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Want a Publishing Deal? Prove This First · The Stephan Hogan Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Over half of you are not subscribed.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: So please hit that subscribe button, leave a review on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, because it really helps the podcast and it helps us get guests like today's guest, Lee Crable, who is the man of AR at smackmusic.com.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: Smacksongs.com.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: Dang it.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: Smacksongs.com.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: Smacksongs.com.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's what it is.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: At smacksongs.com.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: I may be wrong on that too.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: So when you sign a songwriter, what are you actually underwriting?
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: Is it talent, work ethic, emotional resilience, access to artists, commercial instincts, or a combination that cannot be separated?
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: It matters if it's a new developing writer versus a more established writer on their second or third publishing deal.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: I think if it's a new developing writer, we're looking at uh work ethic and and and obviously talent and things like that.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: But they may not have the commercial sensibilities yet that somebody on their second or third publishing deal would have.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: If it's somebody on their second or third publishing deal, we're gonna look at access, we're gonna look at uh commercial viability and what they're they're growing into for that next step.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: Because if you're in your second or third deal, we're gonna expect more from somebody than somebody we just signed right out of college who's 22 years old, who hasn't been writing every single day.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's just those are kind of the two separate things.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: What percentage of people would you say that you sign or it's their first deal versus people who are signing second or third deals?
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: Percentage-wise, I don't we haven't signed a lot of people to their first publishing deals of late.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, a lot of the people we've signed would be on their second.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: I think you know, Johnny Clausen, uh Clara Park, Emmy Moyen, who we just signed, Emily Falvey.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: I wrote with Emmy.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: They're all on their first pub deal.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but then like Lalo Guzman and Josh Dore and Sarah Buxton and Lee Miller and Scott Stepakoff and you know, big Mark Irwin, a lot of those writers are on their second deal.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: So or third or fourth or fifth, even.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: Scott's on his second?
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: No, Scott's probably what he's had, four or five, probably.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: Mark Irwin's had uh Mark Irwin's been around since the early nineties, you know.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: So Mark Beaston's been around since the early nineties, so they're obviously on a lot of different publishing deals.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: So here's the big thing.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: So I think about that like we were saying before we recorded like the revenue side.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: So I feel like a conventional business or a conventional company can show revenue, it can show customer retention, margins.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: What are the leading indicators of future value when a songwriter has almost no meaningful revenue history?
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm talking about the first-time songwriter.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they have nothing to show.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like I was telling you, you were like eight bucks.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um now when we sign writers to their first deal, most of them do have something out just because it's the way of the business now.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: Anybody can put music out on Spotify or any of the DSPs versus before, you know, 10, 15 years ago, there was usually no revenue coming in because most of the revenue would come in via a mechanical license for myTunes or uh a CD.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, there is gonna be like a literally eight dollars coming in of revenue uh on their schedule A, if not less, maybe sometimes more.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: But um and the schedule A is the all their songs that they've written.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: They've written before, yeah.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: Which and usually you're not even concerned about those, right?
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: Most of the time we're not.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: If it's somebody on their second or third publishing deal, there's gonna be some stuff on there.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: We've had writers on their second or third deal bring in songs that end up getting cut or were already cut or so on and so forth.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: But and then somebody like Johnny Clausen, I think when we signed him, it was his first pub deal, but he had already had a Chris Young cut at that time.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: So um, so that's a pretty rare situation, though.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: But in large part, the what we look for for a first pub deal is is really the work ethic, the hang, and we put them in rooms with our writers to see what they're going to bring to the table.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: Because if they come in and they're not bringing in ideas, if they don't come in with a chorus or if they don't have uh kind of a structure in place to bring to the professional writer, then it's probably not gonna be the right fit.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: But most of our writers are pretty open and honest about us.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: When we set them up with these new writers, they'll tell us like this person's very impressive, this person probably wasn't the right fit.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's uh is it one of those things where because I think a lot of people that listen to this podcast that would be interested in this would want to know, like what if a writer's just having an off day?
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yep, but that just happens to be like they get uh two or three shots.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, it's usually it's on one shot, yeah.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like no pressure, but go in there and perform.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: And there's people that get performance anxiety.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: Have there been people that you passed up on where you were like they didn't do a good job in their rights in those first two or three, because the feedback was eh.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: I had to do most of the work.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: I was doing the heavy lifting, I feel like they weren't really you know there yet.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: And then down the road that person ended up having success.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: Not off the top of my head.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um I mean, uh a lot of times if we don't sign a writer, it's just not the right fit, not the right timing because we're a small company, so I don't really look at it in that sense.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: But um but specifically in like writers on their first deals and stuff.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I mean, our writers will let us know if they have a certain amount of if they're ready or not, essentially.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: That doesn't mean that they don't go on later on and get a publishing deal two or three years later once they're ready, but you know, at the time they just weren't ready.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't necessarily mean they're not gonna have success or anything, but like maybe they need to log some more reps, kind of a thing, write some more songs, do some more co-writes, yeah, strengthen that muscle.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and to get more confident in the room, have an identity uh have an identity in the room as a writer.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there's all kinds of things that go into their development in that sense, but it's a thousand songs and a thousand shows, you know.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: An identity as a writer, I think about is uh identity could be um as a publisher, yeah.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: Or how you carry yourself in a room, your confidence, and that goes not just in songwriting, but across business in general, I feel like.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: For you personally, how do you feel like you built your identity to the point where you feel very confident in what you do?
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: I think my identity is is honesty for the most part with a creative.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: I want to be honest with them, and some writers want that and some writers don't.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um also I don't take a lot seriously, so I try to create an environment where creatives can come into a building smiling, essentially, and know that it's not you know life or death as to whether or not they're gonna write a hit today.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: I think creatives create better in a in a happy environment and in a fun environment.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: So I like to give people a little shit when they walk into our building and and and make sure that they feel comfortable to to you know create great art.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: Dude, you of all the places I've been in, yours is the mo the most uh vibey.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: It is the most it is the most non-uptight place I've been.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't feel sterile.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: Well think.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: You know, think of like a doctor's office or something versus like like getting your blood drawn at quest diagnostics versus on your couch at your home.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: And that's kind of what it feels like minus the needle, or not like corporate feeling, you know.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: What's one of the benefits of having a company owned by a songwriter?
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: I think that that translates into you know, songwriters know what songwriters want as an environment and as a vibe, and and I think it translates down to the staff and the writers.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: How many number ones does Shane have?
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I think he's like 40 or something like that.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: He's had uh like 80 some hits.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: And he started the company with Robin Palmer.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Rob and Yeah.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: Bill Board just released his statistic.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: He's the number two songwriter in country music history.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: After Ashley.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: After Ashley, yeah.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: If you've ever wondered why you see that little Frenchie in every episode of my podcast, it's there for a reason.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: What I care about here is real conversation, real people and real human connection.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: That's why partnering with Studio Bank made sense to me.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: Their mission is to empower creators, and they say that that little Frenchie is more than just a logo.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's smart, active, adaptable, and a natural companion.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: Sophisticated but not pompous, rare and one of a kind.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: That felt like a real fit for this podcast and this show and what I'm all about.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're around Music Row, you've probably heard of Studio Bank or know someone that banks with them, and there's a reason for that.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: They set out to rethink the typical experience, put people at the center of it, infuse innovative technology with genuine hospitality.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: Their whole idea is to be uncommonly modern and surprisingly human.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: That's a big part of why I'm proud to partner with them.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: They do not make you feel like a number.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: You get real people, real support, and a team that actually cares about what you're building, whether that's your business, your family, or your future.
• 9:16
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• 9:22
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• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: Let them know Stefan Hogan sent you and see how Studio Bank can serve you today.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: Studio Bank, member FDIC Equal Housing Lender.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: How much of your success comes from selecting the right riders and how much comes from changing their trajectory after they enter the SMAC system?
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's all the writer.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: I think the SMAC system deserves a lot of credit, but for the most part, it's just kind of taking them across the line.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: The writers are responsible for a majority of their success.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: Again, I think we create the environment to help them reach their potential.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I'm never going to sit there and be like, you know, I'm the reason why Clara Park had success, or I'm the reason why Ryan Bieber had success.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: They did it.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: They were in the room, they wrote the song, they created it.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think we just provide that extra thing to get them across the finish line to their success.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: But I give all the credit to the writers, they're the ones that show up every day, and especially like the younger writers like Johnny Clawson, who we've talked about a lot in Clara Park, and you know, they're putting in eight, twelve hour, sixteen-hour days in order to make their dreams come true.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, I go home at five o'clock to my family.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: They're they're out there grinding.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: So they're putting in the effort, they deserve all the credit.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: When it comes to like PLs and things like that, or projections for a second or third writer, how do you guys calculate the fiscal side of the company?
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: And is there a lot of projections when it comes to cuts, uh expected cuts per year?
