that actually really
8:18
cares about the music and wants the best for the artists. I'm curious kind
8:22
of like how you've navigated that relationship throughout your history working in the music industry
8:28
of you know, wanting these artists to be the best that can be and
8:33
also like respecting their art and yeah, I'm just curious, like how do
8:37
you maintain that relationship because there's times you know, I'm sure artists are picky
8:41
and you know, they're not probably the easiest person people to work with or
8:43
whatever, but you're still like wanting to be passionate about the music. And
8:46
I'm sure there are people in the music industry that like literally do not give
8:50
a shit about the music at all, Right, And I would imagine that
8:54
that's been you know, especially some of those bigger labels or whatever, they
8:56
really maybe just like literally just see that as a business and they don't see
9:01
like the actual art to it or whatever. So anyway, I'm curious how
9:03
you've navigated that relationship. Yeah, it's definitely challenging right where you know,
9:11
sometimes to the artists, all they see is you know, something that's owed
9:16
them per se and for for us or for a record label or specific I
9:20
should just speak for an independent record label or a small business. You're you're
9:24
taking a gamble, right, You're you're investing capital upfront in making a record
9:28
and marketing a record, and you're hoping and trusting that the artists will support
9:33
it, will promote it properly on social media. We'll do everything they do
9:37
to sort of make the record, give it the best opportunity to be successful,
9:41
right. And I think where the challenges happen is like if there's success
9:46
happening on a record, which is awesome, Like when you know you want
9:50
to continue to support that with marketing spend in some way, but like what
9:54
are the what are the limitations to that? Right? And that's where sometimes
9:58
tension can arise, you know, or onlike future records. Right. So
10:03
typically you know in a record contract, at least what we were doing in
10:07
the early two thousands, and I think is more of the standard now is
10:11
we would advance and already artists a certain amount of money to make a record,
10:13
but we would have these options to pick up future records. And sometimes
10:18
an artist might want to do a future record with a different label for a
10:22
variety of reasons. They might feel like they're getting more attention, or they
10:24
might feel like they're get a better look. But because of the agreement they've
10:28
signed, you know, and the investment that the companies made, they have
10:31
a right to you know, support that investment and get a return on that
10:35
investment. So it's always a challenge, you know. I think for me
10:39
at this stage in my life, it's really just being completely transparent, upfront
10:43
with artists about what deals look like, making sure they understand all the terms
10:48
so that they don't misunderstand something they're signing. Sure, you know, I
10:54
oftentimes at this role in my career, like artists will bring deals to me
10:58
that they get offered and they asked me to review them, and unfortunately sort
11:01
of able to point to them where the bodies are buried deep and agreement you
11:07
take out, Yeah, can you give us kind of a rundown of maybe
11:11
like the greatest horror show contract you've seen that just absolutely screwing over the artist.
11:20
I mean, where those really come from are mainly the major record labels.
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And this is really hard to say, Like I don't want to use
11:26
words like screwover because sure, sure, this is one of those things where
11:30
I'm like, you're artists are adults. Let's remember they're adding into a legal
11:33
agreement that they receive counsel on from an attorney on what it means, or
11:39
at least they are stating that they have when they sign these agreements. Right,
11:43
So when I hear the word like, I understand, like we could
11:46
use that word kind of screwy deals, but you know, like it's all
11:50
leverage, right, Yeah. What's beautiful about twenty twenty three, more than
11:54
ever before in the music industry is an independent artist can create real audiences and
11:58
real revenue, you in, real sales, completely without a record label,
12:03
right, and that increases their leverage if they ever want to transition inside a
12:07
system. Right. So, now, if they are to sign to an
12:11
independent label or a major label, like oftentimes, they've created so much traction
12:15
that they might have almost outpaced an indie label, Like there's nothing really an
12:18
independent label could do for them that they couldn't do for themselves, right,
12:22
just because of the response to the creative art, Like it's just subjective the
12:28
way people have responded to the music. Whereas fifteen twenty years ago, you
12:33
had to sign to a label, any kind of label, just to get
12:35
your records into stores, Like there was no Good Morning Music or distor kid
12:39
to get your music into Best Buy like you had to you had to go
12:43
through a label. So now, more than ever, is the best time
12:48
in history to be a musician, which is wonderful, and that means we
12:52
do have a huge amount of volume of music coming out. But I still
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think like great art transcends and great music can connect with p But yeah,
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I think that's one of the beautiful, beautiful parts about the era today.
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Back then, me and the counterparts I worked with in the independent music industry,
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none of us were getting you know, like stupid stupid rich, right,
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so we all did it for the love. Like even like you mentioned
13:18
major labels, like maybe their business model might be somewhat shady or structured in
13:26
a way that maybe doesn't have like long term win wins for everyone. Right,
13:33
However, like the people that work with those companies are often really good
13:37
people that love music, you know, So it's really hard, Like the
13:41
industry does get a bad rap, but there are a lot of people that
13:43
work in the industry that truly love what they do, Like people that work
13:46
in independent music. No one's getting rich. So anyone that works in independent
13:50
music does it because they love it. It's a lifestyle choice. I've been
13:54
fortunate in that, you know, I've been able to you know, see
13:58
modern success in this world. But even when you have opportunities to go into
14:01
a different industry maybe and potentially financially do better, you just love music because
14:07
it is It's just the thing that just pulls you in and for better or
14:11
worse. In my life, you know, I have twenty five years of
14:15
expertise in the industry. I kind of have to keep going in it,
14:18
you know. Fortunately I love music, so it keeps going. So the
14:22
perspective that we always hear is from the artist's perspective, because they're the ones
14:26
with the loudest, the loudest microphone. I guess you say, yeah,
14:31
they're the ones. Yeah, they have the audience, right. We there
14:35
is a trend to like hear about shady things or things that maybe aren't like
14:41
up to the artist's standard, or things that happened later on that they didn't
14:46
realize me what they were doing. Can you maybe like talk about like the
14:48
importance of having that counsel or like someone like someone like yourself that's going to
14:54
look through this stuff and be like, hey, this is what this means,
14:58
so you know, so on and so forth. Yeah, if there's
15:01
money changing hands, you absolutely need some sort of council. You know.
