Latest / QUESTION EVERYTHING / Scooter Braun: "I Let It Burn"
Transcript
- 0:03Speaker 1: No one has all the answers, but when we ask
- 0:05Speaker 1: the right questions, we get a little closer, closer to truths,
- 0:11Speaker 1: closer to each other, even closer to ourselves. I'm journalist
- 0:16Speaker 1: Danielle Robe, and each week, my guests and I come
- 0:19Speaker 1: together to challenge the status quo and our own ways
- 0:22Speaker 1: of thinking by daring to ask, what if, why not?
- 0:28Speaker 1: And who says? So? Come curious, dig deep, and join
- 0:33Speaker 1: the conversation. It's time to question everything. For years, Scooter
- 0:40Speaker 1: Braun was known as the man in music with the
- 0:43Speaker 1: mightas touch, launching and steering the careers of artists like
- 0:47Speaker 1: Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, and Jay Balvin. His name became
- 0:51Speaker 1: synonymous with strategy, influence, disruption, with making the impossible happen.
- 0:58Speaker 1: His company, as b Project, became known for closing the
- 1:01Speaker 1: big deals. But there was another side of it too.
- 1:05Speaker 1: The tour model they pioneered built philanthropy into the business.
- 1:10Speaker 1: Under Brawn, tour models became platforms for impact. Here are
- 1:14Speaker 1: some examples. Justin Bieber's tours funded global education with pencils
- 1:20Speaker 1: of Promise and launched Justice and Action, connecting fans to
- 1:24Speaker 1: causes like climate change and criminal justice.
- 1:26Speaker 2: Reform.
- 1:27Speaker 1: Ariana Grande's concerts raised over twenty three million dollars for
- 1:31Speaker 1: victims after the Manchester bombing and registered thousands of young
- 1:34Speaker 1: voters through Headcount. Demi Levado's tour offered free on site
- 1:39Speaker 1: therapy sessions in partnership with Cast Centers. SB projects also
- 1:43Speaker 1: contributed to movements like March for Our Lives, We Are
- 1:47Speaker 1: the World, twenty five for Haiti, and organizations including Make
- 1:50Speaker 1: a Wish, City of Hope, and the Enough Project. And
- 1:54Speaker 1: that's just what's public. There's likely more we'll never see
- 1:58Speaker 1: in the headlines. That was a part of Scooter's image too,
- 2:02Speaker 1: someone who, whether strategically or sincerely or both, placed a
- 2:06Speaker 1: value on contributing. There's this scene in the Justin Bieber
- 2:10Speaker 1: documentary where Scooter is running around a stadium handing out
- 2:14Speaker 1: tickets to fans who couldn't afford them. Suddenly kindness was cool,
- 2:19Speaker 1: Philanthropy wasn't optional, it was expected. If you weren't giving back,
- 2:24Speaker 1: it looked out of touch, and other pop stars and
- 2:28Speaker 1: celebrities he didn't manage started to follow suit. And then
- 2:32Speaker 1: Scooter bought Taylor Swift's Masters and everything changed overnight.
- 2:38Speaker 3: Everything I had done before didn't matter. What surprised me
- 2:41Speaker 3: is how before that I was known for helping people
- 2:45Speaker 3: and philanthropy and success and all these different things, and
- 2:50Speaker 3: the next day all of that was out the window.
- 2:53Speaker 3: You were defined by this one moment.
- 2:55Speaker 1: He had done hundreds of business deals, but that deal
- 2:58Speaker 1: cracked his world open. His name became shorthand for a
- 3:02Speaker 1: much larger conversation, one about ownership, power, and loyalty in music.
- 3:08Speaker 1: The Internet flattened him into a villain. But while the
- 3:12Speaker 1: world debated intent, Scooter was facing something far more personal.
- 3:17Speaker 1: His marriage was ending, his relationship to work was disentangling,
- 3:21Speaker 1: and beneath it all, he was staring down a question
- 3:24Speaker 1: that had quietly driven him for years. Am I enough?
- 3:30Speaker 1: In the time since, it seems like he's been trying
- 3:33Speaker 1: to stitch things back together, not just his career, but
- 3:36Speaker 1: his identity, his family, and his understanding of who he
- 3:40Speaker 1: really is. After twenty three years in music, Scooter Braun
- 3:44Speaker 1: walked away from management altogether. He's never fully talked about
- 3:48Speaker 1: why until now. This interview was recorded in April, and
- 3:56Speaker 1: even since then a lot has changed. Taylor now owns
- 3:59Speaker 1: her Masters. I reached out to Scooter for comment, and
- 4:02Speaker 1: he told me he's genuinely happy for her. He's also
- 4:05Speaker 1: stepped down as CEO of HIBE and is thinking seriously
- 4:08Speaker 1: about what comes next. And maybe he already sensed it
- 4:11Speaker 1: back in April when we recorded, because when I asked
- 4:14Speaker 1: him about the future, it was clear he had a
- 4:16Speaker 1: direction in mind. But what struck me most in this
- 4:20Speaker 1: interview wasn't the business arc or even the drama. It
- 4:25Speaker 1: was how tightly he had wrapped his self worth around work,
- 4:28Speaker 1: the unraveling that came when that identity no longer held,
- 4:32Speaker 1: and the rebuilding that he's doing now in his spiritual life,
- 4:36Speaker 1: in his parenting, in the kind of man he wants
- 4:39Speaker 1: to be. This conversation isn't a defense. It's not a
- 4:43Speaker 1: puff piece, and it's not an expose. It's something in between.
- 4:49Speaker 1: I asked about Taylor about the rumors in her lyrics,
- 4:52Speaker 1: whether he's talked to his kids about it. I asked
- 4:55Speaker 1: about Kanye about justin about the weight of being responsible
- 4:59Speaker 1: for other people's careers. It's all in there, But so
- 5:03Speaker 1: is the other story, the one we don't always leave
- 5:06Speaker 1: room for, the one about worth, unraveling and repair. We
- 5:11Speaker 1: often want people to be one thing or the other
- 5:14Speaker 1: hero or villain, right or wrong? But what if we
- 5:20Speaker 1: allowed people to be whole? What if we made space
- 5:23Speaker 1: for contradiction, for change, for complexity. Scooter is known for
- 5:28Speaker 1: getting the deal done. So the question we're circling today
- 5:32Speaker 1: is what if the most important deal you make is
- 5:35Speaker 1: with yourself? This is his answer. It's time to question
- 5:40Speaker 1: everything with Scooter bron Scooter. There are documentaries and headlines
- 5:48Speaker 1: and Reddit threads, fan theories all written about you. I
- 5:51Speaker 1: think we as the public get quotes here or there,
- 5:54Speaker 1: but we never get your full story from you. A
- 5:57Speaker 1: lot has changed in your life. You've stepped away from
- 6:00Speaker 1: managing artists. Before we get into what the future holds,
- 6:03Speaker 1: which I am really curious about for you, I feel
- 6:06Speaker 1: like we have to go back a little bit. And
- 6:08Speaker 1: the one word that keeps coming up and all your
- 6:10Speaker 1: interviews is ambitious. And I feel like your ambition could
- 6:13Speaker 1: have been pointed in a few different directions, but you
- 6:16Speaker 1: pointed it towards music. When did you fall in love
- 6:18Speaker 1: with music?
- 6:20Speaker 3: I think I've always been in love with music. My
- 6:22Speaker 3: first job in entertainment was a dancer. I was a
- 6:25Speaker 3: dancer at bar Mitzo's and weddings. I was discovered at
- 6:28Speaker 3: a teen club with my friend Dale back in the day.
- 6:30Speaker 3: It was actually a teen club and I think it
- 6:32Speaker 3: was Mount.
- 6:32Speaker 2: Vernon in New York.
- 6:34Speaker 3: And you know, I've always I DJ'ed. I was dancing.
- 6:38Speaker 3: Then I started throwing parties when I was in college.
- 6:41Speaker 3: But music is something that always no matter what in
- 6:44Speaker 3: my life. It was like music and basketball were the
- 6:46Speaker 3: two things that could take me out of the thought
- 6:49Speaker 3: process of life and keep me in the moment and
- 6:51Speaker 3: give me just joy in the moment. When I was nineteen,
- 6:54Speaker 3: I was in my freshman dorm room and I read
- 6:56Speaker 3: a book.
- 6:57Speaker 2: Called The Operator about David.
- 6:58Speaker 3: Geffen, and he is not a fan of the book,
- 7:01Speaker 3: but I saw it as someone who is flawed who
- 7:05Speaker 3: became extraordinary and I'm flawed. Were all flawed, and it
- 7:09Speaker 3: made me think like maybe I can do this. And
- 7:11Speaker 3: I remember there's actually one distinct moment I'm in my
- 7:14Speaker 3: dorm room and I'm reading and I can't split this
- 7:15Speaker 3: book down, and it's talking about David trying to sign
- 7:19Speaker 3: John Lennon's solo career, and I start literally screaming in
- 7:22Speaker 3: my bed, like just go to Yogano. I know everybody's
- 7:25Speaker 3: being hard on her, but she has his ear go
- 7:26Speaker 3: to Yogono. And I turned the page and David was
- 7:29Speaker 3: the only one to go to Yogono and he signed
- 7:31Speaker 3: a solo career and it made me think I can
- 7:34Speaker 3: do this.
- 7:34Speaker 2: I think this way.
- 7:35Speaker 3: I was in Atlanta. I think the way David thought,
- 7:38Speaker 3: you know, think, you know, to think outside the box
- 7:41Speaker 3: would seem natural to me is never really what the
- 7:43Speaker 3: way everyone else thinks. And I was in Atlanta, Georgia
- 7:48Speaker 3: in two thousand. It was just an epic place to
- 7:51Speaker 3: be for music. You had Dallas Austin, Jermain Dupree, outcast,
- 7:55Speaker 3: Ti Ludacris coming up, like Jazzy Faye was a guy
- 7:58Speaker 3: on the radio who had this young girl seventeen sixteen
- 8:01Speaker 3: Sierra that he was, you know, put out the song
- 8:03Speaker 3: one two Step like it was all happening in that
- 8:05Speaker 3: era of the early two thousands, and Usher is you know, usher,
- 8:08Speaker 3: and like it was exciting. And I got to be
- 8:11Speaker 3: in the streets of Atlanta coming up with these people.