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: Because to me, there's so much ambiguity in publishing to an extent because there's the skill side, there's a relationship relationship side, there's the luck side.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like certain things just hit and like Jody Williams always says the target just keeps moving every day and it's always different.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: I don't even know what that means.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: Can you explain what that means when the target's moving?
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I mean it's the the way you get cuts is always moving.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: The artists that you're trying to chase is always moving.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: So um, you know, when I first started in the business, some of the biggest artists at that time, whether it be like Brad Paisley or whoever, may not, or Little Big Town, even like they were they were the target at the time.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: And now it's Morgan Wallen and Luke Combs or Ella Langley.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: Like those, so that target moves in a sense.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: But also, like, you know, an album cut doesn't pay as much as a single, so then that moves.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_01: Uh syncs become involved in it.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you divor you gotta diversify more.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: We're in Christian, we're in pop, we're in rock.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: Like the target is consistently changing in this in the current era, especially as Nashville gets more access to different genres and different people.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, let's talk about diversification in publishing.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: Because when we think publishing as a general rule, I'll tell you, for me, when I first uh came to town 15 years ago, I remember driving around Music Row and looking at the number one, you know, signs out in front of publishing companies and being like, what to me it was just like it gives me the chills, man, because that was for me at the time just the dream.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I just thought a publishing company signs a writer and then they write, they get cuts and hit songs, and that's it.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: But it really goes deeper than that because you're in a vertical, but I guess you could say there's multiple verticals within your vertical, or however you'd want to say that.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: What is the main vertical for uh generating revenue as a business?
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and like how does it fall in terms of like a number one song, sync licensing and the other ways that you guys generate revenue currently, and then where are you looking ahead in the future as things are always changing for new opportunities to be able to generate revenue as a company?
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: The word country politan comes from a real era in country music when Nashville took country music and made it elegant, strings, background vocals, orchestra, it was country music with polish.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: Think Patsy Klein, Glenn Campbell, Tammy Wynette, George Jones, Charlie Pride, songs that still had the ache and honesty of country, but dressed up with style.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: And that is exactly what this hotel feels like.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: The kind of place where every detail's been thought through, the scent when you walk in, the music, the clothes they carry, the textures, the rooms, the coffee cups, the way everything feels curated without feeling fake.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: So you feel the history immediately, but unlike staying right in the middle of Broadway, it feels tucked away, it feels calm, it feels like you found something.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: And that's honestly why I love it.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's where I go when I want to get away, think, slow down, have a restful time without technology.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: And when you're ready, the Ryman and Broadway are about a four-minute walk.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: The CountryPolitan Hotel, stay in the story.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_01: Most music companies now have dipped their toe into master ownership and management and various other forms of trying to create uh revenue, which Smack has done since before I even got there.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I've been there for 10 years.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, my first job was at a company called Seagale Music, and they were one of the first ones that really started like their own record label and uh with Sony to release records.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's just something that it's something that Big Loud has done and Creative Nation and other companies are doing.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: So there's going to be multiple revenue sources from management, label, all those different things.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: So that's a big one.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: But on the publishing side, like a vast majority of our revenue as an independent publisher is still going to be radio.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's still our number one goal is we're going to we we want to make sure that our writers have a path towards radio um every single day.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: That doesn't mean that it's always going to work, obviously.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but then you know, if you're a major, um, a big chunk of their income is now streaming because they don't really move off catalogs and they have these wide catalogs that go all the way back to the Beatles and Michael Jackson and stuff like that.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: So they're they're creating a significant amount of revenue off mechanical licenses from the DSPs, um, which we are getting more and more like it seems like every year we make more money off the DSPs, but it's still not to the place where it's replacing radio money.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, radio money is still our biggest driver.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: Sync money goes up and down.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: When you think about radio in the future, so radio is your biggest revenue driver, but we all think about terrestrial radio, and everyone for the last however many years has been like it's gonna go away.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm sure there's been a decline in terrestrial radio, but it it's still king in country music, specifically country music.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so what does it look like when you guys think about the future as a company?
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: Because you always have to be forward thinking, because if you're not, you're sinking.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: So when you think terrestrial radio future, currently that's our number one revenue generator, but it's also there's a form of exposure there because we don't know when terrestrial radio might take a hit and people just say, Hey, we're just gonna all have serious XM, or hey, we're all just gonna be on DSPs now listening to Spotify and Apple music and Amazon music.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: What does that look like?
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: Do you guys think about projecting out towards that and trying, does that drive you to diversify more?
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's driven a lot of companies to diversify into other aspects of the business.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't know if that's the driving force behind a lot of the decisions that the people of Smack have made.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I don't try to think about it a lot because it's all of those exterior things are kind of beyond my control.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: Like my day-to-day when I go to work is I want to set my writers up in positions for them to succeed, but it's also like my job is to get a cut on Jordan Davis.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: My job is to get a cut on Blake Shelton.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: That's not changing.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: Whether or not that cut goes to radio or is an album cut or is it gets synced or all that stuff is beyond my control.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: And it hasn't changed the way I specifically do business.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: Now, it may end up driving independent publishers out of business at some point if radio just declines rapidly, but radio isn't declining as rapidly as people thought.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: It is declining, there's no doubt about that.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you can see with the iHeartRadio layoffs and other things happening like that.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: But at the same time, Sirius XM is increasing, and Sirius XM pays great, and they also pay the artists and they pay and they pay the writers.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: So um, I don't know.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know where it's gonna lead.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, obviously DSPs are gonna continue to, you know, every year, every four or five years, whatever it is, we're gonna renegotiate with them, and hopefully we continue to get a bigger slice of the pie as DSPs grow.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: We're getting a lot more cuts too, because there's more people releasing songs and releasing more songs.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: So 10, 15 years ago, there was one album every two or three years.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: Now there's people releasing an album every year, it's gonna have 20, even 30, 40 songs on it.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, people are gonna release multiple EPs, multiple singles, and stuff like that.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, the independent publisher that was getting 50 or 60 cuts 10 years ago to stay in business, we're now getting two to three hundred cuts.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, 40 or 50 of those cuts are gonna be like streaming hits that aren't even gonna make it to radio that are gonna go, that are gonna get to the you know, that 50, 60, 100 million stream world where you're then creating real income.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: If you get 50 or 60 of those, that's like having two or two or three singles.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: When you say 50, 60 million streams, are you thinking of one DSP or are you thinking of multiple?
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: Multiple.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, and and again, because like Amazon pays more than Spotify for streams.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean Apple pays more than all of our Apple, yeah.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_01: Apple does, yeah.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_01: Is that what it is?
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and there's like a streaming calculator on Billboard where you can see exactly where it comes from.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: But the the one thing that waters down the Spotify numbers is like the free listening.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: So those free streams don't pay as much as the paid stream.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're doing a page stream on Spotify, it's a very similar payout than others, but like on a per stream rate, it gets lower because it's watered down by the ad-supported streams.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_01: And books, right?
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: And well, yeah, there's a whole conversation about uh the bundling aspect that Spotify has as and Amazon have done to to try to pay songwriters less.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_01: But they're also trying to come back and say, if you license us your videos, we'll go back to your normal rate.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_01: So they're Spotify's doing this video thing now, which is kind of funny.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_01: They're trying to give us some of our money back, but that's a whole other conversation.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: The bundling thing is interesting.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: I think they're about to charge extra for audiobooks, though.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: But they all services are way undervalued in the sense of what we're paying them every month.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I think all of them, I think Apple's announced that they're going to increase theirs.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody's gonna have to start increasing theirs because the value that you get is just it's pretty low.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: So hopefully that catches up.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: And then hopefully publishers will be able to stay in business if we can get some more money from them.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: What is something that looks impressive in a songwriter meeting but has very little predictive value five years later?
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_01: There is a quality of a writer or an artist that is hard to define.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_01: When they walk into a room, there is something about them where everybody in the room is immediately kind of not that this word is right, but like attracted to them as a person, as a songwriter, as a uh artist.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: There's like there's a vibe that they have.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I always say that like one of my friends growing up in this town was Brad Eldridge.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: And Brett, when Brett Eldridge walked into a room, every single person, man or woman, would look at him because he had that personality, he had that vibe when he walked into a room.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that we we look at that in songwriters and and artists as well.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: Like do they have that?
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of the star quality, is what it's called.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_01: But in reality, it's just kind of just like they have a great personality and they're a great person and they're a great hang.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_01: And uh it makes you want to to hang around with them more.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's an undervalued thing that you can't really put a price on on that thing.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: So there's a lot of intangibles.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's a it's a personality business, it's a person business.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: And so if you know you want your pluggers to have a good personality because they're gonna sell the songs, you want your songwriters to have a good personality because they're gonna get in the rooms with these people, and you want them to get back in the rooms with those people.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there's there's a lot of that that that is a value to it.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: When you evaluate a writer, are you forecasting what the market will want, or are you looking for someone capable of surviving several changes in the market?