15:07
I'd recommend a music attorney, and that's expertise, right. You can have
15:11
someone like me who's in your life review it. But I always preface I'm
15:15
not an attorney. I cannot provide legal advice. I can just give you
15:18
my insight based on other things I've seen in the industry, right, So
15:22
that's absolutely important, I think. I mean, some of these stories we
15:26
heard about, you know, in our scene of music, right, like
15:31
some of the bigger independent labels that did these deals, and these artists complaining
15:33
about the deals they did. I always heard that they signed the deal like
15:37
in the back of a van without anyone reviewing it, right, And so
15:39
you're like, dude, like you're an adult again, you're an adult,
15:45
Like I get they were probably like twenty one or twenty two years old,
15:48
but it's like you're still old enough to enter into a legal agreement like that
15:50
too, right, Yeah, And I understand it, like they're so excited
15:54
for them their dream was to sign to this independent label and they got big
16:00
really quick afterwards, and don't realize like, oh, I should have had
16:03
bigger dreams, right, And so maybe they gave up too much for that
16:07
smaller dream. And I think that happens sometimes, But I don't know the
16:12
trade offs of this, right, Like would that artists have had the success
16:17
they had without having done the deal? Right? And maybe you're not making
16:22
the record royalties you could have had if you stayed independent, but you're making
16:25
more from touring and merchandising that you wouldn't have made unless your audience was as
16:30
big because of the label that helped you. So everything's a trade off.
16:37
Again, I always just lean on like it's today is way better for artists,
16:41
Like the opportunities for artists to get capital to build up their own career,
16:45
to build up balance sheet, to run their their art like a business,
16:48
like an independent label is awesome right now, Like they have so many
16:52
tools. And that's what I've been thinking about and what we sort of build
16:56
for in that that's say, you know, so with the music industry changing
17:00
in that way, like, what is the advantage to a record label?
17:03
Still, like what why should a record label still exists? Like I want
17:07
you to be able to like still like advocate for a record label, and
17:11
I still think record labels are great. Yeah, what is the what is
17:14
the purpose of a record label if so many artists can likely do a lot
17:18
of the work that a record label would have in years past been able to
17:22
do. Yeah, I think it's because a lot of artists don't want to
17:26
do that work. They don't want to be the marketer, they don't want
17:29
to be the advertiser, right, they don't want to do all this kind
17:33
of nitty gritty back end stuff, like whether it be delivering one liners to
17:37
Pandora, or registering songs with sound Exchange, or registering songs for publishing administration,
17:44
all this like metadata work, Like creating a release. I think it's
17:48
fun, but a lot of artists don't think it's fun when they created in
17:52
a system. So all that being said, I think there's there's always room
17:56
for marketing expertise. I think that if you you find a label partner that
18:00
can can help increase your audience specifically on social media like awesome, like lean
18:07
into that because that seems to be what's driving a lot of NonStop stuff or
18:11
a lot of growth in the independent music sector clearly other labels. I think
18:18
just having expertise, like someone guide you and lead your career that's done it
18:22
before, someone that's led to success before, is going to help you in
18:25
your career. So that's where I think it's benefit. I also think a
18:27
lot you know, the terms are every Everything always depends on the terms,
18:33
right. You know, if you're an artist at a certain tier, it
18:37
may only make sense for you to do like a oh that indie label made
18:40
me an offer. Well, as long as the it's a one off record
18:42
and there's no future commitment, it might be worth trying something like that,
18:47
right. I actually advise an artist that's crushing it completely independent today to consider
18:52
doing one record with a really cool indie punk label just to create that sort
18:57
of you know, commune unity association. Even if that record stays there.
19:03
I think that's that's like you're giving up some upsideion initially, but you're gaining
19:07
this long term plateau platform that you can sort of work within, if that
19:11
makes sense. I always think there's valued all of that. All that being
19:15
said, I think that both indie labels and distributors do a lot less than
19:22
what artists think they do, and so you always have to rely on yourself
19:27
and your core team, be it you know, you yourself as an artist,
19:32
maybe you as an artist and a manager to really do the majority of
19:34
the work. Unfortunately, you know a lot of people rely on the artists
19:41
to lead the change. In fact, I spoke with one artist. They
19:44
said they had a meeting with an indie label and the label literally told them,
19:48
yeah, the marketing is really on you as an artist to promote it
19:51
through social media. We can't really do anything. So it's almost like the
19:55
label presented themselves as like a capital solution and a distribution solution, but not
20:00
really a marketing solution, which I thought was kind of interesting. The world
20:04
keeps changing, so of those things, which do you think is more important
20:11
for a record label to be If you had to pick one more of the
20:15
dollars in cent side or more of the marketing and like getting the name recognition
20:19
out there side. Oh personally, I've never relied on a label partner for
20:26
marketing, just because I never feel like you really get the promotion, the
20:30
attention you're always looking for, so I'd lean on capital. There was an
20:34
artist we were working with a couple of years ago, and while they wanted
20:38
to transition to a record label after being independent for some time, the best
20:42
deal we actually got them was through a distributor. And the reason was the
20:45
best deal is because we were able to get them a substantial advance while allowing
20:51
them to keep ownership of their masters, and they could use that advance for
20:56
their own marketing. So it was almost like they had the distributor fund their
21:00
own label while being able to keep all their upside, which which is a
21:03
great deal. So again, like we live in this world where distributors are
21:08
masquerading as labels, labels are masquerading as distributors, and managers are now masquerading
21:14
as distributors. Everyone is everything in some in a little bit of a way
21:21
in today's era of music. You know, M like how I feel like
21:26
the technology piece of how technology changes and how we listen, how we get
21:33
our music, and because that has changed so much over many decades. I
21:37
mean, obviously, you know, we start out with like you know,
21:40
however, people before even record players existed, I don't know how they got
21:44
music other than it was probably just on a sheet and somebody else played it.