- 8:14Speaker 1: I heard you were driving a purple Mercedes.
- 8:16Speaker 3: I bought a purple Benz on eBay cash so I
- 8:19Speaker 3: could fake it till I make it at the clubs.
- 8:21Speaker 1: Did it work?
- 8:22Speaker 3: It got me in the door with a lot of people,
- 8:25Speaker 3: and people still talk about that Benz. And when I
- 8:27Speaker 3: was twenty years old, I'd done some stuff for this
- 8:29Speaker 3: this guy Chris love Alava on the radio. He had
- 8:32Speaker 3: a manager named Shaka Zulu and Jeff, two brothers. Shaka
- 8:35Speaker 3: was the program director at Hot ninety seven. Chris was
- 8:38Speaker 3: the big morning show, Chris love Alova, and he had
- 8:40Speaker 3: a rap named Ludacris and he was coming up as
- 8:44Speaker 3: a rapper and he had this song, you know, fantasy,
- 8:46Speaker 3: and and I was throwing parties for them, and kind
- 8:49Speaker 3: of like people knew me for.
- 8:50Speaker 2: Throwing my parties.
- 8:51Speaker 3: And then this guy Jermaine Duprie, it was like you
- 8:53Speaker 3: got more potential than parties. And within six months I
- 8:56Speaker 3: was running marketing for So So deaf and I was
- 8:58Speaker 3: twenty years old.
- 9:00Speaker 1: What made you good at marketing? In other interviews you
- 9:02Speaker 1: talk about how you were getting on a plane with
- 9:04Speaker 1: your main dupre like presenting marketing plans to him.
- 9:08Speaker 3: The reason I was good at marketing, the reason I
- 9:10Speaker 3: was if I was good, you know, but the reason
- 9:13Speaker 3: I thought you were listen, the reason I had a
- 9:15Speaker 3: successful career with marketing, and also A and R and
- 9:18Speaker 3: making records is because my belief that I am not extraordinary.
- 9:23Speaker 2: It's actually the opposite.
- 9:24Speaker 3: I believe extraordinary people know how to speak to a
- 9:28Speaker 3: small amount of extraordinary people.
- 9:31Speaker 2: I'm ordinary as hell.
- 9:33Speaker 3: I like, you know, what makes me move usually makes
- 9:37Speaker 3: millions of other people move. What makes me tick usually
- 9:40Speaker 3: makes millions of other people tick. So my gift was
- 9:46Speaker 3: just what my parents gave me, which was stupid confidence
- 9:51Speaker 3: that what I like maybe other people liked. I think
- 9:54Speaker 3: that's the difference. Most people have the gift of being
- 9:56Speaker 3: able to speak to the masses, they're just afraid to
- 9:58Speaker 3: find out. I think the way my parents raised me
- 10:01Speaker 3: and my siblings, they were like, if there's no leader
- 10:05Speaker 3: in the room, be a.
- 10:06Speaker 2: Leader, you know.
- 10:07Speaker 3: So I think that is how I was able to
- 10:10Speaker 3: kind of put my ideas forward. And I also was
- 10:12Speaker 3: in a unique place where, like the Internet was really
- 10:14Speaker 3: taken off and social media was taking off, and.
- 10:16Speaker 2: I was native to that.
- 10:17Speaker 3: I was that age where like first on Facebook, first
- 10:20Speaker 3: on MySpace, you know, first to use YouTube, like that generation.
- 10:24Speaker 3: So you know, having that love of music, having you know,
- 10:28Speaker 3: being native to the new technology. It was just a
- 10:30Speaker 3: perfect storm. And being in the city of Atlanta, where
- 10:32Speaker 3: you were close to the culture.
- 10:33Speaker 1: But kudos to you for being willing to adapt it
- 10:37Speaker 1: because a lot of people just shied away from the
- 10:40Speaker 1: Internet and didn't want to be a part of it.
- 10:42Speaker 2: Look.
- 10:42Speaker 3: I saw it as a way to reach a lot
- 10:43Speaker 3: of people, and I saw it as a way to
- 10:46Speaker 3: convey a message to a lot of people. And that's,
- 10:48Speaker 3: you know, one of the hardest things in marketing. You
- 10:50Speaker 3: could have a really good idea, but how do you
- 10:51Speaker 3: get it out to the masses and how do you
- 10:53Speaker 3: expand it and grow it?
- 10:54Speaker 2: And I was.
- 10:55Speaker 3: So afraid of failure at that point in my life.
- 10:58Speaker 3: I was leaning into all these things and it really
- 11:00Speaker 3: was And I think when you're younger.
- 11:02Speaker 2: You think you're manifesting everything.
- 11:04Speaker 3: You think like, I'm going to make this happen, make
- 11:07Speaker 3: this happen. And as you get older, you start to
- 11:09Speaker 3: realize how lucky you are to be in the position
- 11:11Speaker 3: you're in that yes, there's a little bit of manifestation,
- 11:13Speaker 3: but there's also a lot of you know, the universe
- 11:15Speaker 3: and God putting you in a position to do that stuff.
- 11:19Speaker 3: And I think that's where you understand like, as you
- 11:21Speaker 3: get older, it's not you necessary as doing You're kind
- 11:24Speaker 3: of a custodian of that energy, you know. And I
- 11:27Speaker 3: think if you get blessed enough to be a custodia
- 11:29Speaker 3: that energy, you have to treat it as such.
- 11:31Speaker 1: You're like a vessel, is what you're saying.
- 11:32Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so.
- 11:33Speaker 1: You said earlier when you read the Operator you felt
- 11:36Speaker 1: like somebody flawed could make it and could do it.
- 11:40Speaker 1: Did you feel flawed when you were in college?
- 11:42Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I think so. Well.
- 11:45Speaker 3: I think we're all flawed. I think we're all perfectly flawed,
- 11:49Speaker 3: you know.
- 11:49Speaker 1: And I don't know if everyone's aware of that in college,
- 11:52Speaker 1: So it's interesting to me.
- 11:54Speaker 2: That you, yes, they are. They might not say it.
- 11:57Speaker 3: I don't think I was saying it that way when
- 11:58Speaker 3: I was younger. The truth is is what drives you
- 12:01Speaker 3: as an entrepreneur is sometimes the thing that makes you
- 12:03Speaker 3: not great at intimacy, you know, like what makes you
- 12:06Speaker 3: good at business is not always best in intimacy. When
- 12:08Speaker 3: you're great at business, sometimes you're always thinking about the
- 12:10Speaker 3: next move, You're always thinking about the next day.
- 12:12Speaker 2: Because you're so afraid of losing.
- 12:14Speaker 3: You're so afraid of something coming and gets you don't
- 12:16Speaker 3: know how to be present right and at that age,
- 12:19Speaker 3: I didn't feel enough. I didn't feel like, you know,
- 12:22Speaker 3: I was worthy of anything. I felt like I needed
- 12:25Speaker 3: to earn being worthy. I didn't think That's probably why
- 12:28Speaker 3: I went by Scooter since I was eighteen years old.
- 12:30Speaker 3: It was like a nickname when I was younger, right,
- 12:31Speaker 3: and almost like I took it on because I didn't
- 12:33Speaker 3: think Scott was enough.
- 12:35Speaker 1: But it's interesting to me because you had this dichotomy
- 12:37Speaker 1: where you're saying you didn't feel like you were enough,
- 12:39Speaker 1: and yet there was something inside you that was willing
- 12:42Speaker 1: to bet on yourself and say I'm gonna do this
- 12:46Speaker 1: like in Atlanta, and then when you found Justine.
- 12:48Speaker 2: Incredible driver insecurity.
- 12:50Speaker 3: Insecurity is an amazing driver for business because when you're
- 12:55Speaker 3: insecure that you're not enough, what do you do?
- 12:58Speaker 2: You build to be enough.
- 13:00Speaker 3: You build a life for yourself that other people can respect,
- 13:03Speaker 3: because deep down you don't know if you're worthy.
- 13:05Speaker 2: And I was going through that as a.
- 13:08Speaker 3: Young person of I thought, well, the only thing that
- 13:12Speaker 3: makes me worthy of anything is building and building and building.
- 13:15Speaker 3: And at that point in my life, I was very
- 13:17Speaker 3: I was working from a competitive mind of like I
- 13:19Speaker 3: have to achieve otherwise I'm a loser, and you know,
- 13:22Speaker 3: being older. Now, I'm in a place now where, like
- 13:25Speaker 3: I move from a creative mind where there is no end,
- 13:28Speaker 3: there's no winning.
- 13:29Speaker 2: There's no losing.
- 13:30Speaker 3: I just get to create because I've gotten to a
- 13:32Speaker 3: good place here, which I'm sure we'll talk about, because
- 13:35Speaker 3: there was a lot of trials and tribulations and being
- 13:37Speaker 3: misunderstood and hard times. And it's never the success that
- 13:42Speaker 3: teaches you how to love this. It's being misunderstood, it's
- 13:46Speaker 3: being ridiculed, it's sitting in your place and just being like,
- 13:50Speaker 3: this feels unfair, and then you have to actually look
- 13:52Speaker 3: inward and realize the only thing that's actually going to
- 13:55Speaker 3: overcome it all is like looking inside and being good.
- 13:59Speaker 1: I'm so glad you said word misunderstood, because that's a
- 14:02Speaker 1: word that kept coming back for me as I was
- 14:04Speaker 1: preparing for this interview. So I want to get to it.