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: I think you you definitely think about if they're going to be able to be viable in your market.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_01: If I've met with people in the past that were very Americana leaning, and I think Smack's probably not the right fit for that.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um just because.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: We are part of like the current country music market and we want to make sure our writers remain in that market because that's where a vast majority of the business is.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: But at the same time, I've never like we're not specifically telling our writers to chase radio.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: We want to set them up for possibilities with which means like artists that have an opportunity to go to radio or whatever.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: But um yeah, I think you we we were gonna sign writers that have an opportunity that to go to radio at our company, but other companies may have different avenues and and resources that Smack doesn't.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_01: So like if you're if you're one of like Concord or somebody who has an incredible sync team, you're gonna be more likely to sign stuff that Smack can't.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_01: So Smack in itself is like we're a country music forward business, even though we've had hits in Christian and rock and pop and stuff like that.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's just we're a country music radio forward business.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, country's a very diverse genre.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's probably uh as right right now, like the most diverse from Americana to pop to even hip hop to I mean, we're kind of all over the place.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it's kind of become the what rock and roll was in the 70s, uh, even into the 80s.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_01: Like we would have the Eagles, John Mellencamp, Leonard Skinnard would all kind of be in our format, right?
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: Which used to be, and I even think if you go into the 90s pop era of the Wallflowers and Matchbox 20 and the Goo Goo dolls, I think those artists also would kind of fit into our format.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: You saw it with Hootie and the Blowfish with Darius Rucker, like those transitions into our format are really, really easy.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so yeah, I think country's diversity has definitely exploded and would cover a lot of those things.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: So it's I think Bob Lessett's always says country's like the modern rock and roll now.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: I've never heard that.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: So the so there's more opportunity in country music right now than ever.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: Than ever before.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: More cuts.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_01: There's more cuts, there's more artists, there's more people from different genres coming through.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_01: Big X the Plug.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, just it's post-Malone, obviously, Beyonce.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: There are a lot more opportunities than there ever have been.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: So do you think that's because of the potential within uh radio?
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think it's necessarily a radio thing.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think those those decisions are being driven by radio because obviously Big X the Plug and Beyonce didn't get a ton of radio love in the country space.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_01: But I do think our fan base is very open-minded and wanting new things.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_01: I think that country music is expanding worldwide, and it's a it's a genre that is is focused in media and gets a lot of attention.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_01: That if you make a country record, then I think a lot of media outlets are going to be interested in that as well.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: But it's also just simply like the largest or the biggest genre in the world right now.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_01: So, in terms of consumption, like country music is the number one dominant genre.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_01: So Ella Langley and Morgan Wallin and Luke Combs and Zach Bryan and all these people are kind of taking over all the billboard charts and things, and that's never really happened in our history either.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: In terms of we'd always have one or two country artists every once in a while sneak their way up to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart and compete with some of the pop and rock stars.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_01: But now we're kind of in control of it.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_01: And if you put Taylor Swift in there, she just put she has a country song that's top 10 right now.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_01: So, like, and she was a Nashville product.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_01: Like, there's another one.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_01: Sabrina Carpenter, she writes a lot of her people, or a lot of her songs are written with Nashville writers.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_01: Like, that's another like Nashville's kind of taken over.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: Steph Jones.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: Steph Jones, yeah.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: Had her on.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, she's awesome.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: So you can spread risk across a roster.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: But each writer has effectively invested nearly all of their human capital in one career.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: Does that mean the writer's actually taking more concentrated risk than the publisher?
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, financially, no.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: I mean the publisher's taking all the risk.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um we're giving them money to write, and we're giving them a space to write, and we're splitting the uh the profits either, you know, 50-50, uh, 6333, 7525, like whatever your deal, whatever the different deals are.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_01: So um, you know, the writer's either getting 75% or 50% of their profits, plus we're paying them, plus we're giving them a place to write.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: So the publisher's taking on more of the risk on like that financial upfront side.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, in terms of like the dream and and the years you have left to chase and things like that, then yeah, I mean, you're putting a lot of risk and and and trust into that company to kind of help you achieve those dreams because it is like you're gonna sign somewhere for three to five years, and then if everything goes well, hopefully you're gonna extend and and have a long relationship with that with that publishing company.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, there's there's two ways to answer that question.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: But on the upfront thing, like publishers are definitely putting more of their more at risk.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's something that people don't understand.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: Would you agree?
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, definitely.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_01: And and in the music business, the publishing deal is definitely the best deal for the creative.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's better than a record deal, it's better than any other deal you're gonna get.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because you're splitting the profits either 50-50 or 75-25.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_01: So it's um or it's somewhere in between there.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_01: And even in some cases, they're doing admin deals that are 80-20, 90-10.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, the writers are always gonna get at least half or more of what they've earned.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: Can you explain an admin deal?
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they just collect your royalties and they collect a fee off the top.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so if you generate a million dollars, they're gonna keep a hundred thousand or two hundred thousand and then you're gonna get the rest.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_01: But they do all the administrative work.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they're gonna collect your country or collect all your money from every country in the world from my my fence cut.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: They keep emailing me about money that I have, but I don't know how to get it.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: So does that mean I need an admin deal?
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_01: Probably, yeah.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there there's ways to do uh admin on your own, obviously, but it can be very time consuming and difficult, especially if your your song is being consumed in 60 different countries and you have to go track down income in 60 different countries.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's a a pretty heartbreaking business to be in.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_01: And and hopefully your publisher can be there to get you through it.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_01: But it's a and then you're obviously your co-writers and friends, but um, you know, getting a cut and it not making the record or getting the single and it not getting past 40, like there's all kinds of things that can be extremely heartbreaking in this business that are uh I admire songwriters who just keep pushing through that have been doing it for a long time, but that's why they call it a 10-year town, because it's it takes 10 years to kind of get through, weed through all the crap, have luck kind of land your way, if not longer.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think it's a luck?
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes the harder you work, the luckier you get.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_01: I do believe that.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but in some in some cases, like we have no control as to whether or not something's gonna be a single or not.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_01: Somebody somewhere is gonna make that decision, and that is luck.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we have no control as to whether a song is gonna make a record or if it's gonna go viral or if it's gonna be the the best streaming song off the album that then's gonna be the next single.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like, so we have very little control in that.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_01: So there is luck involved.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I think again, like if the harder you work, generally the luckier you get.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: I've seen the whiteboard, I believe, that is in your uh at Smack that has who's cutting.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: Are the majority of writers writing for that?
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: Let's say Jordan Davis, back to your example.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like Jordan Davis is cutting, he's taking outside songs, you guys get a pitch.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: Are you like, hey, let's do this right with this person and this right with this person because we think they can write a song that's like a Jordan Davis type tune?
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes that happens.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_01: We don't we don't necessarily force our writers into chasing any of those things on the board.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_01: I think that board is just information for you to have when you go into a room and you don't have a direction as to what to write for.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_01: And also if you have songs with that writer that you need to finish the track on, or if you have an idea of a song that maybe you started with your buddy that you need to finish to get it in time so Jordan can hear it or whatever, that's it's it's mostly just information sharing.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_01: Some of our writers do love um information that they can use to create that day.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but for the most part, we we're not forcing them to do anything.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_01: We're just trying to provide them the information of what those artists are looking for when they're cutting.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think a lot of the writers see that and they use it as data to be able to go write?
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm gonna try to write a tune for Jason Aldeen today.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I think some of our writers don't look at it at all because they don't want to look at it.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_01: That's interesting.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_01: They don't want they don't want the pitch sheet to dictate what they're gonna create that day.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of our writers are like that, and I respect that.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I think a lot of our writers are really good at direction.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_01: Like if you walk in and say Jason Aldeing needs this kind of song, they'll go crush it.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_01: And they're not very good at let's just grab something from the sky.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_01: And then the other half of our writers are amazing at let's just grab something from the sky and create something.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_01: So every every writer is kind of creates differently.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: Once these songs are turned in, you guys listen Mondays.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: How do you whittle it down?
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: Because there is traditional pitch meetings.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yep, which we do those.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: But also, is there a lot less of formality when it comes to pitching songs now?
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm gonna just text this over to Jordan Davis.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_01: Our writers uh pitch a lot of their own stuff.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but specifically on the plugger side, we definitely are texting songs to artists and producers and managers.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, email is still a big factor in in sending those kind of songs.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, in-person meetings are still, I would guess, like where I get have gotten most of my cuts in my career.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_01: I don't get a lot of cuts over email for some reason.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_01: That's mostly an in-person meeting.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: What does that mean?
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: Walk me through that meeting.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_01: Like an in-person meeting?