21:47
And then we get to records, and then you get to eventually CDs,
21:51
and then you now it starts to really heighten where now you get all
21:55
the online stuff and there's at that point you get all the illegal downloads that
22:00
you're having to navigate, and then eventually we get into this world of streaming,
22:03
and so there's just like so much change that happens technologically, Like how
22:08
have you been able to like how do you navigate that as a record label?
22:11
Because that seems to be like such a core piece of figuring out what's
22:15
how are people getting music now and how can we tap into that so that
22:19
we can like make money for ourselves and for the artists. Yeah. Absolutely,
22:25
I actually do a lot of thinking about what's what's going to happen after
22:27
the post streaming era, Like we're kind of at max streaming, what's next?
22:33
That gets exciting for me? But but yeah, I mean CDs,
22:38
people don't what independent artists today don't realize is how hard it was to sell
22:42
CDs out of the back of your van on tour and how much money that
22:45
generated versus the ability to make money from streaming. So as much as artists
22:49
complain about streaming, and I'm not trying to support the royalty rates, I'm
22:53
aware they're abysmal, I get paid abysmal rates, but it's probably still better
22:59
than the CD era as far as economics for independent artists. The probably still
23:03
have more opportunities to reach a global audience and build a business than they did
23:07
during the CD era. So I think that's a great thing. You know,
23:12
streaming is a double ed sword. It's like we all know the challenges
23:15
with it. I don't know if you guys saw the Playlist, the show
23:18
on Netflix about the founding of Spotify. It's good. It's a good watch
23:23
because they show it from different perspectives. They show it from the perspective of
23:27
the founder, Daniel Eck, but also from an artist perspective, developer perspective,
23:34
and like an investor perspective. Oh and even like a legal perspective of
23:38
the whole story. It's really it's really well done because there's all different views
23:45
on how it happened, and music's challenging. I mean, there was a
23:48
time, like you know, transparently, my record label from like two thousand
23:52
and six to two thousand and eight dropped like eighty percent in revenue in this
23:57
CD transition from CD to digital downloads to streaming hadn't really come up yet,
24:03
but downloads were dying because of the torrent world that we lived in. So
24:08
there was an era from like eight to twenty eleven that I remember, like,
24:12
I didn't think the industry was going to function the way I thought it
24:15
was going to be entirely different, and somehow, you know, they made
24:21
streaming work and they crushed it, and the major labels just created this massive
24:25
windfall for themselves. Any label that survived that lull just had a massive windfall.
24:32
From twenty twelve to today in streaming, they've done extremely well. It's
24:37
hard to imagine how much money the major labels have made in the last ten
24:41
years, fifteen years off of that. So streaming is great for them.
24:45
Streaming is great for the mega artists. I think it's also great for working
24:48
independent artists. And people will fight me on it, and that's fine.
24:51
I'm happy to debate it. But again I compare it to like the era
24:55
pre streaming. Right, It's like Warren Buffett says about capitalism, like it's
24:59
not the the best system in the world, but I don't know a better
25:02
system. Right, It's like streaming is out the best system in the world,
25:07
but the way people want to listen to music and experience music, I
25:10
don't know a better system. I think what artists need to focus on today
25:14
is creating their core audience that they own their fans, like in emails and
25:19
phone numbers, separate from social media, separate from streaming, so that they
25:22
can sell merchandise to them, unique experiences to them, you know, collectibles,
25:29
digital collectibles. There's all sorts of opportunities that you can monetize your audience
25:33
once you create that audience. And there's all sorts of stories of artists that
25:36
may not crush it on streaming but crush it live, so it can swing
25:41
all different ways. Yeah, there also seems to be this and I find
25:47
this really interesting. As you know, I remember being like in sixth grade
25:51
listen under Oath and very well probably was on like lime wire and illegally downloading
25:56
under Oath albums and stuff because I was twelve years old and didn't have money,
26:03
and now I'm at a point where now I have enough money to where
26:08
I can buy under Oath vinyl for forty or fifty dollars a piece or whatever
26:12
it is, and I wonder, like how much because the age of your
26:18
market and because the market and the age of your market changes, and so
26:22
their life situation is different. Where from a twelve year old that is in
26:25
school and not making any money, you know, just getting an allowance from
26:29
my parents once a week, to now I'm like have a salary job.
26:33
That's got to be a thing that artists must navigate of figuring out, Okay,
26:38
who is our core audience and because of that, we can figure out
26:42
are we able to make this like financially Because there are artists probably out there
26:45
that have millions and millions of streams, but their core audience are like probably
26:49
like thirteen year old girls that aren't going to pay, like they're only going
26:53
to ever stream that music, whereas you could have a band that only has
26:57
maybe like fifty thousand streams on Spotify, but because their audience is like in
27:03
their forties or fifties, every single one of those people are going to buy
27:06
a vinyl, they're going to go to all the shows, and so like
27:08
actually financially makes way more sense. So I'm always really curious about like how
27:11
that, like the market and who that market is probably really affects how we
27:18
think about like sales and the viability of artists. Yeah, I mean we
27:22
see it today. We see even though TikTok has become this new like baseball
27:26
bat in the promotion of marketing game for music. And by the way,
27:30
this artist that like you don't have to do what everyone else is doing on
27:33
TikTok, Like I see, we work with artists that are creating their own
27:37
lane entirely on TikTok, doing really humorous like indie rock content if you will.