- 14:07Speaker 1: But there was something that your friend Jay Williams said
- 14:09Speaker 1: in an NPR interview and you touched on it a
- 14:12Speaker 1: little bit. He said, you can spot talent with an
- 14:14Speaker 1: X ray like precision. Is it a feeling you get?
- 14:18Speaker 1: I'm interested in that.
- 14:19Speaker 3: It's like falling in love. Say more, you can make
- 14:22Speaker 3: a plan to fall in love. You can say I'm
- 14:25Speaker 3: going to meet the love of my life this year,
- 14:26Speaker 3: I'm gonna get married, I'm gonna have two point five
- 14:28Speaker 3: kids in a pick e fence. Life does not work
- 14:30Speaker 3: that way, right, And for me finding talent, finding stars,
- 14:37Speaker 3: it was like it's like a It's like that. It's
- 14:39Speaker 3: like you meet someone and you just know.
- 14:41Speaker 1: So it's this feeling. It's like where do you feel
- 14:43Speaker 1: it in your body?
- 14:44Speaker 3: It's just it's almost like a download. It's almost like
- 14:47Speaker 3: a cheat code sometimes where you know. Sometimes I'm like
- 14:52Speaker 3: wanting to figure it out, but sometimes it's like, hey,
- 14:54Speaker 3: just letting you know this is it has nothing to
- 14:57Speaker 3: do with you. I'm just giving you the heads up
- 14:58Speaker 3: because you know what to do. Like as I said,
- 15:01Speaker 3: you're almost like a custodian of this energy. It almost
- 15:04Speaker 3: feels like it's not even coming from me. It's like
- 15:06Speaker 3: someone giving me the heads up. And then I feel
- 15:09Speaker 3: this certainty and it almost like I get a downloaded.
- 15:11Speaker 3: I could see everything that's to come and I know
- 15:14Speaker 3: where to go. And I think sometimes that can be
- 15:19Speaker 3: with a talent.
- 15:20Speaker 2: Sometimes that could be with a company, Sometimes that could
- 15:22Speaker 2: be with entrepreneur.
- 15:23Speaker 3: It would be nice that happened, you know, in my
- 15:25Speaker 3: love life again. But like I said, you can't make
- 15:28Speaker 3: plans for it. It shows up when it's supposed to.
- 15:29Speaker 3: I was just very fortunate that, for some reason I
- 15:34Speaker 3: was placed to see it a bunch of different times.
- 15:37Speaker 1: There's an interview magazine article where Donald Glover interviews himself
- 15:42Speaker 1: and he said, are you ever worried about staying relevant?
- 15:46Speaker 1: Donald asked himself and his answer was, I'm never worried
- 15:50Speaker 1: about relevance because I have vision. That's a big word.
- 15:54Speaker 3: I think things change as you get older and you
- 15:57Speaker 3: have different experiences. And I was with two great entrepreneurs
- 16:01Speaker 3: yesterday morning and young people building a really great company
- 16:06Speaker 3: not in entertainment, and we were having a very interesting
- 16:09Speaker 3: conversation and we talked about this place of self work
- 16:12Speaker 3: that I've gone the last five six years.
- 16:14Speaker 2: And one of them said that he was nervous.
- 16:18Speaker 3: He wants to do this self work, but what if
- 16:19Speaker 3: it takes away the dog in him?
- 16:21Speaker 2: What it takes away that energy?
- 16:23Speaker 3: And I kind of smiled because I was like, well,
- 16:25Speaker 3: you'll do it when you're supposed to, because you won't
- 16:27Speaker 3: care about that when you have new priorities and I
- 16:30Speaker 3: promise you, if that's supposed to be there, it will
- 16:32Speaker 3: be there, and all you're doing is delaying it, and
- 16:34Speaker 3: eventually in the universe smacks you around the way it
- 16:36Speaker 3: did with me to.
- 16:37Speaker 2: Like it's time.
- 16:38Speaker 1: Did it take the dog away?
- 16:39Speaker 2: Oh?
- 16:40Speaker 3: Absolutely not. It just gave me an opportunity to enjoy
- 16:43Speaker 3: being here.
- 16:44Speaker 2: You know. It taught me how to be present.
- 16:46Speaker 3: It taught me I had to lose for me to
- 16:51Speaker 3: understand what I have and for me to find myself again.
- 16:53Speaker 3: And I wouldn't I wish other people would figure it
- 16:56Speaker 3: out fast. I needed to slap in the face a
- 16:57Speaker 3: little bit. But when you talk about this idea of
- 16:59Speaker 3: it or relevance, I think you just show up every
- 17:04Speaker 3: single day and you can make long term plans and
- 17:06Speaker 3: then the universe makes its own plans and you just
- 17:10Speaker 3: try to be on the journey. Like my favorite poem Ithaca,
- 17:13Speaker 3: it's this concept.
- 17:14Speaker 2: Of like traveling. It's by Cafafi.
- 17:16Speaker 3: It's this idea of traveling to the island of Ithaca
- 17:18Speaker 3: and the Greek islands and all the things that you're
- 17:21Speaker 3: going to see and experience along the way, and when
- 17:24Speaker 3: you finally reach your destination Ithaca, if you find her poor.
- 17:27Speaker 3: She did not fool you because it was never about
- 17:30Speaker 3: getting to Ithaca. It was always about the journey. And
- 17:33Speaker 3: then you understand what ethica means. And I think it's
- 17:37Speaker 3: a metaphor for life, like this idea of vision early
- 17:40Speaker 3: at least it's cool experiences, school stories has what you
- 17:43Speaker 3: know has me sitting here with you, and all the
- 17:44Speaker 3: questions you're gonna ask that are gonna make me comfortable
- 17:46Speaker 3: and uncomfortable.
- 17:47Speaker 1: How are you feeling so far?
- 17:48Speaker 2: I'm fine. At the end of the day.
- 17:52Speaker 3: The only thing that really matters is how you see
- 17:54Speaker 3: yourself and how you see your relationship with the people
- 17:56Speaker 3: that really love you.
- 17:58Speaker 2: And it's you know, the question I ask myself is like,
- 18:00Speaker 2: why would I even do this?
- 18:01Speaker 3: Like, you know, it's going to be speaking to a
- 18:03Speaker 3: lot of people who don't know me.
- 18:05Speaker 2: And you know, what I've learned over.
- 18:06Speaker 3: The years is both the praise I received and many
- 18:08Speaker 3: points in my career and they hate I received the
- 18:10Speaker 3: man in my career, neither of them were deserved. The
- 18:13Speaker 3: people praising me didn't know me, yeah, and the people
- 18:15Speaker 3: hating me didn't know me.
- 18:17Speaker 1: So a lot of music managers operate behind the scenes,
- 18:20Speaker 1: and you were a really public figure. Was that purposeful?
- 18:24Speaker 1: Was that a business decision?
- 18:25Speaker 2: Yes, it actually is because of Outcast.
- 18:29Speaker 3: Outcasts had a manager and they won the album for
- 18:33Speaker 3: Album of the Year. It was the first hip hop
- 18:34Speaker 3: group to ever went out of the Year. And that
- 18:37Speaker 3: year there was a big party in Atlanta, and their
- 18:41Speaker 3: manager was on the bill of the party with another executive.
- 18:46Speaker 3: And the following year Outcast broke up and that executive
- 18:50Speaker 3: came back and he did a party, but the manager
- 18:53Speaker 3: wasn't on the party ever again. And I realized, too
- 18:56Speaker 3: much of his career I was nineteen twenty years old
- 18:59Speaker 3: in this too much of his career was correlated to
- 19:02Speaker 3: the decision making and the success or failure of someone else.
- 19:06Speaker 3: So I decided that while I wanted to build up acts,
- 19:10Speaker 3: I wanted to build up myself so that I could
- 19:13Speaker 3: maintain and keep going. And I have things that have
- 19:17Speaker 3: been great about that, because you know, when acts of
- 19:20Speaker 3: mine have gone through really hard times, I've been able
- 19:23Speaker 3: to mate a power base to maintain them.
- 19:25Speaker 2: And help them and build other acts.
- 19:28Speaker 3: But at the same time, I also, as you know,
- 19:29Speaker 3: became a very easy target because in this business, you know,
- 19:33Speaker 3: it became the big, bad executive.
- 19:35Speaker 1: Did you enjoy the recognition?
- 19:36Speaker 2: Ever when it was productive.
- 19:40Speaker 3: I'm much more of a homebody than people realize. Like
- 19:42Speaker 3: I can go and have a good time, but I
- 19:45Speaker 3: like watching movies and hanging out with my kids and
- 19:48Speaker 3: like just being home, and I still hang out with
- 19:50Speaker 3: my best friends.
- 19:51Speaker 2: I was eleven years old for the most part.
- 19:53Speaker 3: So yes, I liked it because any human being, like
- 19:57Speaker 3: when you're being praised or people appreciate what you do,
- 20:00Speaker 3: that feeds the ego, It feeds the soul, and it
- 20:02Speaker 3: feels really nice. So I can't say I did not.
- 20:05Speaker 3: I did enjoy that. But at the same time, I
- 20:08Speaker 3: liked it when you could give away tickets, you know,
- 20:12Speaker 3: when when the power was used for like the most
- 20:14Speaker 3: influential things in my life with that were being able
- 20:18Speaker 3: to like, you know, respond with Arianna to the Manchester attack,
- 20:22Speaker 3: to help the kids from Parkland with March for Our Lives,
- 20:25Speaker 3: to you know, help my friend Bumbee with a you know,
- 20:28Speaker 3: a fundraiser and a telethon for the hurricane victims of
- 20:31Speaker 3: Florida and Texas, or to simply you know, join a board.
- 20:35Speaker 2: Of a charity and like helps make a wish.