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I have regular meetings at or Smack in general has regular meetings at every record label um for the most part.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_01: And we just go and kind of pitch them the we're gonna send we're gonna play them mostly the new songs that have come in over the last few weeks, unless they're asking for something specific.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um so yesterday we had Stephanie Wright and she was like, I need songs for John Party and Jordan Davis, and so we kind of geared our link towards those artists.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: So you went over to Warner?
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_01: Uh no, she's Universal MCA.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, MCA.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah, she went to Warner, then back to UMG.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: My bad.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: So you went to UMG?
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh MCA.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: MCA, yeah, which is UMG.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, which is UGA.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: And now called U MCA because of Dave Cobb.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: So I get confused.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: I met her when she was at Warner.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_00: You're at MCA.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: So you're playing Stephanie songs.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: How many?
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_01: Usually five or six, sometimes seven.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_01: It just matters if a lot of times we'll bring something to remind her of that we know she already knows.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but uh generally we send her we send a link or we'll play a link from our computer and she'll either pass, take a copy and send it to an artist, hold a song uh to make sure we don't pitch it to anybody else uh before she gets an answer back on the artist.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_01: What happened yesterday?
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_01: Uh she took four copies, maybe to send to artists.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um and then a lot of times it's an information gathering session as well to see like who's cutting next and and what the priorities are at the label, uh, what's coming up, which is kind of the that's the best part of those meetings because you can pitch songs to somebody for 10 years and and get one cut or two cuts, but you can get a lot of cuts based on the information you get and you can share with your writers and your staff.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_01: So those ones are in person.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_01: So is that just you?
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's me or the other pluggers within the building.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we'll do a lot of meetings together.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_01: Some of them, like we have Sam and Jeremy have their own meetings with their own contacts, and I have my own meetings with my own contacts, but we generally most meetings I'd say we bring at least one person with us.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: And Stephanie's a VP at AR at MCA.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, she's the head of AR at MCA.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: And you're the head of AR that's Mac.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: Smack.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: So you meet with her, you sit down, you play your songs geared towards the specific artists.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: Party or Davis.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_00: And then she's like, I'll take four, I'll take these four.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_00: I'll take copies of the city.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_01: But she'll like one by one.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_01: She'll be like, hey, I think this sounds great.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_01: Or in some cases, she'll be like, hey, I think Jordan's already has something like that on the record.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_01: I might send this to Josh Rotts.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_01: Or maybe if we got a female vocal, this would work for Carrie Underwood.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_01: Or like some type of thing.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_01: Are they good enough, usually, that they want copies?
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_01: And specifically at Smack.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, the dominant independent publishers or major publishers, the song should be good enough.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_01: Like our song should be good enough for her to take a copy at least.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_00: Because you're really whittling it down to the cream of the crop.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, they're the best writers in the world, and it's their it's our best five or six songs of those best writers in the world over the last two weeks or to a month or however long the meeting's been.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, hopefully we're going to get something.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes we strike out, especially in like the artists.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_01: If we're pitching directly to an artist, like we may be way off on what they're trying to do.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_01: Because we may be pitching for what they did on the last record, and they're wanting to move forward.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes we tank that way.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like that happens a lot.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we've had some bad pitch meetings that in that way.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_01: But we've also had pitch meetings where you know they like everything and they cut three of the songs that we've pitched them.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_01: So it's yeah.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_00: I'm curious because like uh Casey Musgraves, MCA, well, um G now MCA, Golden Hour, they didn't know what to do with that record when she was done with it.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_00: They're like, this is weird, like this is different, we're a little concerned.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't say that, but according to someone that uh in a podcast, they were like talking with someone at Um G.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_00: Basically, they were boiling it down to you, this is so far from where the radio's at.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_01: We are a little like unsure.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_01: Which maybe at the time of that record, that was a real conversation.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_01: I think the business has changed in a way that a lot of these artists aren't radio focused, right?
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_01: So and Casey would be one of those artists, and she outstreams you know, most of the radio focused artists on that label.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_01: So I think now that comes to the city.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, she won a Grammy for it.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_00: But it was one of those things that was left of center.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_00: The only reason I say that is because I'm curious if you have a strategy when you go into these meetings to bring something that is completely of a different palette.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_00: Let's say, yeah, this is what John's done, this is what Jordan's done, but he hasn't done this yet, and this is very different.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_01: So the ones that are left of center, those are the ones that stand out.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_01: The ones that you did you wouldn't think that somebody would cut, those are the ones that stand out.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what we kind of push our writers to to do right, like write the weird thing, dare to suck kind of thing, because it's gonna stand out from everything else in town, especially in those pitch meetings.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_01: Dare to suck.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_01: Dare to suck.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_00: I like that.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_00: So you're told now a lot, right?
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, 99% of the time.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_01: How does that feel?
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm so calloused now, it doesn't matter.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_01: The the wins make up for it.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_01: And it and again, the more you're you're in the business and you understand it, like it's it's much easier to understand.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's the same thing as a baseball player, like you're gonna fail 70, 80% of the time, but like the more you're in the business, the more you understand it.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_01: Like there's eight other people out there trying to stop that ball from being hit, right?
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_01: And there's a pitcher who's trying to strike you out.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_01: So, and it's the same thing in in the music business.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_01: You got to get it through the AR person, the producer, the artist, the the promo team, the manager.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_01: There's a thousand different things that could derail your song from from having success.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_01: And so there's a lot of things that work against you, but when something does work for you, it's amazing.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_01: And it's it's one of the best feelings.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's like you know, Texas is a great example of of something that worked really well for three of our writers and gave them their first number one, and it changed their lives and it and it changed the trajectory of all of them in this town, and and that feels good.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_00: So you can't project a Texas, no.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_00: So when you guys do projections and try to, like any business, have year over year growth and you're looking at 2027 versus 26 data versus 25, and do you look at the past and you're like, this is what it's looked like, this is what we've done on average, so let's project this much for 27 in terms of operating capital ability for investing in writers, draws, we're operating a year or two behind, usually, because the income from a song generally is a year or two behind, but it's peak.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, we're still like operating on stuff that happened two years ago.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's what our projections are.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_01: And what we're doing now affects what Smack will be in a year or two from now, if that makes sense.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_01: Because that's how money rolls in.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_01: Like if your song peaks in November, you're gonna get paid in December of the next year, so on and so forth.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_01: And that's just gonna be your first check.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, we're we're operating in behind in the in that sense, because that's how the the thing, the money comes in, but we don't really project in a sense of like, I know you said it before, like, do we sign a writer and project what they're going to bring in?
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_01: Because we have no control over it.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_01: So we can't really project that unless they bring in a schedule A that's already creating income.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_01: As an independent publisher, we don't do that.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_01: I think Sony would be more of somebody who would sign, like if an artist is already popping off or Warner, if they have an artist already popping off that's gotten getting, you know, 10 million streams a week, they can project income.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_01: And that that is something that they would be interested in is projecting that income.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_01: Or if you're you know one of the biggest writers in town and you're trying to sell your catalog, if you're Chase McGill or Hardy or any of these people who've done their their catalog sales recently, you know, those all these publishers are going to look at your past, you know, five, ten, fifteen years of income and and value that as what the what they think it's worth.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_01: And they're also going to look at forward uh projections of of what they expect to come in the in the future.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_00: What were those acquisition, catalog acquisition numbers?
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know?
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_00: I have no idea.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I think Zach Bryan's was 200 million.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but he was selling masters and publishing, so those are two separate things.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_01: He's uh he sold everything, I think.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_01: Which, you know, if you're Chase McGill, you don't own any masters, so your your catalog sale is going to be a lot different than the artists that are selling their masters.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_01: But like Bruce Springsteen sold for a half a billion, and you know, a lot of these guys are selling for just absurd numbers.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_01: But they're they're kind of a lot of these guys are at the at the point in their lives and their careers where it makes more sense for them to just offload all of this stuff for family reasons and for, you know, nobody has to argue over the different copyrights, you don't have to transition ownership, things like that.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_00: On those catalog sales, does that save you because there's ta different taxes?
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_00: What is the tax that you pay as a songwriter?