27:41
So just one don't think of TikTok as just one thing. It really
27:45
is a lot of different things in one. But it's incredibly powerful. That
27:49
being said, I've seen artists get to millions of followers on TikTok and have
27:53
like very little increase in their streamers. So while their social media audience or
27:59
their top of funnel if you call it, keeps growing, their streaming audience
28:03
isn't necessarily growing. However, they're streaming. However, they may also be
28:08
buying tickets at a more rapid pace than they would be if they didn't have
28:12
that going on. So that's definitely a big driver. And yes, you're
28:18
absolutely right. You see artists that may not continue to stream extremely well maybe
28:22
some of the classic rock bands, but they can still crush it live and
28:26
sell lots of tickets. So it's really interesting. There's not a direct overlap
28:32
between a number of people that stream your music and buy your tickets or the
28:36
number of people that follow you on social media and stream your music or buy
28:40
your tickets. They can all be completely independent of each other. That's wild.
28:45
It's kind of cool that there's like these different niches for bands to kind
28:48
of fit into. There's more than one way to make money here. Yes,
28:52
I mean, I know, I know. Yeah, go ahead,
28:53
Sorry, I was just agreeing. There's not a one size fits all you
28:59
can you can sort of you know, we have an artist that does six
29:03
figures in syncs. You know, they license their music to film and TV.
29:08
They don't really make anything off of streaming. They make like mini schools
29:12
off playing live, but film and TV music is where all their income comes
29:17
from. Wow, so that is the reality of music. There's alternative revenue
29:23
streams. Sometimes you can't count on them or plan on them. Hence why
29:29
record companies and distributors form because when you have a volume of content, it
29:33
allows you to create more of a consistent revenue stream so you can, you
29:37
know, cover the cost of just operating these internal systems that can provide a
29:41
lot of value for thousands of artists at the same time. Yeah, you
29:45
alluded to the post streaming world and like what your thoughts are on it?
29:51
I am curious to know what you think is next and this is all this
29:56
is all like here, like we don't know what it's going to be.
29:57
Yeah, you have some inside thoughts, right think. So I'm a I'm
30:03
a futurist at heart too. So I was one of the people that got
30:07
really excited about the premise of web three and what blockchain could bring to the
30:15
decentralization for music rights, for revenue that flew for music as well as even
30:21
like how to monetize music in the digital era outside of streaming. And what
30:26
I love about the concept of web three is you could make a digital product
30:30
that collectible and make it rare and make it tradeable. The problem is the
30:34
way the technology that supports those that web three right now is not It's not
30:41
very robust, it's not very secure. There's a lot of fraud that happens
30:47
in the space. It's hard to so it's not fully there. But my
30:49
hope is within a few years we might have these ways to you know,
30:56
interact with what I'll call digital collectibles with musicians or with artists that are just
31:02
a little bit more fun and interesting and create new revenue streams outside of just
31:04
streaming alone. And those digital collectibles might end up just being tickets to shows,
31:10
I might up being fan clubs, I might end up being music downloads.
31:12
So you know, we did things like build this virtual space for musicians
31:18
to show off all their music and videos and sort of one three dimensional era
31:22
room that you could walk around in. But you know, the interest right
31:26
now for these products is so miniscule it's hard to make a real business out
31:30
of it or justify the investment in fully building them out. Sure, but
31:33
yeah, I think that's coming. And then I think again, the artists
31:37
that use these top of funnel channels like TikTok and Instagram and streaming like Spotify
31:44
to drive their audience into a system that they control, namely like an email
31:51
list and a messaging list, because once they have control of their fans,
31:56
they can control the communication and how to leverage all that. The Louis c
32:00
K kind of route, right, Yeah, every single aspect. He even
32:06
buys out the entire theater from Ticketmaster and rolls every aspect of it. Right.
32:13
Yeah. There's an artist we work with named violent Via. She's almost
32:16
at a million monthly. She's doing a full US tour next year. Her
32:21
friend with her like in her team, just booked the tour for her and
32:23
did just that. They just book they rent venues and so they make the
32:28
whole door. So if you know you're going to sell at venues, you
32:31
can make so much more money doing that, especially because they don't need a
32:35
promoter because all our fans follow her on social media anyways. So there's a
32:39
lot of ways for artists to cut out little middleman here and there and make
32:44
more and more money in today's era. And again, the music is not
32:47
about making money, but when it's so hard to make a living wage in
32:51
music, like you're stoked if you can increase your revenue ten twenty grand a
32:55
year. You know. I was on a strategy call yesterday with an artist
32:59
and I was like, haven't you done an acoustic EP? Like, oh,
33:02
yeah, I could do that. I'm like, yeah, like throwing
33:06
an acoustic EP every year or every other year, like you're just gonna increase
33:09
your your annual revenue coming into you, you know, like a few grand
33:14
here, a few grand there at all. It all adds up. Do
33:15
a cover song every once in a while. This playlist dedicated to acoustic covers
33:20
like being one of those out you know, so we recommend that stuff and
33:24
one of the services we offer in through good Morning. I don't mean to
33:29
do a shout out, but a lot of artists are a lot of artists
33:31
aren't collecting all the royalty streams that are do them right, and not to
33:37
be completely like conclusive over every single royalty stream, but your own royalties for
33:44
your master rights through your distributor, your old royalties called mechanical royalties, through
33:47
your your publisher, your OU public performance royalties through your performing rights organization,
33:53
your O master performance royalties through UH, through your Sound exchange, or a
33:58
neighboring rights royalty that may get collected by Sound Exchange. We don't really know.
34:02
So my point is a lot of artists leave money on the table that
34:07
is owed them, and unfortunately, if they don't collect it in three years,
34:09
it goes into a black box and that money gets distributed to the businesses
34:15
in the industry, like the labels and publishers based on their market share.
34:17
Wow. So the industry is incentivized to hide this information from independent artists.