- 20:38Speaker 3: You know, It's like there are perks that come with it,
- 20:41Speaker 3: and then there are negatives. But in my opinion, if
- 20:45Speaker 3: you use it properly, the perks far outweigh the.
- 20:47Speaker 1: Negative, so you never wish you could undo that.
- 20:51Speaker 2: I mean, there were definitely times where I was like,
- 20:52Speaker 2: this ain't fun.
- 20:53Speaker 3: You know, you got to you gotta be strong for
- 20:56Speaker 3: some of the stuff that comes when you're in the
- 20:57Speaker 3: public eye, some of it, like I don't want for
- 21:00Speaker 3: my kids. But I also don't think I'm like a
- 21:03Speaker 3: well known celebrity, you know. I think there's people who
- 21:06Speaker 3: know what I've done. There's people who don't know what
- 21:08Speaker 3: I've done and assume they know. I think that it
- 21:11Speaker 3: served me well for the things that I want to achieve,
- 21:14Speaker 3: but I don't necessarily need it anymore.
- 21:16Speaker 1: Would you be sad if it went away?
- 21:18Speaker 2: Not at all. I mean, as long as I got
- 21:20Speaker 2: my kids and my friends, I'm good.
- 21:22Speaker 1: What does it take to be a really good manager?
- 21:25Speaker 1: I was looking up like David Geffen's model, which is
- 21:29Speaker 1: very similar to your model. It's more of like an
- 21:31Speaker 1: equity model, irving asof did like a touring model. More so,
- 21:35Speaker 1: everybody had a different vibe. You were the first one
- 21:39Speaker 1: to do this equity model plus be a public figure.
- 21:43Speaker 2: We were.
- 21:44Speaker 3: Yeah, look, we were very successful and the acts that
- 21:46Speaker 3: we worked with were incredibly successful. Yeah, and everyone did
- 21:50Speaker 3: incredibly well across the board.
- 21:52Speaker 2: And I'm really proud of the work that we did.
- 21:54Speaker 3: And you know, sometimes it's hard because you know when
- 21:56Speaker 3: you leave, you know there's people from the outside they
- 21:59Speaker 3: wone have re vision. It says you this that. But
- 22:01Speaker 3: at the end of the day, I got in love
- 22:02Speaker 3: for everybody I worked with and nothing to say negative.
- 22:05Speaker 3: I'm very appreciative of those twenty three years. And I
- 22:08Speaker 3: wrote about it like I did a post and wrote
- 22:11Speaker 3: all the explanations why I stopped managing. It was hard
- 22:13Speaker 3: because there was a year where legally I wasn't allowed
- 22:15Speaker 3: to say why I stopped managing, and everyone had all
- 22:18Speaker 3: their assumptions and stories and this person left in this
- 22:21Speaker 3: and I'm like, I lost forty three clients in one day,
- 22:24Speaker 3: but legally I couldn't until we resolve certain things. And
- 22:28Speaker 3: then when I finally could, it just felt nice to
- 22:30Speaker 3: do it, not so much for everyone else, But once
- 22:32Speaker 3: I said it publicly, I held myself accountable that I
- 22:35Speaker 3: wouldn't go back because I knew I didn't want to.
- 22:38Speaker 3: I think when you're asking me, like what it takes
- 22:40Speaker 3: to be a good manager, I think it differs. I
- 22:42Speaker 3: think some managers aren't amazing at torry. Luckily I had
- 22:45Speaker 3: people on my team who were. Some managers are amazing
- 22:47Speaker 3: at croudding the deals. Some are you know, amazing at marketing, you.
- 22:51Speaker 2: Know, building a little sitt for you though.
- 22:53Speaker 3: I think we were really good at marketing. We had
- 22:55Speaker 3: a really good sporting team. I was one manager who
- 22:58Speaker 3: built an amazing team. You know, I stood on the
- 23:01Speaker 3: shoulders of a lot of people. You know, Jules is
- 23:03Speaker 3: one of the best branding people brand deals out there.
- 23:07Speaker 3: Alison is you know, was amazing at like dot in
- 23:09Speaker 3: the eyes, crossing the t's and like you know, running
- 23:12Speaker 3: the touring.
- 23:13Speaker 1: Jam me it was more like EQ or IQ.
- 23:15Speaker 2: I think it was a combination.
- 23:17Speaker 3: I think like I could cut deals and we would
- 23:19Speaker 3: do deals and no one had ever done before. But
- 23:22Speaker 3: also it was a lot of building relationships, being there
- 23:25Speaker 3: in the trenches, having understanding and being empathetic to what
- 23:29Speaker 3: they were going through. And many times I've heard other
- 23:31Speaker 3: managers tell me you got too close, you know, you
- 23:33Speaker 3: had too close of a relationship like that was you know,
- 23:36Speaker 3: you know, something you shouldn't have done. But I don't
- 23:38Speaker 3: have regrets, you know, because at the end of the day,
- 23:40Speaker 3: relationships ebb and flow, family ebbs and flows, and those
- 23:43Speaker 3: people always be family.
- 23:44Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 23:45Speaker 3: But I think what was interesting is not what made
- 23:47Speaker 3: me a good manager, but in the end what made
- 23:49Speaker 3: me a bad manager. When I finally did the self work,
- 23:54Speaker 3: I knew my time as a manager was coming to
- 23:57Speaker 3: an end. What made me a great manager for twenty
- 24:01Speaker 3: years was my incessant need for them to tell me
- 24:05Speaker 3: that I was enough for them to tell me, like,
- 24:09Speaker 3: you're doing.
- 24:10Speaker 2: A good job.
- 24:10Speaker 3: So I had self worth. And when I stepped out
- 24:16Speaker 3: and was in a tough place in my personal life
- 24:18Speaker 3: and everything else, and I chose to step away, And
- 24:20Speaker 3: that was the first step, no phone, no email for
- 24:22Speaker 3: the first time in twenty five years, and really go
- 24:25Speaker 3: back into my childhood and dig deep into who I
- 24:28Speaker 3: actually am. When I went to that place, I never
- 24:32Speaker 3: ever let anyone call me Scott.
- 24:33Speaker 2: I was only Scooter.
- 24:34Speaker 3: I never felt like a Scott when I got out.
- 24:36Speaker 3: I loved my name Scott. I appreciated Scooter, but I
- 24:40Speaker 3: knew Scott had actually made him and that little boy
- 24:43Speaker 3: was back in charge.
- 24:44Speaker 1: But I can imagine your clients needed you to tell
- 24:47Speaker 1: them that they were great, Like it was a codependent
- 24:50Speaker 1: relationship undred percent.
- 24:52Speaker 3: But when I got out, I wanted to be there
- 24:55Speaker 3: for myself for the first time, and I wanted to
- 24:57Speaker 3: be there for my kids, and so much of my
- 25:00Speaker 3: life for twenty years was dedicated to them. And when
- 25:05Speaker 3: I got out, I just wasn't a good manager the
- 25:07Speaker 3: way I was before. And and I know that in fact,
- 25:10Speaker 3: you know, at the end, Ariana actually said it to me.
- 25:12Speaker 2: She was like, you know, you haven't really been the.
- 25:15Speaker 3: Manager you were for the last couple of years. And
- 25:17Speaker 3: she was right, you know, and she deserved better at
- 25:21Speaker 3: that point. And you know, my friend Brandon Creed is
- 25:22Speaker 3: her manager now and he's crushing it and she's happy
- 25:25Speaker 3: and she's crushing it, and I'm so happy for both
- 25:28Speaker 3: of them.
- 25:28Speaker 2: Like, honestly, were you burnt out? I think it wasn't
- 25:31Speaker 2: part of being burnt out.
- 25:33Speaker 3: But I also think the course of all the relationships,
- 25:35Speaker 3: like it wasn't like just me, it's they could see
- 25:38Speaker 3: it too, and their needs, like they deserve to have
- 25:40Speaker 3: someone that's the job.
- 25:42Speaker 2: You're supposed to be there for them.
- 25:43Speaker 3: And when I wasn't, you know, in that position, if
- 25:48Speaker 3: my soul wasn't in it the same way. So I
- 25:50Speaker 3: think it was a mutual thing in the end of
- 25:52Speaker 3: like an understanding like this is.
- 25:53Speaker 2: And I've talked about it.
- 25:54Speaker 3: We talked about twenty three years in the post and
- 25:56Speaker 3: I spoke about it all. But I think nothing makes
- 25:59Speaker 3: me happier than to see each one of them continue
- 26:01Speaker 3: to succeed.
- 26:02Speaker 1: Right. I've heard you say you like seeing everybody win.
- 26:05Speaker 3: Yeah, I like seeing everybody wins. Then everybody can pay
- 26:07Speaker 3: for their own vacation. I call my vacation theory. But
- 26:09Speaker 3: the other reason I like seeing everybody win is no
- 26:12Speaker 3: matter what it's like, it's what me and my ex
- 26:14Speaker 3: wife talk about, Like we have three amazing kids and
- 26:16Speaker 3: we're tied to each other forever. That's family, and I
- 26:20Speaker 3: want to see her do well because that's my family.
- 26:21Speaker 3: No matter what, whether we're a couple or not, we're
- 26:24Speaker 3: still co parents. We're still family forever. And that's the
- 26:26Speaker 3: way I feel about the acts. It's like there's gonna
- 26:29Speaker 3: be an ebbs and flows, and you know, you look
- 26:31Speaker 3: back at history and certain people feel this and other
- 26:33Speaker 3: people come in different people's years and say all kinds
- 26:35Speaker 3: of things. But at the end of the day, for
- 26:37Speaker 3: me at least, it's all love.
- 26:39Speaker 2: It's no matter what.
- 26:40Speaker 3: We did that, and we did that together and no
- 26:44Speaker 3: one can take that away, So you know, why not?