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_01: Your tax whether you're taxed uh from income or capital gains, and capital gains is taxed less than income.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_01: I believe that's why they're incentivized to sell their catalog.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_01: And also you get your, you know, you get 10 years of royalties now instead of waiting 10 years for all those royalties.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, there's also the stories of people that sell songs that weren't creating income that end up creating income or songs that end up getting huge sinks that they weren't necessarily anticipating, um, which those stories are a dime a dozen.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_01: But um, for the most part, it's you know, if you're Shane, like you sold your catalog and or Craig Wiseman, like Craig Wiseman and Big Loud sold catalog to build Big Loud Records, and Luke Laird and Beth Laird sold catalog to build Creative Nation, and Shane sold catalog to build Smack.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_01: And so if you're creating more from that sale, it's it's a fantastic thing.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_01: Or if you're or if you're just an individual songwriter and you want to pay off your house and fill up your kids' college education, you don't have to worry about anything anymore.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's also a big damn deal, too.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't I don't fault anybody for wanting to do any of those things.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_00: I used Chat GPT to do percentage of being able to be successful and write a number one song.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_00: And it used uh all the information from different PROs and amount of songwriters license, etc., and to boil it down, it was 0.0019%.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_02: Oh yeah.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's it's incredibly difficult.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_00: And then the people that you're talking about, like Craig Wiseman, yeah, they have what he has like 30 number ones.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_00: Shane, you said 40.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_00: So these people have this enormous amount of money they can pour into a company to build a business, seed money, and then they have a business that's diversified.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_00: Just like Shane going into Smack and now he's diversified, and he probably has a lot of his money tied up in other investments as well.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, outside of the business, yeah.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_00: Outside of the business.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_00: And then are there times where your business will or not yours, but small publishing companies will intentionally lose money for the business owner to be able to show a loss on their taxes?
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_01: No, we're not.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_01: I think there is we'll sell catalogs, and and some companies like their business model is to build up a catalog over the course of five to ten years and sell that catalog or sell pieces of that catalog, and then you will operate at a loss for that for the next few years until you build up a catalog again ready for sale.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_01: But that's the only time that we would like purposely operate as for a loss.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_01: But we're by no means ever trying to lose money.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_00: Do you do catalog acquisition?
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_00: So that's more like the big boy, like Sony is trying to do that.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, they're trying to buy up people's catalogs.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_01: Concorde.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's there's all kinds of different companies, and there's investment companies that come in and just want to buy the catalog that are associated with big funds and hedge funds and things.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and yeah, they're just trying to build up a big big enough catalog to eventually sell uh to one of the big majors.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_01: But even the majors have to have partners now to to compete with some of these catalogs because you know they're billion-dollar catalogs that are getting built now.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_01: So not a lot of companies have a billion dollars in cash just chilling.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_01: More concentrated wealth these days.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of concentrated wealth.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_01: We have sold catalogs in the past, like especially writers that aren't at Smack anymore or whatever.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_01: Like we've sold individual catalogs here and there, but we've never bought anything.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_00: Do you feel like your main job is to empower the songwriter to be able to be creative?
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_00: What is your biggest like when you go to work and you get to work, what makes you most stoked?
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um the good news, great news, life changing news.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_01: Like I love I love those things.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_01: I love like what you know, Johnny's always coming in.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_01: He's like, Tell me some good news.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_01: Like I love the good news.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_01: And and whether it's Do you say that to him?
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_01: He says I mean, he always walks into a room and he's like, Tell me good news.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_01: And then that's kind of how I feel every time I drive into work.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like I really am.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: Excited because more often than not, like we are getting good news on a pretty regular basis, whether we're getting a thousand dollar sync, which is good news to me, or a cut in Texas or to the next single on this artist, like all that to me is really exciting.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I love the good news, and and give it to being able to celebrate those wins with our writers is is pretty pretty amazing.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_01: That's what it drives me.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_01: So it's pretty fun.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of people have the ability to do the artist thing, but the artist is the worst job in our business, and and in terms of the amount that you have to give to it to have success, and you're gone all the time, and uh you don't get it to you're gonna be gone for months at a time, and and you're gonna miss times with family and friends and miss moments with even your kids and stuff.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_01: So I think a lot of people factor that into their decision making.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_01: I think now you you're able to kind of dip your toe in it, and like if you want to make a record and put it out and do some press around it or do some shows here and there, you're able to without having to do the full-on, you know, working 290 days a year.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_01: What's the riskiest job in the music business?
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_01: The riskiest job?
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, being a publisher.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's I want I don't know if that's necessary.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_01: Or is it the artist?
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um I don't know.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_01: Honestly, I think there's a everybody songwriters and artists are sacrificing a lot to have success.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_01: And they're sacrificing time with friends and family, and they're putting, you know, they're working 12, 16 hour days and in order to make a dream come true.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, that comes with a lot of risk in a in a in a different way.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_01: But maybe like, you know, publishers and labels are putting out a lot of money in order to hope and hope that these investments work.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but obviously, you know, MCA investing a million dollars in something's different than Smack investing$100,000 in something, right?
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_01: Our income levels are different, our net worth is different.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but you know, artists, artists and songwriters sacrifice a whole hell of a lot to to make their lives come true and their dreams come true.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I'd probably got to give it to them.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_00: Do you like being on your side of the business?
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_00: Does it feel more stable?
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's definitely more stable.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there's I there's not as high of a ceiling as being a song plugger as there is a songwriter or an artist, obviously, but I do love my side of the business because I get to see everything, I get to I get to be a part of everything to an extent in the background, and I get to see a lot of people live their dreams.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's it gets kind of seen people live the American dream is they come to Nashville with nothing and then they, you know, buy a house in Belmade.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_00: Like that's that's it, right?
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_00: Kent Earls was on the podcast and he said that when he signs a writer, he's usually signing them for at least three years.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_00: Is that how you think?
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we're trying, you know, most of our deals are three to five years.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_00: Because what he was saying, and I'm curious if you agree with this, was you're refining the first couple years, by the third year you have more relationships, your songs are better.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_00: Etc.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you should start seeing some sort of movement in that third and fourth year.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um in terms of recoupment.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_01: Not recoupment, no.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_01: I mean because if you're gonna start getting cuts in your third and fourth year, you're not even gonna get close to recoupment yet, because that money's not even uh coming in yet.
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_01: So So where do you need to be getting cuts?
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_01: Uh if you want to recoup your deal, you need to be getting cuts in your first year.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like if you're trying to recoup it immediately.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_01: But almost no deal gets recouped immediately.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like with the average, I guess, is is is more my question.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_00: Like if it comes down to because when I think of recoupment, I think of obviously paying back what you owe.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_00: But you can be an artist, you can be writing songs, you can be getting cuts, you can be generating revenue that might not be recouping, but you're like, all right, there's income coming in from this writer, therefore we can justify keeping how we do most of our things.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_01: Like, so I mean, there's a lot of our artists that by the time they get to that third or fourth year, their deals are coming up, but they've had a number one or they've had multiple number ones or a lot of cuts, and so we know that there's pipeline income coming in and they're going to recoup by the end of year five or something.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_01: And so when we're doing our negotiations for that next deal, we we definitely factor in that.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_01: But they won't be necessarily recouped at that moment, but they will be a year from now or whatever it is, once that money starts being collected.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_01: Because like I said, once you have a hit, it's gonna take a year or two for that income to come in and be recouped on your deal.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_00: That's interesting.
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_00: There's uh a dude I met, his name's Alex Heike.
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_00: He has a company called Sound Royalties, but all they do is it uh advances on future earnings for royalties.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_00: Where you can get your money up front.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_01: They'll give you a certain percentage of your money or or whatever, yeah.
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_00: What are the draw amounts, like let's say 30 grand being below?
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, what would be the high side that you could pay a rider justifiably because of the amount of revenue that they're bringing in?
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_00: And how much generally is someone actually wanting to get in terms of a draw because they might select owner more ownership over more of the draw?
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_00: How does that work?
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's it's different for every rider.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_01: I think Smack's business model, we have like kind of a set parameters on what we pay everybody, and it's basically the same, whether you're you have 50 number ones or one number one or zero number ones.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_01: We're kind of in this range of like 30 to 50 on a draw, and uh that's just kind of our business model.
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so even for the guy that's like got 50 number ones, you do.
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but most of the time because he's making all the money off of the songs.
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, most of the time, though, those writers don't want to draw.
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um they're they don't need it.
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_01: They don't need it.
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um so uh to then their their goal is to set themselves up for another catalog sale so it's in their best interest to be recouped.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_01: And if we don't have a draw, then that means you stay recouped.
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and we have a lot of veteran writers that have been around a long time that take low or no draw in large part because they're trying to set themselves up for some sort of catalog sale down the future.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_00: So is that advantageous for you as a business to not have to pay that amount up front?
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_01: To an extent, I think it's you know, there's benefits to us having you know the 50-50 full pub deals with baby writers that end up having a hit or two in that.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_01: There's obviously like if you have your your no-draw co-pub deal on a veteran writer and you get a couple of hits on that, that's awesome too.
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there's benefits to all of it, really.
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_00: What would gener what's the what would generate more?
• 50:30
  SPEAKER_00: The baby rider or the veteran writer.
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's gonna take so if we have a number one on a on a baby writer in that first deal where they're kind of in a full publishing deal, we're definitely gonna make a lot more money than if we get really two number ones on a on a full co-pub deal.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_01: So that 50-50.
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_01: To an extent, but there's also more investment going into that younger writer in a lot of cases than there is that veteran writer.
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um now we do have some veteran writers that do take a draw and they want to have a specific you know lifestyle based on that draw, and that's okay too.
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, and it's all it all it's all different.