34:23
So it's really sad. So if you're independent artists, you have a breakout
34:28
song does like ten million streams, you know, you're owed in mechanical royalties,
34:34
maybe six grand from that alone, maybe ten once you calculate the whole
34:37
global rights, right, But if you don't have a publisher or a publishing
34:42
administrator like that money doesn't get collected and it gets ended up paid to the
34:46
major labels. So it's a wild system. But that's the system that we
34:51
have, and that's that's the biggest challenge that I see out there, and
34:55
so what we try to do is make it easier for artists to collect all
34:58
the royalties place like it. What what are your thoughts on vinyl? I
35:02
remember seeing a few years ago there was something about like vinyl becoming a billion
35:07
dollar industry for the first time in like many years. What what what do
35:12
you think is going on there? And do you think there's always going to
35:15
be that viability for vinyl to be something that helps artists in this industry?
35:22
Totally? So I think vinyl is awesome. It's you know, it's a
35:27
great physical collector piece. You see the younger generation buying it just to show
35:30
it off on the wall. They don't really even open it. It's like
35:35
a digital It is a physical collector's item, right, Yeah, And once
35:39
an artist has an audience, they seem to be able to really turn that
35:42
into a great monetary stream. There's tools like creates qr ates out there that
35:49
allow an artist to do pre order campaigns on vinyl before printing so they can
35:52
see how many they sell, so that that can allow them to save money
35:57
and even use the revenue from their sales actually just for the printing itself.
36:01
I love just different revenue streams. What I want to encourage artists. I
36:07
was like, if you're just getting start out, maybe don't spend a bunch
36:09
of money making a thousand records because you might be sitting on those for a
36:13
long time. And I still have some records that I'm sitting on a lot
36:17
of copies of in my storage unit. How about you name a couple of
36:23
those records so that people have go out and buy them. Oh dude,
36:29
well transparently come around. Like the late first decade of the two thousands,
36:35
we ended up having to have a large number of CDs destroyed because they just
36:38
weren't ever going to get moved out of our warehouse. Yeah, and every
36:44
record label did. Every record label had to just destroy a huge number of
36:47
CDs. That's got to feel so terrible. It's like Christian moms when they
36:52
found out about secular music. Yeah, a little bit. It's like,
37:00
I mean, it's like their heyday. They're like, this is our super
37:02
Bowl right now. They're like hire us please. I mean, the major
37:07
labels wouldn't promote it, but they they definitely destroy a huge and verse CDs
37:10
every year. Oh wow. It's just it's just sort of the reality.
37:15
Or they try to sell them out for a bucky each these days. Let's
37:21
see CDs vinyl I've got at home. You know, I'm just sitting on
37:24
a bunch of records from this artist Blackpool. The record's so good. It's
37:29
a really great vinyl record, But yeah, I just sitting on some of
37:31
those. What else is at home? You think everything else chance, So
37:37
I was gonna say everything else I've got at home is like my collector version
37:40
of right. So I do have like ten Apples casts Peregrine, but their
37:45
mind they're like or sag Ar Matha. Those are the two records I did,
37:49
So those are the ones I just kept for myself. But understandable.
37:53
I know that there are sites online. I do get surprised. Sometimes someone
37:58
will send me a link to a record or a CD I put out and
38:00
like it's going for like some stupid price on like eBay, And I was
38:06
like, man, I've got twenty of those in my warehouse. Like yeah,
38:10
but I don't know. I know. I know other people I've worked
38:14
with have tried to sell all their collectibles. I still can't part with mine.
38:17
I still have sentimental attachment to them. So oh that's good, that's
38:22
good. I keep it all. Yeah, I love the music. I'm
38:25
curious. Let's say you get an artist that comes to you and says like,
38:30
Hey, I'm just I'm so frustrated with this. I can't seem to
38:32
figure out what my stream is what my what my niche is here? How
38:37
do how do I make this somewhat of a living? How do you convince
38:42
them to think a little bit more outside the box outside of like that that
38:45
streaming and physical media landscape, Like if they're not if they're not selling there
38:50
but they're still they still have like a following, how do you convince them
38:54
to or how would you convince them to? Yeah, I mean every every
39:00
artists and niche is different, right, so it's going to be different for
39:02
everyone. It's really going to be custom based on where they're at in their
39:06
career, what they've accomplished, where they're stuck at and oftentimes, you know,
39:10
I always describe the music industry is like you like start out and then
39:14
you hit like a ladder and it bumps you up like the next plateau,
39:16
and then you feel like you're grinding on the plateau for a while and then
39:20
boom, something good happens and it gets to the next and it's kind of
39:22
the step ladder experience. Sure, and those ladders could be a tour,
39:29
it could be like a sync, could be a playlist, could be a
39:31
media coverage, And that's just sort of the nature of the game. It's
39:37
one of those industries that doesn't it doesn't function like any other traditional business.
39:40
It's not like you have a product and you market that product and maybe people
39:44
buy it. It's it's subjective because it's art and music, and so if
39:51
the artist is good and writes good music, it always starts with the music.
39:54
Then my encouragement to them would be to like just continue to drop regularly.
40:00
What seems to work right now and it might change in a year or
40:02
two, is people is artists dropping monthly. You drop a song every month
40:07
and just go hard at it on creating organic content on socials that reuse that
40:14
same like fifteen second clip and sort of rehit that. And the artists that
40:17
continue that strategy for like over a year or two will just slowly It'll start
40:23
ticking up slowly, and then it just seems to speed up. I've seen
40:28
it with a couple of artists lately. An artist called Kochi cooq Ui.
40:34
He just crossed like one hundred thousand followers on Instagram, and an amazing artist
40:37
out of la Another artist named Jimmy Clifton. He's like a kind of a
40:44
routty Americana singer Guy he just cross what two hundred and seventy thousand monthly listeners,
40:49
And these are independent artists making thousand dollars thousands of dollars a month from
40:53
their music, doing it all themselves. Like, this is possible. This
40:58
is the one encouragement I do want to get to artist. A lot of
41:00
artist like I can't do this. The streaming era is like, you know,
41:05
gonna screw me or the industry sucks. I can't make it work.