- 26:47Speaker 3: Like Dave Little Dicky, he and I had a dinner
- 26:50Speaker 3: and he was talking to me about a relationship with
- 26:52Speaker 3: someone else from his past in his career and I
- 26:55Speaker 3: managed him for a while and he was frustrated, and
- 26:57Speaker 3: I said, listen, does that person want to be your
- 27:00Speaker 3: business life anymore?
- 27:00Speaker 2: He said no. I was like, do you want them
- 27:02Speaker 2: in your life anymore? He goes no.
- 27:04Speaker 3: I was like, then, why can't you just celebrate who
- 27:06Speaker 3: you were once to each other and let the rest go?
- 27:09Speaker 3: And he did that, and I think that's what I
- 27:11Speaker 3: try to do with all these people in my life.
- 27:13Speaker 3: It's like there's so much noise out there in the
- 27:17Speaker 3: world that we're in, especially in this town, in this business,
- 27:19Speaker 3: everyone seems to have an opinion. I'm just going to
- 27:22Speaker 3: celebrate who we awre to each other always.
- 27:25Speaker 1: I like that. I want to talk about your first client,
- 27:28Speaker 1: justin Biebert. You guys had such a ride together. I
- 27:31Speaker 1: don't think Asher Roth was my first that's a great call.
- 27:35Speaker 1: Was Justin your second Yes, Okay, I want to talk
- 27:38Speaker 1: about actually.
- 27:38Speaker 3: Know I had one called Cato, and I know them
- 27:40Speaker 3: called the Bama Boys. You just know the ones that
- 27:43Speaker 3: worked really big.
- 27:45Speaker 1: I want to talk about your biggest clients.
- 27:47Speaker 2: Okay. I Love College. That was my first hit and
- 27:51Speaker 2: that was the first success. And then Justin.
- 27:53Speaker 1: I was in college partying to I Love College.
- 27:55Speaker 3: You know, Justin was in the studio when we cut it,
- 27:57Speaker 3: in the makeshift studio behind in the basement because Asher,
- 27:59Speaker 3: you used to literally babysit Justine me sometimes because Justin
- 28:02Speaker 3: was so young, and he would go hang out at
- 28:04Speaker 3: Asher's house and they'd like play you know, Mario Kart
- 28:06Speaker 3: and like watch Justin hilarious.
- 28:07Speaker 2: I mean it's crazy.
- 28:08Speaker 3: Like I have a picture of like all of us
- 28:09Speaker 3: on the stoop of the Greenhouse where like we recorded
- 28:12Speaker 3: Asher stuff and I put them up to live and
- 28:14Speaker 3: right down the street in the townhouse is where I
- 28:16Speaker 3: put Justin and his mom and.
- 28:17Speaker 2: It was like this makeshift crew of like us trying
- 28:20Speaker 2: to make it.
- 28:20Speaker 1: Okay, So I'm sorry it was my mistake.
- 28:22Speaker 2: You're right, I will forgive you.
- 28:24Speaker 1: Justin was not your first client, but I want to
- 28:26Speaker 1: talk about your ride with him. I don't think we've
- 28:28Speaker 1: seen fandom like that since the Beatles. That was really wild.
- 28:32Speaker 1: Why are you laughing?
- 28:33Speaker 3: I'm laughing because the Paul McCartney, Yeah, I think it
- 28:35Speaker 3: was like the first or second Grammys we ever went to.
- 28:38Speaker 2: He like saw me in the hallway.
- 28:39Speaker 3: I'll never forget this, and he goes, you're Scooter right,
- 28:41Speaker 3: and I was like yeah, and he goes, I'm one
- 28:42Speaker 3: of the only people in the world who knows what
- 28:44Speaker 3: you're going through it And for me.
- 28:46Speaker 2: I was so excited because I share a birthday with
- 28:47Speaker 2: Paul McCartney. And when I got to tell him we
- 28:50Speaker 2: share a birthday.
- 28:50Speaker 3: For me, that's incredibly exciting to share a birthday with pumccartney.
- 28:53Speaker 2: Turns out didn't really excite him that he shared a
- 28:56Speaker 2: birthday with me.
- 28:57Speaker 1: He kind of was like, that's nice.
- 29:00Speaker 2: I don't think he's walking around like I want to
- 29:01Speaker 2: tellim scoter we share a birthday. So I was like, oh, yeah,
- 29:03Speaker 2: I guess the other way. It's not really as exciting,
- 29:06Speaker 2: but I.
- 29:06Speaker 1: Think that's great because that was your second Grammy, so
- 29:08Speaker 1: it was still all new and exciting to you.
- 29:10Speaker 3: Yeah, by the wait As long as I'm seeing it
- 29:12Speaker 3: through the eyes as someone who's experiencing it the first time,
- 29:15Speaker 3: it's always fun for me.
- 29:16Speaker 1: There's videos all over the internet of you guys running
- 29:19Speaker 1: around giving out tickets to people who either couldn't get
- 29:24Speaker 1: tickets couldn't afford tickets, and you hand them front row seats.
- 29:28Speaker 1: They're crying. You guys donated a dollar from every ticket
- 29:31Speaker 1: sold on Justin's Believe Tour to support Pencils of Promise.
- 29:35Speaker 1: During the Justice World Tour, Bieber launched the Justice and
- 29:38Speaker 1: Action Initiative. He's the talk recording artist for granting wishes
- 29:42Speaker 1: for Make a Wish. Sure, when I think of philanthropic musicians,
- 29:46Speaker 1: I always think of Dolly Parton, but I'm not sure
- 29:49Speaker 1: I've seen a young person do it on that scale.
- 29:53Speaker 1: What about the give back was so important to you guys.
- 29:56Speaker 3: I don't think you get the rest without it. You know,
- 29:59Speaker 3: my grandparents say, if your cup is being filled with
- 30:01Speaker 3: water by God, you better start pouring in and other
- 30:04Speaker 3: cups before it just makes a mess and spills all
- 30:06Speaker 3: over the place. If we keep getting that energy, we
- 30:08Speaker 3: have to share it. And that was always something important
- 30:11Speaker 3: to my mother. It was important with In my culture.
- 30:13Speaker 3: It's called sedaka just giving and charity, and it's biblical,
- 30:18Speaker 3: like it literally says, you know, in the Torah, in
- 30:22Speaker 3: the Bible, it literally says, when getting your crops, you're
- 30:25Speaker 3: supposed to leave the field at the end untouched so
- 30:28Speaker 3: people can come in and get some of the.
- 30:30Speaker 2: Crops, right. And I'm a very firm believer in that.
- 30:33Speaker 3: And I'm very grateful that Justin and Ariana and Demi
- 30:38Speaker 3: and all these artists, Jay Balvin, all these artists I've
- 30:40Speaker 3: gotten to work with over the years, all them said yes.
- 30:45Speaker 3: And we brought in SHAWNA Nepp, who now runs our
- 30:47Speaker 3: family foundation, but she's always run philanthropic and still does
- 30:51Speaker 3: for most of the artists I've worked with and these
- 30:53Speaker 3: you know, families, and she's just absolutely amazing. And you know,
- 30:57Speaker 3: our job is to make it and her job is
- 30:59Speaker 3: to give it a and that's just something really amazing.
- 31:02Speaker 3: So I'm really grateful to all of the artists who
- 31:04Speaker 3: signed up to do those in credit Blacks. I'm grateful
- 31:06Speaker 3: to Justin for how many wishes he made over those
- 31:08Speaker 3: tours and how many kids he made happy. And you know, now,
- 31:12Speaker 3: like I'm very fortunate I get to serve on the
- 31:13Speaker 3: national board to make a wish, and whenever I go
- 31:16Speaker 3: to a board meeting, Leslie, our CEO, who is incredible,
- 31:19Speaker 3: I always tell her these board meetings I benefit more
- 31:22Speaker 3: than it, you know, than the kids, because getting to
- 31:24Speaker 3: hear the stories, getting to witness these wishes fills me up.
- 31:29Speaker 2: And the greatest thing you can.
- 31:31Speaker 3: Do is give, because it's like I promise you, you make
- 31:34Speaker 3: another dollar, you're going to be looking for more and
- 31:36Speaker 3: trying to find out how to be happy.
- 31:37Speaker 2: You give something, you're going to get closer to that happiness.
- 31:41Speaker 1: I think now you see Chance theor rapper, he gave
- 31:44Speaker 1: a million dollars to the Chicago Public school system. Taylor
- 31:47Speaker 1: Swift would like give people their college education, their tuition.
- 31:52Speaker 1: Do you think it's fair to say that you guys
- 31:54Speaker 1: changed the culture of pop stardom and geared it a
- 31:58Speaker 1: little bit more towards philanthropy.
- 32:01Speaker 3: Look, that's a really beautiful thing to say, But I
- 32:05Speaker 3: think the Civil rights movement was paid for by Sidney
- 32:08Speaker 3: Poitier and people like him. I think that artists throughout
- 32:12Speaker 3: history have stepped up to help others. I don't think
- 32:17Speaker 3: that started with us.
- 32:18Speaker 2: I think we were inspired by the people before us.
- 32:21Speaker 1: You've had time away from that part of your life,
- 32:24Speaker 1: what do you look back on and feel the most
- 32:25Speaker 1: joy about.
- 32:27Speaker 2: Well, I also didn't know an adult life was like this.
- 32:29Speaker 3: I've been managing since I was nineteen, and like full
- 32:32Speaker 3: time since I was nineteen, like two phones, answering every
- 32:35Speaker 3: phone calling it. Yeah, so like the last two and
- 32:37Speaker 3: a half years not managing because I announced it was
- 32:39Speaker 3: I guess a year and a half ago, the twenty
- 32:40Speaker 3: three years, but it's really been two and a half
- 32:42Speaker 3: years since I made this decision.
- 32:44Speaker 2: I didn't know you could have like a weekend.
- 32:47Speaker 3: I didn't know you could actually like binge watch an
- 32:50Speaker 3: entire series on Netflix.