• 51:08
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of record companies that are the the three majors that sign a lot of artists to kind of see what works, who sticks, who pops off, and then the ones that don't end up working out, the ones that popped off cover the cost of the ones that didn't work out.
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's the idea.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_00: Is that the same way in publishing?
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_00: Because you said you guys aren't signing a lot of baby writers or new writers.
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean our model is developed as writer and artist development.
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't want it to make it sound like we don't sign a writer to their first deals because we do, but a lot of times that does mean they're second or third deal or whatever.
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, I think if you're in the major system, I think you're looking for a 33% success rate-ish, probably on what they're signing, especially new writers.
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_01: And Smack, we're gonna have a higher threshold.
• 51:53
  SPEAKER_01: We expect kind of everybody to have some level of success because we're a smaller company that, you know, the risk that we're taking with the money we're giving you is a little bit higher than the one that Warner's doing.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_01: So I think Smack's probably had a much higher success rate on average than most companies in terms of rider development from the very beginning, whether it was Matt Ramsey and Trevor Rosen and Matt McGinn to Josh Jenkins, Ryan Beaver, Aaron S.
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_01: Ice, Josh Door, Lala Guzman, like there's a long list of people that have had their first number ones at SMAC.
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Walker Hayes, obviously, is another one.
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_01: So there's um there's probably a higher success rate in the SMAC system just because we're a smaller company.
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_00: So you do you feel like your vetting process is better?
• 52:29
  SPEAKER_00: But the secret sauce.
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_01: I it's the environment of Smack is the secret sauce.
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_01: I think we have the best pluggers in town.
• 52:36
  SPEAKER_01: I think um, but they also create the environment, you know, and none of our pluggers are lazy.
• 52:43
  SPEAKER_01: They're always out there trying to do anything they can to get a cut, and they'll meet with anybody at any time and they'll pitch songs to anybody from Canada to South Africa if they have to.
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um and they work really hard.
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_01: But I think just that that secret sauce is the environment.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it's from our our staff, but it's also our writers.
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_01: And and the environment that Mark Beaston and Lalo Guzman and Johnny Clausen and Claire Park create also affects the rest of our staff, of writing staff, and it makes everybody better.
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_01: I think they deserve a lot of credit for that too.
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_01: But it really started with what Shane and Robin created, and it kind of has trickled down all these years later into the it's the same culture is everybody works really hard and we have a lot of fun.
• 53:18
  SPEAKER_01: We celebrate everybody's wins.
• 53:21
  SPEAKER_00: Of the meetings that your AR teams take, what do you think the percentage of people that you meet with versus sign is?
• 53:29
  SPEAKER_00: So you were saying there was like a 33% success rate with the majors.
• 53:34
  SPEAKER_00: Is that what you said?
• 53:36
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's kind of the goal.
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_01: You want one out of three, uh, if you're a label or a publisher.
• 53:41
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, and for you guys, you're pretty much 100% one out of 100%.
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_01: We're not 100% by any means, but I think we're closer to probably the 50 to 60 percent success rate on the stuff that we sign.
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 53:52
  SPEAKER_01: I haven't looked at the actual numbers, but we're probably a little higher.
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_00: But out of the amount amount of meetings, because there's so many writers that are always going to come in and be like, I want to get a publishing deal.
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_00: And then you can't obviously sign a copious amount of people because you're a small company.
• 54:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 54:10
  SPEAKER_00: So what do you think the amount what do you think the percentage is that is signed out of the amount of people that are met with, if that makes sense.
• 54:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's it's pretty small.
• 54:21
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we're signing one or two riders a year on average, I'd guess.
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_01: And probably meeting as as a as a whole, our our publishing team probably meets with over a hundred different riders over the year.
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um that are either coming out of their deal or looking for a deal.
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_01: One to two percent summary.
• 54:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, maybe we're signing.
• 54:39
  SPEAKER_01: And there's also, you know, there's there's probably two or three people a year that we offer deals to that we don't get that they sign somewhere else.
• 54:47
  SPEAKER_01: So that also is factoring into it as well.
• 54:49
  SPEAKER_01: So and that would be on like second deals, or first deals, even like we've offered people their first deal, and then once we get involved or you know, other companies get involved and they get a better opportunity or a better deal somewhere else.
• 55:00
  SPEAKER_00: The first person to offer a deal quite often, then everybody else kind of follows.
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_00: Pretty common.
• 55:10
  SPEAKER_00: Do you follow like everyone else does?
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_00: Is that just industry standard?
• 55:14
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 55:14
  SPEAKER_00: Or are you the one to offer the deal?
• 55:16
  SPEAKER_00: More often than not, we're probably the leader in that.
• 55:19
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 55:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um and do people generally out of, I would like see for me, I would feel like if you offered me a deal, I would feel loyalty to you because you're the one that believed in me, and all these other people are just doing it because you did it.
• 55:33
  SPEAKER_02: Well, it goes.
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_00: That's how I feel.
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like it's a little bit more.
• 55:37
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes we have we've definitely had writers that have used our deals to get better deals or to to try to sign wherever they uh want to sign.
• 55:44
  SPEAKER_01: That's definitely happened before.
• 55:46
  SPEAKER_01: But I think a lot of times I don't think it's the fault of the writer.
• 55:48
  SPEAKER_01: I think they go and if if they're in a position to get a publishing deal, they're probably in a position to get a publishing deal at a lot of different companies, and they go take all these meetings, and if Smack is the first one to offer, maybe three others after these meetings offer as well around the same time.
• 56:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um and and then maybe they have a better opportunity somewhere else.
• 56:06
  SPEAKER_01: That's not nobody's at fault in those situations.
• 56:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's just a business part of it.
• 56:10
  SPEAKER_01: It sucks sometimes though, especially if we put a lot of time into trying to sign somebody and writing with our writers and doing all that stuff.
• 56:18
  SPEAKER_01: But it's also benefited us in the sense of there's writers that haven't signed with us that still write with our writers and they have a lot of success with and we're still good friends and things like that.
• 56:26
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, everybody ends up where they're supposed to.
• 56:29
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of our our team started at the front desk, and there are now pluggers that are buying houses and getting engaged and getting married and stuff like that.
• 56:35
  SPEAKER_01: Like all that shit's that's the fun part, you know.
• 56:38
  SPEAKER_01: And it's all because of these silly little three-minute songs, which is pretty fun.
• 56:43
  SPEAKER_01: Silly little three-minute songs can change all these people's lives.
• 56:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I feel like uh this is a good little masterclass on uh diving deeper than we did the last time we talked.
• 56:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 56:58
  SPEAKER_01: Glad to be back.
• 57:00
  SPEAKER_01: Back by moderate demand.
• 57:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 57:02
  SPEAKER_00: The people.
• 57:03
  SPEAKER_00: The people, the people.
• 57:05
  SPEAKER_00: The quote I heard when I met with a dude after our thing was all music row is talking about is the the episode with Lee Crable that you did.
• 57:15
  SPEAKER_01: What they didn't tell you was all bad.
• 57:17
  SPEAKER_00: So all music row is talking about.
• 57:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they were rave, they were raving.
• 57:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 57:24
  SPEAKER_00: We should have been it should have been on the cover of Music Row magazine.
• 57:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 57:29
  SPEAKER_01: They probably went with Jordan Davis or something instead.
• 57:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they probably they shouldn't have.
• 57:34
  SPEAKER_00: They probably shouldn't have.
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_00: Those are all my business questions that have been on my mind lately.
• 57:39
  unknown: Yeah.
• 57:39
  SPEAKER_00: But it's what I find interesting is I feel like the people in the music business that make the most money or the the most steady money or the income are the people that I see driving the nice cars, or the ones that are on the business side, not on the music side.
• 57:52
  SPEAKER_01: To an extent.
• 57:53
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of the riders are pretty humble though.
• 57:55
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of the rich riders don't drive nice cars.
• 57:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so that's a pretty common thing.
• 58:00
  SPEAKER_01: I've seen it.
• 58:01
  SPEAKER_01: The artists do.
• 58:02
  SPEAKER_01: No, that's that's a real thing.
• 58:03
  SPEAKER_01: The the the artists drive nice cars.
• 58:05
  SPEAKER_01: But if you see Range Rovers in our parking lot, it's more than likely the artist or Shane.
• 58:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, or uh executive.
• 58:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 58:13
  SPEAKER_00: That's been with a company for a long time.
• 58:16
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe.
• 58:16
  SPEAKER_00: I drive a Camry, I don't know.
• 58:19
  SPEAKER_00: See, dude, that's your humble thing.
• 58:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 58:21
  SPEAKER_00: Do you guys get bonuses on number ones?
• 58:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, as a as a whole, our company, the the publishing team gets bonus based on the successes we've had.
• 58:30
  SPEAKER_01: Oh.