41:07
Do Fifteen thousand artists are making tens of thousands of dollars from streaming that are
41:15
independent artists. So it is possible. You just got to use the strategies
41:20
that have an impact today. Well, and it always seems to come down
41:25
to like, are you making art that is compelling? Like people for whatever
41:30
reason are just interested in right, That's what it seems to come down to.
41:35
Is obviously there are always going to be those artists, and I've got
41:37
those artists in my life where I'm like they should have just been way bigger.
41:42
But at the end of the day, if you if you're making really
41:44
compelling art, people will find it. I think, Yeah, I think
41:50
in general that is true. You just don't have to have any expectations of
41:54
success in a way, it's like make the art, make them use Like
42:00
Rick Rubin would say, like, you know, make it so that you
42:02
love it, and that's the that's the success. You made something you love,
42:07
you know, And at the end of the day, if other people
42:10
gravitate towards it, great. But oftentimes, like even marketing can't change that.
42:17
You know, it's just the song is going to do what it's going
42:20
to do. You know, Yeah, you know something. I'm also interested
42:24
in. Militia Group never had like that, that band that just broke into
42:30
like the absolute stratosphere, right atosphere. But there were so many bands on
42:37
Militia Group that just rowed very, very high. We're like, you know,
42:44
let's say like Tooth and Nail for instance. Right Tooth and Nail had
42:46
a lot of bands, They signed a lot of bands, and I would
42:50
say one out of five I had a somewhat of an impact in the scene.
42:54
It seemed like with Militia Group it was like three out of five.
43:00
What was what was the what was the difference like with your Ears, where
43:06
you're like, this band's gonna do it. I know it because I can
43:08
feel it. I don't know, it's funny. The first thing that comes
43:12
to mind is like the artist that we almost signed that we like barely missed
43:15
out all, you know, like White Wos right, like fall Up Boy
43:20
or taking Back Sunday, Like these were deals that we should have had done
43:23
but we didn't get done. And you know his the rest is history,
43:28
right, But yeah, you know, I I don't know we were like
43:34
honestly, I feel it. I look back and I just think, like,
43:36
man, I was just a kid in a candy shop having a lot
43:37
of fun. I really didn't think about it too seriously about like our ears
43:42
or what we liked. I think in some respect, maybe we had a
43:47
little bit of even though we didn't have stratospheric success, we had a little
43:51
bit of success really early. And yeah, maybe that even affects how you
43:55
think you should run your business. I think part of me I was,
43:58
like I was twenty one, twenty two, twenty three by the time everything
44:01
was kind of crushing, and uh, my personality or my taste in music
44:07
was changing rapidly, as we all are when we're nineteen to twenty three years
44:12
old. So I found myself having had a lot of success in sort of
44:15
what I'll call pop punk or emo, but really only wanting to work with
44:21
like indie rock or like interpool sounding bands out of New York, but then
44:25
not wanting to work with me because I've got a pop punk label. So
44:30
I'm like stuck, you know, like, ah, you know, that's
44:34
the one downside of starting a record label when you're twenty, right, Yes,
44:37
yes, that was That was definitely a downside. It's kind of like,
44:40
you know, I think about the artists that might have broke blown up
44:44
when they're seventeen, and then they're thirty five and they're still playing that song
44:46
you know they wrote in their seventeen like kind of getting broken by a girl
44:52
in the backseat of Yeah, it kind of felt a little bit like that
44:55
sometimes, and you know, the wise business decision would be to just continue
45:00
to put out like teenage pop punk, but you know, we were struggling
45:06
with our own stuff I did and what we wanted to do, and you
45:07
know, I think, like any label, sometimes I have a heyday and
45:10
then it just kind of like kind of fades a bit. And again for
45:15
me, I think I just got a little bit burned out, Like at
45:17
some point, like I was like, oh, I got married, and
45:22
my life, my family life became way more important to me than my identity
45:27
you know, running a record label or the music industry. But that's admirable,
45:31
Yeah, I will say. I mean, like I mentioned before,
45:36
you know, Militia grew up. There are so many bands that just were
45:38
so important to me and have been so important to me, like Apple Sea
45:43
Casts. You know, those couple of albums that you did with Apple Sea
45:45
Casts have been such incredibly important albums in my life. Copeland is one of
45:50
my favorite bands ever, and uh as well as you know, I still
45:53
remember listening to Cartel on Madden, you know, I remember that, and
46:00
I mean, just yeah, there's just so many cool you know, you
46:02
know, close connects or even you know, even though it was probably one
46:06
of your lesser known bands. But the beautiful mistake is I feel like a
46:09
very yeah, very good band. And so there's just so many bands that
46:14
I grew up listening to and thinking, you know that this is just incredible
46:17
that there's this record label and I'm like, how are they not as big
46:21
as as Toothnail And maybe you guys were, I don't know, but like
46:23
just in my understanding as a kid, that was growing up in the Christian
46:27
World youth group culture. I'm like, this doesn't seem to be as big
46:30
as as Tooth and Nail, but also like these bands are incredible as good
46:35
or better. Yeah, I don't know if we reached the I would say,
46:37
like maybe gross revenue that that Tooth and Nail reached. Brandon probably ran
46:43
a tighter ship than we did, but he also had like the you know,
46:47
the the CCM hits right like the gym of the world, and for
46:52
my impression from the outside, that kept the lights on. You know,
46:55
do you wish that you would have done CCM hits? You know what's funny
47:00
is like not that I wish I would have, but at this stage in
47:02
my life, like I actually listen to that music because I have kids now
47:07
and I can't listen to everything at home. So we'll put on CCM or
47:10
country. And we actually have a country artist on our company good Morning that's
47:15
crushing it right now on like multiple playlists on Spotify and Apple Music. So
47:20
who's that? His name is Drew Taylor. Drew Taylor is really good.