- 32:52Speaker 2: Yeah, it's epic.
- 32:53Speaker 3: Like I'm loving it, and I'm still like I got
- 32:56Speaker 3: the hunger again to go do other stuff.
- 32:58Speaker 2: But it's been really nice.
- 33:00Speaker 3: To be so present with my children and be so
- 33:03Speaker 3: present with my friends.
- 33:04Speaker 2: And my friends talk to me about it.
- 33:06Speaker 3: They're like, you use some of these skills to like
- 33:09Speaker 3: make sure we're all good at stagecoach or if we
- 33:10Speaker 3: go to Coachell or something like that, But like used
- 33:13Speaker 3: to use these skills in other ways, and it's kind
- 33:15Speaker 3: of fun for you to use them.
- 33:16Speaker 2: For us, and it's been really nice.
- 33:18Speaker 3: When I look back at the career, it's a less
- 33:23Speaker 3: small moments and then really big philanthropic moments. It's like
- 33:29Speaker 3: a little moment on a road trip or being in
- 33:32Speaker 3: a restaurant in you know, Europe on a promo trip
- 33:36Speaker 3: when we were first starting and having laughs with the
- 33:38Speaker 3: original crew. It's you know, watching Marcus Mumford come out
- 33:43Speaker 3: at the Manchester Show and do the moment of silence
- 33:45Speaker 3: and seeing sixty five thousand people completely silent, you know,
- 33:48Speaker 3: when you didn't even know if they were going to
- 33:50Speaker 3: show up because of you know, acts of terror. It's
- 33:55Speaker 3: it's little things like backyard concerts that no one will
- 33:58Speaker 3: ever see, you know, with a guitar being a passed
- 34:01Speaker 3: around a fire pit. It's it's all the things that
- 34:05Speaker 3: made all the nonsense worth it, you know, all the
- 34:09Speaker 3: things that make me happy when I look back, I
- 34:11Speaker 3: would have done for free. And being able to tell
- 34:16Speaker 3: the stories in private settings when people ask or sometimes
- 34:21Speaker 3: that's the best moment because you take it for granted.
- 34:23Speaker 3: You almost act like, you know, you're feeling the injuries
- 34:26Speaker 3: of it sometimes and you don't realize how many great
- 34:28Speaker 3: things came from it. And how many beautiful moments and
- 34:31Speaker 3: how many experiences, and honestly, it's just a lot of love.
- 34:36Speaker 3: Like you're looking backly even like being on the road
- 34:39Speaker 3: in the beginning, and like pulling into Walmart's at two
- 34:41Speaker 3: o'clock in the morning, and the things that you'll see
- 34:43Speaker 3: in a Walmart at two o'clock in the morning in
- 34:45Speaker 3: the middle of America epic epic?
- 34:49Speaker 1: Do you have any regrets about that time?
- 34:52Speaker 2: I think everything happens exactly the way it should.
- 34:55Speaker 3: However, I don't want to use mental health as a
- 34:59Speaker 3: crutch because I think too many times people do that.
- 35:01Speaker 3: I think people say, oh, mental health, mental health. It's
- 35:03Speaker 3: almost like they don't want any adversity in their life.
- 35:06Speaker 3: And I don't think unless you take responsibility for your life,
- 35:09Speaker 3: you actually learn or grow. But I do think the
- 35:12Speaker 3: regret I have is not understanding taking self work time
- 35:20Speaker 3: for both myself and encouraging it for the people I
- 35:22Speaker 3: work with. I think we all could have awaited a
- 35:26Speaker 3: lot of pain. I think we were so young, and
- 35:28Speaker 3: we all moved so fast that we didn't know you know,
- 35:33Speaker 3: and by I didn't.
- 35:34Speaker 2: Figure that part out.
- 35:37Speaker 3: You're moving so fast and you're having all this success
- 35:41Speaker 3: and you're not realizing that toll it could take on
- 35:44Speaker 3: you long term of not being present completely to the
- 35:49Speaker 3: moment of all the pressures that come with it that
- 35:52Speaker 3: you're not prepared for when they finally hit. And I
- 35:55Speaker 3: think understanding now at this age the importance of one
- 35:59Speaker 3: to two weeks year where you really take the time
- 36:01Speaker 3: to go inward and build a foundation for yourself so
- 36:04Speaker 3: when those waves come you can swim through them. I
- 36:07Speaker 3: didn't understand that lesson until I was older and I
- 36:10Speaker 3: had to deal with hard things, and I wish I
- 36:12Speaker 3: knew it earlier and I would have been able to
- 36:13Speaker 3: encourage it for everyone I was working with as well.
- 36:16Speaker 1: That makes sense. So you pluck someone from Canada off
- 36:20Speaker 1: of YouTube, you guys have this insane ride together, and
- 36:25Speaker 1: then the working relationship has since come to an end.
- 36:28Speaker 1: When did you guys know it was the end of
- 36:30Speaker 1: that relationship, Because to me, it must sort of be
- 36:32Speaker 1: like an intimate partner, like you just wake up one
- 36:36Speaker 1: day and feel it like it's over or was it
- 36:41Speaker 1: a slow role?
- 36:42Speaker 3: I just think, listen, a lot of things happened, and
- 36:45Speaker 3: I think over time, each one of us is making
- 36:51Speaker 3: decisions for our own personal life. And sometimes you drift.
- 36:53Speaker 3: Sometimes a lot of people get in between. Sometimes, you know,
- 36:58Speaker 3: I think the story's not not in a working relationship,
- 37:02Speaker 3: but I think that's what happens with relationships like that.
- 37:05Speaker 3: They ebb and they flow, and they go up and down,
- 37:07Speaker 3: and sometimes they go into one direction, sometimes they go another,
- 37:10Speaker 3: but you always keep your heart open to the fact
- 37:12Speaker 3: that that's family and it goes up and down and
- 37:17Speaker 3: you have each other's back in the end. And I
- 37:19Speaker 3: think that you know, for me, my life went a
- 37:23Speaker 3: certain direction where I was done managing and I wanted
- 37:27Speaker 3: something else for my life. And I think his life
- 37:28Speaker 3: when a certain direction where he was ready to really
- 37:31Speaker 3: control his own destiny. And I think both are appropriate
- 37:37Speaker 3: and I respect completely. You know that he is his
- 37:41Speaker 3: own man now and that that you know, he wants
- 37:43Speaker 3: to build his career moving forward the way he sees fit,
- 37:46Speaker 3: and he should same way. I respect the fact that
- 37:49Speaker 3: I want to build my life a certain way moving forward,
- 37:51Speaker 3: and I think you do so with love and respect,
- 37:53Speaker 3: and you don't really Sometimes you it's you know, with
- 37:56Speaker 3: other people it was like, Okay, this is the day,
- 37:58Speaker 3: and you point to it, and other times you really
- 38:00Speaker 3: it just gets there. One day, and I think you
- 38:02Speaker 3: treat both with respect.
- 38:05Speaker 1: Was it tough.
- 38:07Speaker 3: At times, but like I said, I feel like everything
- 38:10Speaker 3: happens in the timing it should. Yeah, you know, the
- 38:13Speaker 3: stuff that I was dealing with in my personal life
- 38:16Speaker 3: was much tougher, you know, divorced with kids. I wouldn't
- 38:19Speaker 3: wish on your worst enemy, even with someone like my ex.
- 38:23Speaker 2: Who we did so we did it with such respect
- 38:25Speaker 2: for each other. But I don't think stories like end
- 38:29Speaker 2: the way you're describing. I think.
- 38:33Speaker 3: Their chapters, you know, and real relationships, you know, it's
- 38:39Speaker 3: just you're in a different chapter. You're each in a
- 38:41Speaker 3: different point in your life, and sometimes it comes together.
- 38:43Speaker 3: It's like a good friend, you know what I mean.
- 38:45Speaker 3: Like sometimes you could be ah, other times you could
- 38:48Speaker 3: be like, I'm talking to you in years you pick
- 38:50Speaker 3: it up like that, you know.
- 38:51Speaker 2: It's just I don't I don't think.
- 38:52Speaker 3: I think the only thing that's definitively ending is a lifetime,
- 38:56Speaker 3: you know, So the rest of it is you never
- 38:58Speaker 3: never know.
- 38:59Speaker 1: Well, the way you're describing it makes it seem like
- 39:01Speaker 1: you're hopeful that it'll come back together.
- 39:04Speaker 3: Is not the business way, right, I said, I'm hopeful
- 39:06Speaker 3: in the fact of like, he's not done and I'm
- 39:09Speaker 3: not done cheering for him.
- 39:11Speaker 1: You guys created such a strong fan base, and recently
- 39:15Speaker 1: his fans have been concerned about his health. People are
- 39:18Speaker 1: speculating USA Today said Justin Bieber's crashing out. There's videos
- 39:22Speaker 1: of him at Coachella where fans raised concerned about his appearance.
- 39:26Speaker 1: What goes through your mind when you hear me say
- 39:28Speaker 1: that or see those videos that.
- 39:31Speaker 3: People should if they really respect him, they should leave
- 39:33Speaker 3: him and his family alone.
- 39:35Speaker 2: I think he has a newborn child. I think he's married.
- 39:38Speaker 3: I think that that life is not easy, and if
- 39:40Speaker 3: they really did care, they would give him an opportunity
- 39:45Speaker 3: to be a human being.
- 39:48Speaker 1: Yeah, there was a moment. We talked about this a
- 39:50Speaker 1: little bit earlier, but there was a moment when you yourself
- 39:53Speaker 1: made headlines last year. We repeatedly saw these headlines and
- 39:57Speaker 1: it made it seemed like things were leaking. We're either
- 39:59Speaker 1: an artist on your roster was coming out or leaking
- 40:03Speaker 1: that they were leaving your management company, and it seemed
- 40:05Speaker 1: as though you were just taking hit after hit. Yeah,
- 40:08Speaker 1: how did it feel at that point because you mentioned
- 40:10Speaker 1: you were under NDA, so you couldn't say.