• 58:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 58:31
  SPEAKER_01: So I'd be like, whoopsh.
• 58:33
  unknown: Yeah.
• 58:33
  SPEAKER_00: Grant me some hits.
• 58:35
  SPEAKER_01: But again, a lot of that's out of our control.
• 58:37
  SPEAKER_01: We've had years with zero number ones and yours with seven number ones, so that you know you never know how it lands.
• 58:42
  SPEAKER_00: But they all kind of level themselves out for the most part.
• 58:45
  SPEAKER_01: To be a company, a company that's probably as long as you're consistently on the chart and consistently like we try to live into that, you know, 150 to 300 cuts range, like you're doing your job.
• 58:54
  SPEAKER_01: You're doing your job.
• 58:55
  SPEAKER_01: Like everything else is kind of out of your control.
• 58:57
  SPEAKER_01: And we get a lot of songs that probably shouldn't have gone to radio that went number one, and we have a lot of songs that should that never get to go to radio.
• 59:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so there's just no rhyme or reason to anything in this business.
• 59:06
  SPEAKER_00: What's the most surprising thing to you in in being in this business?
• 59:10
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, definitely the rise of the social media stars definitely it it took everybody by surprise during COVID of these people that have written one or two songs and one of them pops off after you have these artists that have been trying for 15 years and never had anything happen for them.
• 59:26
  SPEAKER_01: They're trying to do everything the right way.
• 59:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that's definitely the thing that kind of threw a wrench into to our thinking of our writers' thinking.
• 59:34
  SPEAKER_01: Like they don't want to miss something.
• 59:35
  SPEAKER_01: They don't want to not write with somebody because they never know what's who's gonna be the next whatever.
• 59:40
  SPEAKER_00: And do you feel like that's a long game to play, or is that just a right now thing?
• 59:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's evening out now.
• 59:47
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, the the social media stars slowed down a little.
• 59:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think there are definitely still artists that that do, I mean, still lefty's doing really well in social media.
• 59:57
  SPEAKER_01: Noah Khan is somebody who did really, really well on social media.
• 1:00:00
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to take anything.
• 1:00:00
  SPEAKER_01: Warren Ziders did is still does great on social media.
• 1:00:03
  SPEAKER_01: Tucker Wetmore was one of them that kind of broke on social media, so I don't want to take anything away from him.
• 1:00:06
  SPEAKER_01: But I definitely think the the artists that had those moments on social media are slowing down because it's such a saturated market of everybody trying to do that thing that they're trying to do.
• 1:00:17
  SPEAKER_01: Now there's still somebody that's gonna come from those markets.
• 1:00:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um the amount of accounts that I see that all do the same thing is that it's a good thing.
• 1:00:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's all the same thing, yeah.
• 1:00:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um the pictures look the same, the videos look the same.
• 1:00:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, everybody singing in their damn car, um singing in the damn car, yeah, singing just you and an acoustic guitar, you lip syncing to your song, yeah.
• 1:00:39
  SPEAKER_00: Uh clothing style, like everything.
• 1:00:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the look.
• 1:00:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's so interesting.
• 1:00:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:00:49
  SPEAKER_00: Seeing because you see it, I'm sure, all the time.
• 1:00:51
  SPEAKER_00: You meet with people all the time, you look at their accounts all the time.
• 1:00:54
  SPEAKER_00: I do the same thing just from follows and messages.
• 1:00:58
  SPEAKER_01: But our biggest artists are pretty uh they don't post a lot on social media.
• 1:01:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's just kind of the way to break through all the noise is to to let people know that you have a product and you want them to listen to it, and that's why a lot of young artists are trying to use social media to break through, and it works sometimes.
• 1:01:12
  SPEAKER_01: But like Morgan Wallen and Luke Combs probably aren't the ones.
• 1:01:15
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, Luke Combs posts more about football cards now than he probably does about his artistry.
• 1:01:20
  SPEAKER_01: But it doesn't it hasn't slowed him down any.
• 1:01:22
  SPEAKER_00: And Morgan's almost never on there.
• 1:01:24
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I like that about him.
• 1:01:26
  SPEAKER_00: He probably just has someone that manages his socials and posts.
• 1:01:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm sure he does.
• 1:01:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh what was I gonna say about the social media thing?
• 1:01:36
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, this is what I think.
• 1:01:39
  SPEAKER_00: So I think I think about the slow burn and I think about this with artists and writers and everybody.
• 1:01:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:01:46
  SPEAKER_00: I think about it with my podcast.
• 1:01:47
  SPEAKER_00: The more I do it and the more it becomes a business, and the more I realize business stuff and learn it.
• 1:01:53
  SPEAKER_00: I look at other podcasts sometimes and they cut out all of the paw pauses or the parts where someone might think because all they're looking at is retention graphs.
• 1:02:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:02:05
  SPEAKER_00: So they're overanalyzing data because they want it to work.
• 1:02:09
  SPEAKER_00: They want to see data points and where the podcast drops and be like, don't talk about that subject because people are gonna lose interest, and then we're gonna lose money on our advertisers because we're not gonna be able to show data.
• 1:02:20
  SPEAKER_00: Analytics.
• 1:02:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, dude.
• 1:02:21
  SPEAKER_00: And it all just becomes an analytics game.
• 1:02:24
  SPEAKER_00: And to me, that is a very dangerous place to be when it comes to it hinders creativity, yeah, dude.
• 1:02:30
  SPEAKER_00: So for me, I it's a tool.
• 1:02:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's a tool, yeah.
• 1:02:33
  SPEAKER_00: Great.
• 1:02:34
  SPEAKER_00: But for me, I'm like, man, when it comes down to this podcast, I think I'm not I think I'm gonna keep it where there can be air.
• 1:02:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like you can breathe.
• 1:02:44
  SPEAKER_01: Well, what's the biggest podcast in the world?
• 1:02:47
  SPEAKER_01: Joe Rogan.
• 1:02:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:02:48
  SPEAKER_01: He doesn't he doesn't give a shit about analytics.
• 1:02:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:02:51
  SPEAKER_01: I mean there's literally people that'd be like, hey, can I go pee?
• 1:02:54
  SPEAKER_01: Like in the middle of his podcast.
• 1:02:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:02:56
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, a hundred percent, man.
• 1:02:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that we like that.
• 1:03:00
  SPEAKER_00: And then I look at diary of a CEO, Stephen Bartlett, and they just put it on an app, but they cut every silent portion of the like the whole episode is nothing but but like different camera angles constantly, and it's just like very it's almost like keeping you engaged.
• 1:03:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's like um basically a TikTok strategy for long form content.
• 1:03:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 1:03:27
  SPEAKER_00: And then Joe Rogan, yeah, complete opposite.
• 1:03:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, just very organic.
• 1:03:33
  SPEAKER_00: And there I liken this to the social media game and the optimizing for uh attention versus uh artists that are slow burning, but in the long run, the attention economy might shift more towards the artist that is not the one that's just putting themselves out there all the time.
• 1:03:56
  SPEAKER_00: But there's a little bit of mystery to them or mystique because they're not just revealing themselves, you know.
• 1:04:05
  SPEAKER_01: But it's also it's a quality thing.
• 1:04:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:04:07
  SPEAKER_01: We get caught up in the quantity thing a little bit too much in in the music business these days, and how many songs you put out and how often you gotta release content and and things like that because you don't want to see your numbers drop on streaming, you don't want to see your numbers drop on social media, and it kind of waters down the quality of the product sometimes, which is I think it allows the veteran acts, the catalog acts to continue to increase their market share because like the Rolling Stones don't gotta worry about content, they don't gotta worry, like they're just things just gonna keep increasing.
• 1:04:38
  SPEAKER_00: What's interesting though, to juxtapose is the Beatles, yeah, they released after released after released after released, yeah, like pretty fast on turnarounds.
• 1:04:50
  SPEAKER_01: Back then, yeah.
• 1:04:51
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, they were making records with eight or nine songs on them, and a lot of those records were songs that had already been cut by other people too.
• 1:04:57
  SPEAKER_01: So, like that was like, you know, they're doing twist and shout and stuff like that on some of those records.
• 1:05:00
  SPEAKER_01: So they weren't cutting 10, 15, 20 songs a year.
• 1:05:04
  SPEAKER_01: It was a little bit different.
• 1:05:05
  SPEAKER_01: So for the LPs.
• 1:05:07
  SPEAKER_01: For those LPs.
• 1:05:07
  SPEAKER_01: Like if you go back and look at like the records and stuff, and once they got down to like Let It Be and the White Album and stuff like that, it was just it was a more eclectic piece of work, but like those initial records and stuff like that.
• 1:05:16
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, they were doing covers, they were, you know.
• 1:05:18
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think they already had them planned out?
• 1:05:20
  SPEAKER_01: I think the labels and stuff would probably dictate more of what was happening at that time, and then as they had success, they were able to control more of it.