47:24
Yeah. So I haven't really talked about it, but all my experience has
47:28
now been kind of merged in with a few of us. We merged into
47:30
this company called Good Morning Music earlier this year, and one of our projects
47:37
is Slow Tide, but we work with which is Spencer from under Oath.
47:38
But we also work with now thousands of different artists all the way at like
47:44
a self released, like early stage level. They can just sign into our
47:47
website, they can distribute music, that can publish songs. But then we
47:51
have partnerships with more established artists or companies to provide them with distribution and back
47:57
end administration services, just helping me sure they collect all their rights. So
48:01
so with that, you know, I have conversations with sort of this new
48:05
crop of indie rock Christian artists which I'm kind of passionate about. I've been
48:09
pretty excited about. KOCHI is one of them, Ceo q u I.
48:14
You should check it out. It's amazing. But there's a lot of artists
48:17
kind of coming out of that lane, like Beach Chapel Living Again. It's
48:22
like this Southern California like Christian indie rock revival. It reminds me of like
48:27
Tooth and Nail Days and maybe there's only two thousands a bit Yeah, interesting,
48:32
I love it. I love it. Should we do top five?
48:35
Colin Top five? Man, let's do it a bro Okay, I might
48:39
need a little bit of time, but let's see. I'll put the Garasse
48:44
in brackets. That's one of my favorite records. Owe. Yeah, we're
48:47
big post rock fans. Yeah yeah. My my oldest son's name is Jonesy
48:52
and really okay, I thought it was going to be well, I'm a
48:59
big fan. I want isn't as big of a fan. But it was
49:00
a name we could agree on, so like it. It worked out,
49:05
So that was cool. That's a good you're you're committed to the bit?
49:07
The cigarettes bit? Does he speak as well he speak? Yeah, I'm
49:15
actually like I I love cigarrees. I think they're like they're probably like my
49:21
Yeah, they're just beautiful. It's just utterly beautiful music. Beautiful music.
49:24
So I would say Bob Dylan. I was trying to pick my favorite record
49:29
from Bob Dylan, but it would probably be uh his maybe his one of
49:34
his gospel albums like Slow Train coming. I don't know if you guys knew
49:37
that era of Bob Dylan. Slow Train. So it's a it's a sick
49:42
record, you know, it's interesting. What came to mind is Neutral Milk
49:45
Hotel, kind of indie rock band. Uh their album in the Airplane,
49:52
Over the Airplane, Over the c Yeah, okay, is the on the
49:55
cover? Is that a Do you think that's a like a drum or a
50:00
potato slice? Because I've I've heard I've heard both arguments made. I think
50:04
it's a coconut. I'm looking at it now. I I cannot tell you.
50:12
I'm gonna have to think about it a bit more. I'm gonna lean
50:14
on not a drum. It looks more like a potato to me. Yeah,
50:17
doesn't it kind of look like a potato. I don't know why I
50:21
always thought it was a coconut. That's just me. I don't I don't
50:24
see a coconut. I don't see like anything resenting a coconut milk. Maybe
50:29
it's just because I'm putting like coconut and coconut milk together. You know,
50:34
I'm a I'm a big gospel record guy, and this record might get me
50:37
canceled. But I love the Kanye Westcott Gospel album, really, I do.
50:44
I love it. It's what do you love about King? Yo?
50:50
Man? It's so creative. Oh my gosh, it's hard to like.
50:54
It doesn't sound like traditional gospel music. Clearly it doesn't sound like traditional is
51:00
the wrong word, like a modern hip hop. It's this sort of combination
51:06
of both. But the if you go and like listen to the song structure
51:10
and how it flows, it's just really original and unique and it's something I
51:16
can play for my kids. I get no cursing in it. I'm not.
51:21
I'm not condoning anything about the person of Kanye West. Separate the man
51:25
of the music. It's a unique individual, you know whatever. But yeah,
51:30
that that record is, it's really special. I think I think it's
51:35
really special personally for me. And then I was going about to say,
51:42
I remember when that album came out, and you know, Kanye just was
51:45
like so Christian on his social media and I still remember this tweet. I've
51:50
got it saved, but it was this person tweeted Kanye West acts like Jesus
51:53
went on vacation and left him in charge. And I'm like, that's exactly
51:57
how this guy's promoting this album right now. Yeah. Yeah, he again
52:02
like he's very unique, like is he? You know, I'm not here
52:09
to like to speak on that. I just thought the music's really wonderful.
52:15
Maybe I don't know if it's top five, but it's it's up there.
52:17
I have some reason just really really like it. Sure, and then let
52:22
me go through the stuff that I used. You know, if I was
52:25
to throw in one other one, man, I'm leaning towards gospel records.
52:30
I don't know. I didn't mean to, but I just love it.
52:31
That's all right. If you love it, you love it. Did you
52:35
know what I love? I love Soufi and Stevens Christmas albums. Interesting.
52:38
Yeah, they're timeless. I think he somehow nailed the timeless sound and I
52:45
love that. I mean, I know I'm going top five. You're probably
52:49
gonna cut me off, but I'm just looking at like records I've listened to
52:52
over the years. I mean, further seems forever the moon is down to
52:55
me, it's still transcendent of time. I think Cols Uh their EP called
53:01
you Can't Kill Us All or Functioning on Impatience is legendary. I mean,
53:07
there's so much legendary music, but those those are some of the records that
53:09
have influenced me in my my heyday. I dig it, love it,
53:15
I love it, man, that's what I would expect from the Militia group.
53:20
Honestly, Oh thanks man, appreciate that. Uh sre What do you
53:25
want to plug? Obviously got Good Morning going on morning, so you know,
53:31
we really wanted to start these really great songwriting sessions with Good Morning Music,
53:37
and we're looking at doing a country one in Nashville with Drew Taylor.