- 40:12Speaker 3: Anything, Well, I also had a dream, so I couldn't
- 40:14Speaker 3: say anything. I could I was under nda. But my
- 40:16Speaker 3: publicists could have, like for our company, could have said, hey,
- 40:19Speaker 3: that's not true.
- 40:19Speaker 2: But I wouldn't let her why because I had a dream.
- 40:22Speaker 1: What?
- 40:23Speaker 2: Yeah, I had a dream?
- 40:24Speaker 1: Can you share?
- 40:25Speaker 2: Yeah? I one of I'm not going to go into names.
- 40:28Speaker 3: One of my biggest clients came to me and said
- 40:30Speaker 3: that they wanted to spread their wings and do something different.
- 40:33Speaker 3: But I also knew that that was appropriate at the
- 40:34Speaker 3: time because I felt the same way quite some time,
- 40:37Speaker 3: but I was too afraid to say it out loud
- 40:39Speaker 3: because I was too afraid of who am I without them? Okay,
- 40:43Speaker 3: So when this happened, it was almost a catalyst for
- 40:45Speaker 3: me realizing, like it's now and I was on a
- 40:49Speaker 3: vacation with my best friends who really in my divorce
- 40:52Speaker 3: picked me up, and I had never done like a
- 40:55Speaker 3: boy's trip in my entire life, my entire adult life,
- 40:57Speaker 3: Like this was the first one. And I took all
- 40:59Speaker 3: of them and like we went to Europe and I
- 41:01Speaker 3: took them on a trip and like I'm talking, he's
- 41:03Speaker 3: gonna love this because I'm stand in the pocket, Like
- 41:05Speaker 3: I got a buddy Paul Brown from Bridgeport. He loves
- 41:08Speaker 3: when I say his name, and you know, Mike and
- 41:11Speaker 3: Jay and Buk and like, you know, all these guys
- 41:14Speaker 3: who like came to the trip. Dave Usher joined because
- 41:17Speaker 3: we've adopted him into the childhood group.
- 41:19Speaker 2: But some of these guys had never been to.
- 41:22Speaker 3: Europe, and like I was like, I'm taking you guys
- 41:24Speaker 3: because you were there for me and I want to
- 41:26Speaker 3: do something for you. And it was one of the
- 41:27Speaker 3: greatest trips in my life other than being with my children.
- 41:30Speaker 1: Mm hm.
- 41:31Speaker 3: And during this trip, this artist said this to me
- 41:34Speaker 3: that maybe we should change something, and I realized, I'm like, actually,
- 41:37Speaker 3: they're right, Like I've been avoiding this for quite some time.
- 41:40Speaker 3: And I went and I actually took a nap and
- 41:43Speaker 3: I had a very vivid dream and I have a
- 41:46Speaker 3: tattoo on the back of my arm about this dream.
- 41:49Speaker 1: What does the tattoos say?
- 41:51Speaker 2: It's not what it says.
- 41:52Speaker 3: It is a man standing in a giant flame and
- 41:55Speaker 3: the flame cannot touch him, and inside of him.
- 41:58Speaker 2: Is the full universe.
- 42:00Speaker 3: And basically what the dream said to me is you
- 42:03Speaker 3: are trying to navigate the perfect ending, and if you
- 42:07Speaker 3: do that, you're gonna get slapped in the face because
- 42:09Speaker 3: that's not what we want for you. You have to pull
- 42:11Speaker 3: the band aid. You have to stop managing and do
- 42:14Speaker 3: what you know you should have done for quite some time,
- 42:17Speaker 3: and then you have to go silent. If you do that,
- 42:20Speaker 3: I will let you have the rest of this ten
- 42:22Speaker 3: day vacation. No one will interrupt, which has never happened
- 42:25Speaker 3: in my entire career, and you will have the best
- 42:28Speaker 3: time in your life, and it will show you what
- 42:29Speaker 3: your life could be on the other side. But on
- 42:31Speaker 3: the final day, all hell is going to break loose
- 42:34Speaker 3: and everyone's gonna say they all left you, and people
- 42:36Speaker 3: are going to completely misunderstand this whole thing. So I
- 42:39Speaker 3: wake up it's vivid, and I tell my best friend
- 42:41Speaker 3: Jay Williams, who's on the.
- 42:42Speaker 2: Trip, And Jay's like, dude, no one cares.
- 42:44Speaker 3: Your manager's not gonna happen like that, And I was like,
- 42:46Speaker 3: I'm telling you, so we the rest of the trip
- 42:49Speaker 3: is amazing. No one bothers. I make the calls that day. Yeah,
- 42:53Speaker 3: I'm no longer managing. It's done. All the clients know.
- 42:57Speaker 3: I've like had the phone. I spend a whole day
- 42:59Speaker 3: making call. The trip is incredible, best trip of my life,
- 43:04Speaker 3: loved by my friends, loving on my friends. It was
- 43:07Speaker 3: a beautiful, beautiful trip. It's one of the greatest trips
- 43:09Speaker 3: all of us joke.
- 43:09Speaker 2: Around, will ever have.
- 43:10Speaker 3: Okay, the final day, we're flying home and my phone
- 43:13Speaker 3: just starts to go and literally all hell is breaking loose.
- 43:18Speaker 3: The press is saying every client's leaving me. People are
- 43:20Speaker 3: making t shirts over her to La. I was managed
- 43:23Speaker 3: by Scooter Braun and I left him like it was crazy.
- 43:27Speaker 2: And the publicist is calling me and being like, we
- 43:28Speaker 2: gotta respond.
- 43:29Speaker 3: We got and I said you can't because if I do,
- 43:32Speaker 3: then I'm gonna get more trouble.
- 43:33Speaker 2: I'm gonna get slapped. I had this dream and they're like,
- 43:35Speaker 2: what are you talking about. I'm like, you have to
- 43:36Speaker 2: let it go.
- 43:36Speaker 3: It's gonna last for a week or two and then
- 43:38Speaker 3: it's going to disappear. And they're like, no, we need
- 43:39Speaker 3: to say something.
- 43:39Speaker 2: We need to say something.
- 43:40Speaker 3: And sure enough I stood in the fire. It didn't
- 43:43Speaker 3: touch me. It all burned down around me. All my
- 43:45Speaker 3: worst fears of what would happen if I stopped managing
- 43:48Speaker 3: took place. And then after two weeks and went away
- 43:50Speaker 3: and it wasn't that bad and the dream was real
- 43:54Speaker 3: and it sounds crazy and I've actually never told that
- 43:56Speaker 3: story publicly, but that's why I didn't respond.
- 43:59Speaker 2: It wasn't any about in India.
- 44:00Speaker 3: I couldn't write twenty three years for another year because
- 44:03Speaker 3: we had to finish a lot of the contracts because
- 44:05Speaker 3: like lots of different reasons, right, but responding, hey, this
- 44:09Speaker 3: isn't true, I just couldn't because of this dream.
- 44:12Speaker 2: And then I went and got the tattoo because of it.
- 44:14Speaker 1: And have you ever listened to a dream before? Or
- 44:17Speaker 1: this was the first you have?
- 44:18Speaker 3: Yeah, dreams have guided me in my life a bunch
- 44:21Speaker 3: of time.
- 44:22Speaker 2: Really, Yeah, when they're that vivid, yeah, I think I think. Yeah,
- 44:25Speaker 2: I think they should since you were a.
- 44:27Speaker 3: Yeah, sometimes there are daydreams sometimes of this, but that
- 44:29Speaker 3: was really really vivid, and it sucked because it was
- 44:32Speaker 3: against everything I wanted to do and it was like
- 44:36Speaker 3: it was hard and it wasn't fun, and it wasn't like, hey,
- 44:38Speaker 3: we're going to you know, this is going to be
- 44:39Speaker 3: an easy dream for you. We're asking you to do
- 44:41Speaker 3: something completely out of your character. You have to let go.
- 44:44Speaker 3: You're not allowed to manipulate this. You're not allowed to
- 44:46Speaker 3: try and control this. You have to let go and
- 44:48Speaker 3: let it burn. And that was really difficult. But the
- 44:54Speaker 3: crazier it got and the more people talked, the more
- 44:57Speaker 3: conviction I had that the dream was true. So it
- 45:01Speaker 3: was like the more people said, and the more ou
- 45:04Speaker 3: to hand. I mean, they were like Carlie ray Jepson
- 45:06Speaker 3: left Scooter Brown. I didn't manage Carly in like five years.
- 45:09Speaker 3: Carly's called me, like, what am I having to do
- 45:11Speaker 3: with this? I'm like, I don't know, Like like you know,
- 45:13Speaker 3: Dina Menzel, I'm like, it was starting to get crazy
- 45:15Speaker 3: people I hadn't managed recently, and and the crazier got
- 45:20Speaker 3: the more I was like, God is good and it
- 45:24Speaker 3: is real.
- 45:24Speaker 2: And like trust.
- 45:27Speaker 1: So for the record, your clients did not leave you.
- 45:31Speaker 1: One did, but the rest didn't. You left your clients.
- 45:35Speaker 2: No, not that I left my clients.
- 45:36Speaker 3: We had an honest conversation about really where I had
- 45:38Speaker 3: been for quite some time, and some were like what
- 45:40Speaker 3: does this mean? And will you still help? And this
- 45:42Speaker 3: that and the other. But you know, for the record,
- 45:46Speaker 3: I don't ever want to disch. I didn't leave anybody.
- 45:48Speaker 3: We left each other.
- 45:49Speaker 2: It was time.
- 45:50Speaker 1: Okay, that's a wild dream, did you.