• 1:05:29
  SPEAKER_00: What's a what's an artist or band that you feel like has done it the right way that you really respect historically?
• 1:05:36
  SPEAKER_01: Historically?
• 1:05:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um man, I mean, there's a lot of them.
• 1:05:39
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, Luke Combs is probably one that I really risk.
• 1:05:42
  SPEAKER_01: Cody Johnson's one that I really respect in the way that they're making records.
• 1:05:45
  SPEAKER_01: The I think their quality is really, really high.
• 1:05:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think their identity is fantastic.
• 1:05:50
  SPEAKER_01: I think they've used social media in a proper way to let people know exactly who they are, but not overdo it.
• 1:05:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and like a lot of Cody's stuff leading up to his album.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_01: Was just kind of like him singing in the studio, but he was in like tennis shoes and a t-shirt kind of thing.
• 1:06:05
  SPEAKER_01: It was much he wasn't his cowboy hat and cowboy boots.
• 1:06:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's a little more relaxed atmosphere.
• 1:06:09
  SPEAKER_01: And like Luke talking, like you know, he talks about his family and how he likes collecting cards and shit.
• 1:06:13
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's awesome.
• 1:06:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um we like that more.
• 1:06:16
  SPEAKER_01: We like that more.
• 1:06:17
  SPEAKER_01: I I I do.
• 1:06:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um and we like respect that he's like, I spend more time with my kids than most dads.
• 1:06:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I love it.
• 1:06:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I think you know, Megan Moroni does a great job.
• 1:06:25
  SPEAKER_01: Laney Wilson does a great job.
• 1:06:26
  SPEAKER_01: Ella Langley's doing a great job of of doing all this stuff.
• 1:06:30
  SPEAKER_00: Seeing her talk about her faith.
• 1:06:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they're they're they're being more encouraged to be themselves, which is great.
• 1:06:38
  SPEAKER_01: It means it's not a product as much as some other stuff has been in the past.
• 1:06:42
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, we connect with humans, not perfection.
• 1:06:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and more and more we realize nobody's perfect, and we like the imperfections.
• 1:06:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, seems like the uh the word of the year is authenticity.
• 1:06:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's been the word of the last few years, it feels like, uh just across the board.
• 1:06:59
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah.
• 1:07:00
  SPEAKER_01: We'd rather somebody be authentic than fake.
• 1:07:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, man.
• 1:07:04
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you're someone that's authentic.
• 1:07:06
  SPEAKER_00: I trust that.
• 1:07:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I appreciate you.
• 1:07:08
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks.
• 1:07:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I like stopping by and saying hi sometimes.
• 1:07:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:07:12
  SPEAKER_00: Picking your brain.
• 1:07:13
  SPEAKER_01: Anytime, but not anytime.
• 1:07:16
  SPEAKER_00: Anytime, but not anytime.
• 1:07:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:07:18
  SPEAKER_00: I just I just w want a parking spot that says Stefan in front.
• 1:07:23
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you can make that happen.
• 1:07:25
  SPEAKER_01: We can do it maybe one day, you know.
• 1:07:27
  SPEAKER_01: Like one day, just one day.
• 1:07:30
  SPEAKER_01: That would be really cool.
• 1:07:30
  SPEAKER_01: Have somebody out there with a cone.
• 1:07:32
  SPEAKER_01: Like maybe on my birthday.
• 1:07:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that'd be nice.
• 1:07:34
  SPEAKER_01: That'd be sick.
• 1:07:35
  SPEAKER_01: I don't even get that, you know.
• 1:07:36
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes I gotta park on the street.
• 1:07:37
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, that's my stuff, dude.
• 1:07:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you should be front and center.
• 1:07:42
  SPEAKER_00: No, it's all right.
• 1:07:43
  SPEAKER_00: The riders should be front and center.
• 1:07:44
  SPEAKER_00: Dude, back when that taco shop was across the street.
• 1:07:47
  SPEAKER_01: Taco Mama Seda?
• 1:07:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:07:48
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, the best.
• 1:07:49
  SPEAKER_01: I think RIP.
• 1:07:50
  SPEAKER_00: I think Josh Osborne's name was out there.
• 1:07:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:07:54
  SPEAKER_00: With Shane as Shane's was out there.
• 1:07:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 1:07:57
  SPEAKER_00: I remember driving by and looking at me, just being like, oh, that's where they park, dude.
• 1:08:02
  SPEAKER_00: Whoa.
• 1:08:03
  SPEAKER_00: Whoa.
• 1:08:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:08:05
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know who has signs now.
• 1:08:07
  SPEAKER_00: Just Shane, but he's never there.
• 1:08:09
  SPEAKER_00: So we have other people.
• 1:08:11
  SPEAKER_00: Robin doesn't get a sign.
• 1:08:12
  SPEAKER_00: You don't get a sign.
• 1:08:13
  SPEAKER_01: There's zero chance Robin Palmer whatever want her name on a sign.
• 1:08:16
  SPEAKER_00: Who drives the Tesla?
• 1:08:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Robert Carlton.
• 1:08:19
  SPEAKER_01: He drives a Tesla.
• 1:08:21
  SPEAKER_01: Is he a writer?
• 1:08:22
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 1:08:22
  SPEAKER_01: What does he do?
• 1:08:23
  SPEAKER_01: He's he runs Smack as a whole.
• 1:08:24
  SPEAKER_01: He's like the GM of Smack as a whole.
• 1:08:26
  SPEAKER_01: Management and publishing and all that.
• 1:08:28
  SPEAKER_00: Robert?
• 1:08:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:08:29
  SPEAKER_00: I haven't met him.
• 1:08:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think you have actually.
• 1:08:33
  SPEAKER_00: Is he a younger guy?
• 1:08:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:08:34
  SPEAKER_00: Oh.
• 1:08:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:08:36
  SPEAKER_00: He goes to the gym.
• 1:08:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:08:37
  SPEAKER_00: Works out.
• 1:08:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:08:38
  SPEAKER_00: He's a jacked.
• 1:08:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, dude.
• 1:08:40
  SPEAKER_00: He is jacked.
• 1:08:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:08:41
  SPEAKER_00: A little more stoic.
• 1:08:42
  SPEAKER_00: A little more stoic.
• 1:08:44
  SPEAKER_00: Oh.
• 1:08:46
  SPEAKER_00: I haven't met Robert.
• 1:08:47
  SPEAKER_00: He's a nice guy.
• 1:08:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:08:49
  SPEAKER_00: Known him a long time.
• 1:08:50
  SPEAKER_00: He was my friend before I worked with him.
• 1:08:52
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's awesome, dude.
• 1:08:53
  SPEAKER_00: That's a relationship business.
• 1:08:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:08:56
  SPEAKER_00: Well, dude, thank you so much for coming all this way.
• 1:08:59
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know how far it was from Kingston Springs.
• 1:09:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:09:01
  SPEAKER_00: Took me four hours.
• 1:09:03
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I thought.
• 1:09:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just kidding.
• 1:09:04
  SPEAKER_00: Took me 50 minutes, not that big of a deal.
• 1:09:06
  SPEAKER_00: Oh.
• 1:09:07
  SPEAKER_00: You didn't take Jake Owen's private jet not out of Kingston.
• 1:09:11
  SPEAKER_00: No, I didn't.
• 1:09:12
  unknown: Oh.
• 1:09:13
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's a bummer.
• 1:09:14
  SPEAKER_00: Helicopter.
• 1:09:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:09:16
  SPEAKER_00: Because we have a Springfield Airport up here.
• 1:09:18
  SPEAKER_00: So it would have been great.
• 1:09:19
  SPEAKER_00: Next time we'll do a black car service for you when you arrive at the airport.
• 1:09:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:09:25
  SPEAKER_00: So I got you.
• 1:09:26
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks.
• 1:09:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, today's been awesome.
• 1:09:29
  SPEAKER_00: Lee Crab talking music business, talking the business side of the business more so than our last conversation at the news studio, and over half of you are not subscribed.
• 1:09:43
  SPEAKER_00: So please hit that subscribe button, leave a review on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, because it really helps the podcast and it helps us get guests like today's guest, Lee Crable, who is the man of AR at smackmusic.com.
• 1:10:06
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 1:10:06
  SPEAKER_00: Smacksongs.com.
• 1:10:08
  SPEAKER_00: Dang it.
• 1:10:08
  SPEAKER_00: Smacksongs.com.
• 1:10:09
  SPEAKER_00: Smacksongs.com.
• 1:10:11
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's what it is.
• 1:10:13
  SPEAKER_00: At smacksongs.com.
• 1:10:16
  SPEAKER_00: I may be wrong on that too.
• 1:10:18
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 1:10:19
  SPEAKER_00: Have a great day, and I'll see you guys back here next Wednesday.
• 1:10:23
  SPEAKER_00: Peace.