53:40
But we've also we've connected with this guy northern California and he he's actually started
53:47
these music sessions. It's going to sound crazy, but but it's on record.
53:52
You can actually listen to this. He started these these musical sessions with
53:55
a with what appears to be like a group of Bigfoot in northern California.
54:00
Yeah. But and so we started this program called the Sierra Sounds, where
54:05
it's a it's a it's a songwriting retreat in northern California. And what we
54:09
do is we make sure that you're at a safe distance from the big Feet
54:14
and or Sasquatches, and you can bring all sorts of stringed or wind instruments
54:21
is what we prefer, nothing plugged in. But we found that when you're
54:23
late at night performing in a certain rhythm, you'll actually hear the big feet
54:29
participate in drumming on the trees about a mile or two away in the specific
54:32
area, so it's safe, it's protected. It's a magical experience where you
54:37
get to interact with these these unique creatures. You know, are they it
54:43
just sounds like a concert, honestly, Nay, yeah, it could be.
54:51
It could be. You know, do they sing as well? Is
54:53
what I want to know? Like, is there it's more like screaming.
54:57
It's it's more like death hardcore metal mixed with like a Mountain lion scream level
55:04
streaming. Yeah, but all acoustic. Yeah, you don't want to plug
55:07
in. If you plug in, they can they'll start throwing pebbles and those
55:10
pebbles will turn into rocks, and you know, they're definitely telling you to
55:15
like, hey, this is I think that you're nickelback here. Yes,
55:21
yes, that's a deep cut. That's a that is a deep cuts deep
55:23
cut. But they you know, they don't believe in borders, these big
55:27
feet, you know, they they are clearly neither do I socialists or communist
55:31
because they just go over the border between Canada and US pretending like it doesn't
55:35
exist. I wow, I love it, just like how you know,
55:39
Canada and the US were in the nineteen eighties. They still think it's still
55:43
the nineteen eighties. And what's amazing. On our next trip, which is
55:45
planned for April, we're actually going to have doctor Jeff Meldrum join us,
55:52
and he's the foremost big that's a deep cut because he's at State, he's
55:57
at big Foot in Pocatello, and he's the world's foremost expert. So he's
56:02
actually going to We're going to go bigfoot prints hunting with the foremost expert in
56:08
bigfoot print hunts, and we're going to actually see and learn the difference between
56:13
real bigfoot prints and also the fake ones because this man is an expert in
56:19
animal feet and so we can tell you exactly like what looks fake and what
56:22
looks real that none of us could even see because we don't have a PhD.
56:25
And is that interesting? Wonderful trip make music with Bigfoot. What's great
56:31
is we're actually also going to record it and put it on DSPs. And
56:36
what's wonderful is through good Morning music, we can actually uh automatically split the
56:40
royalty so that the big feet community actually get their royalties directly. You don't
56:44
have to toss to them to get their royalties. You know, anytime I
56:47
talk about talk about bigfoot or I hear about bigfoot, all I can think
56:52
about is a Mitch Hedberg says, you know, has anyone ever thought that
56:58
maybe bigfoots just blur you, Yeah, just blurred? Is this blurred?
57:02
I just got to think that that's maybe true. You know, possibly,
57:06
man, possibly you might get the chance to figure that out if you if
57:10
you go on one of these trips. So oh, absolutely, yeah,
57:15
you know you do have to sign waivers over eighteen only males. By the
57:19
way, female humans for whatever reason, are it attracts the big feet to
57:24
come closer, and we don't want that. Their mind speak is quite powerful,
57:30
so their mind speak has been known to really get inside the minds of
57:34
particularly female species and the human race, and it affects the writing capability.
57:38
So we want to make sure that we're writing something natural and not stealing from
57:44
the bigfoot mind speak? Is it like the night Stalkers dog? Is it
57:46
like that kind of mind speak? A little bit? Yeah, a little
57:50
bit? Wow, fascinating. Well, we look forward to uh more Bigfoot
57:54
songs out in the world, but more than anything, we're just super stoked
57:58
that you decided to to come and hang out with us and chat a little
58:00
bit about your involvement in the kind of business side of music and kind of
58:06
learning a little bit about Militia Group again. You know, a lot of
58:07
those bands that Colin and I grew up were Militia group bands. So it's
58:12
just cool that, like, in some way, shape or form, you
58:15
have had a connection with Colin and I for quite some time. So super
58:17
cool to connect with you and chat a little bit more about it. Yeah,
58:21
thanks, guys. It's power of music. We love it. I'm
58:23
so glad you guys are out there still promoting these artists and sharing deeper insights
58:29
on musicians that we love it. It's great for everyone, great for us.
58:34
We love it. Thank you so much. You bet one last thing,
58:37
are you going to Furnace Fest twenty twenty four? Ooh, I really
58:40
meant to go the last couple of years, but with kids, it makes
58:44
it a little bit hard. And my wife just I try to explain to
58:46
my wife, like, Babe, I put out records from bands that people
58:49
love that promise like tap, and she like doesn't really understand it because she
58:52
didn't come up in the scene. But yeah, maybe I can pull her
58:55
out to that. It'll be interesting to see who chat books this year.
59:00
Uh, Chad, I've been hearing a lot of buzz around Cartel potentially coming.
59:05
Well, they were there a couple of years ago, a couple of
59:07
years ago, but people want to I really want slow Type to play.
59:12
That would be awesome, that would be Spencer feels it's like this old project
59:15
and like furnace Fest is too hardcore and I'm like no, like they would
59:20
crush it, like Slow Tide would do so well at Furnest so well.
59:23
Perfect example. Mason and I both agree that the best show we've seen at
59:28
furnace Fest is Apple Seed Cast and that's not super heavy either. So that
59:32
was an insane experience. I don't know what it was. It was the
59:36
best. Those guys, they they can do some really special stuff live definitely
59:42
fun. So thank you guys,