- 45:54Speaker 3: I think. I think the reason is also crazy because
- 45:56Speaker 3: no one could imagine that like I would want that,
- 46:00Speaker 3: you know, like no one imagined like when you're in
- 46:01Speaker 3: that position, that you actually.
- 46:02Speaker 2: Don't want to do that job anymore.
- 46:04Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 46:05Speaker 2: But you know who wasn't surprised.
- 46:07Speaker 3: Every one of my close friends, Okay, they no one
- 46:10Speaker 3: checked on me because when they saw it, they've known
- 46:13Speaker 3: for years how I felt.
- 46:14Speaker 2: So they understood. But I didn't leave anybody.
- 46:18Speaker 3: Those are the greatest people to work with in the world,
- 46:21Speaker 3: like the most talented people in the world.
- 46:22Speaker 2: It was just time.
- 46:24Speaker 1: Did you ever feel betrayed by a client?
- 46:26Speaker 2: Yeah, And I'm sure they felt betrayed by me. You know,
- 46:29Speaker 2: I don't want to.
- 46:30Speaker 3: I think it's easy to point fingers at someone else
- 46:32Speaker 3: and say you did me dirty.
- 46:33Speaker 2: You know. People hurt people hurt people.
- 46:35Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, and I'm sure like when people have
- 46:37Speaker 3: heard things over the years and misconstrued or someone gets
- 46:40Speaker 3: in their ear, you know, they can feel, oh, he
- 46:43Speaker 3: did this or he did that shit the internet think
- 46:46Speaker 3: so I'm like all powerful, like and I can do
- 46:48Speaker 3: all kinds of things I have nothing to do with.
- 46:50Speaker 2: But I think.
- 46:52Speaker 3: I try to have empathy in every situation because I
- 46:55Speaker 3: felt betrayed before. I try to imagine if they're acting
- 46:58Speaker 3: that way, probably they're feeling the same way somehow, And
- 47:02Speaker 3: I think it's just easier to not hold onto that energy.
- 47:06Speaker 1: You manage Kanye West for instant.
- 47:09Speaker 2: And a little while. How long it was like two
- 47:12Speaker 2: three years.
- 47:13Speaker 1: So your grandparents are Holocaust survivors. You stand up for
- 47:18Speaker 1: Jewish people around the world, and Kanye West is now
- 47:22Speaker 1: an anti Semite and self proclaimed Nazi. I'm curious what
- 47:26Speaker 1: it feels like to have tried to help guide someone
- 47:29Speaker 1: who now stands in opposition of so many of your
- 47:31Speaker 1: deepest values.
- 47:33Speaker 3: You know, the last time he spoke about me, he
- 47:35Speaker 3: actually like he did a Charlottage interview and there's like
- 47:38Speaker 3: a clip of it, and he talked about the relationship
- 47:42Speaker 3: we had where I helped him, and he actually says, like,
- 47:44Speaker 3: this Jewish man helped me because two of my brothers
- 47:46Speaker 3: are black, and he was talking about my relationship. My
- 47:50Speaker 3: brothers allowed me to have an understanding on how to
- 47:52Speaker 3: talk to a black man because I have family that's black,
- 47:55Speaker 3: and he was saying how I helped.
- 47:56Speaker 2: Him over the years.
- 47:57Speaker 3: And then three four years later, the narrative that you're
- 48:01Speaker 3: discussing started. I don't know him anymore, and I think
- 48:07Speaker 3: the person that I knew wasn't someone who says those things.
- 48:12Speaker 3: And I think sometimes the hardest thing to do with
- 48:15Speaker 3: someone you care about is more in them while they're
- 48:18Speaker 3: still here. And for me, the person that I knew
- 48:22Speaker 3: is not the person that I'm seeing, So I don't
- 48:25Speaker 3: have a relationship anymore.
- 48:27Speaker 2: And I'd rather.
- 48:28Speaker 3: Stand proudly and who I am and who my people
- 48:30Speaker 3: are and be gracious and kind to all people, then
- 48:35Speaker 3: be a part of that.
- 48:36Speaker 2: So I don't have any ill will.
- 48:39Speaker 3: I have no interest in turning into the monster that
- 48:41Speaker 3: people you know with anti Semitism or hate want you
- 48:44Speaker 3: to be. I'd rather be someone who is focused on
- 48:49Speaker 3: positivity and being damn proud of who I am and
- 48:53Speaker 3: who my grandparents were and who my people are, and
- 48:56Speaker 3: not fall for this narrative that I'm seeing all two
- 48:59Speaker 3: prevalence October seventh, And that's why I'm not scared or
- 49:04Speaker 3: interested in talking about anti Semitism as much as I
- 49:07Speaker 3: am in talking about what a beautiful, kind and loving
- 49:10Speaker 3: people we are and it is to be a Jewish
- 49:13Speaker 3: person of Jewish faith and Jewish culture, and I'd rather
- 49:18Speaker 3: I tell someone instead of like, don't say that about me.
- 49:21Speaker 2: I'd rather say, come to Shabbat and see who we are.
- 49:24Speaker 1: So you know, I think he can be reached, though.
- 49:29Speaker 3: I don't know and I don't know him, and I
- 49:32Speaker 3: think right now I have three beautiful kids that need
- 49:34Speaker 3: a dad to focus on them and make sure they're
- 49:36Speaker 3: prepared and strong in this world, and.
- 49:38Speaker 2: That's going to be my focus.
- 49:39Speaker 1: Does any part of you ever wish that you didn't
- 49:42Speaker 1: manage any of these people?
- 49:44Speaker 3: No, I love I love my life, and I think
- 49:47Speaker 3: my life has been like almost like this weird Forest
- 49:50Speaker 3: Gump journey.
- 49:51Speaker 2: Of like how the hell did I get in that situation?
- 49:54Speaker 3: I mean I got to like travel the world with Justin,
- 49:57Speaker 3: with Arianna, but also with like side doing Gangnam Style
- 50:01Speaker 3: and like Harley Racing called me maybe, and the wanted
- 50:04Speaker 3: doing Glad you came and seeing Tory Kelly sing at
- 50:06Speaker 3: a coffee shop, to winning Grammys to you know, Dan
- 50:10Speaker 3: and Shay like and then all the different things, so
- 50:13Speaker 3: many different wild stories and artists and tech company like
- 50:16Speaker 3: it's just all these weird situations I found myself in
- 50:19Speaker 3: over the years and still find myself in and I
- 50:22Speaker 3: always say, like, when you say, do you not.
- 50:23Speaker 2: Wish you manage him?
- 50:24Speaker 3: I always think of do you remember Carl Lewis, He
- 50:27Speaker 3: won the gold medal for the US. He was like
- 50:29Speaker 3: the fastest man in the world. And we were kids,
- 50:32Speaker 3: me and my brother Adam. We were in an airport
- 50:34Speaker 3: when we were probably like seven and five or like
- 50:38Speaker 3: eight and six, and Carl Lewis had just won the
- 50:40Speaker 3: gold medal. He was in the airport and my dad
- 50:43Speaker 3: pointed it out and me and my brother kept walking
- 50:46Speaker 3: and then running past him and then letting him pass us.
- 50:49Speaker 2: And then we'd run past him and we were like,
- 50:51Speaker 2: we're the fastest guy in the world.
- 50:53Speaker 3: And there was one time where he kind of like
- 50:54Speaker 3: looked at us and he made a move to like sprint,
- 50:56Speaker 3: and we like all giggled. I'm forty three years old.
- 51:00Speaker 3: I have never forgot that moment. And I said to Chris,
- 51:04Speaker 3: Paul was an amazing point guard and an amazing friend.
- 51:07Speaker 3: I said to him one time, I said, you know what, Chris,
- 51:09Speaker 3: the coolest part about our lives now is that our
- 51:11Speaker 3: every day is someone else's forever, you know, and that
- 51:16Speaker 3: things that happened to us on a daily basis. Is
- 51:18Speaker 3: that story that little kid remembered at forty three years old,
- 51:21Speaker 3: And as long as I don't take that for granted,
- 51:24Speaker 3: how cool is that? And like that job afforded me
- 51:27Speaker 3: all those memories, so I love it.
- 51:30Speaker 1: If you had to throw like one fish back into
- 51:32Speaker 1: the ocean, though.
- 51:33Speaker 3: One fish back into the ocean, this is gonna be fun.
- 51:36Speaker 3: If I had to throw one fish back into the ocean,
- 51:39Speaker 3: you're saying.
- 51:39Speaker 1: Like one client, Yeah, like one client.
- 51:43Speaker 3: Honestly, I have never even thought of this, but actually,
- 51:45Speaker 3: like every experience was worth it.
- 51:48Speaker 1: So if people didn't know you from your work with
- 51:50Speaker 1: all these artists like Bieber and Ariana, they definitely know
- 51:53Speaker 1: you from the Taylor Swift saga started back in twenty nineteen,
- 51:58Speaker 1: and I think we quotes here and there around the internet,
- 52:02Speaker 1: but we never really get the full story from you
- 52:05Speaker 1: from your perspective what happened.
- 52:07Speaker 2: Look for me, it was six years ago.
- 52:10Speaker 3: I think, like going backwards and like revisiting this is
- 52:14Speaker 3: a waste of time.
- 52:15Speaker 2: I think.
- 52:18Speaker 3: That I just assume you know, since then there have
- 52:24Speaker 3: been more deep dives, but I think people cared less
- 52:26Speaker 3: and less than the years, So I think a lot
- 52:27Speaker 3: of the facts are out there now if people actually
- 52:29Speaker 3: choose to go look at them. But I always choose
- 52:32Speaker 3: to think like, the only thing I didn't appreciate is
- 52:35Speaker 3: it was so public without an understanding of actually what
- 52:38Speaker 3: was going on. But I think once you do that,
- 52:40Speaker 3: it's hard to put it back in the box. But
- 52:43Speaker 3: I also think that, you know, like when Taylor says
- 52:46Speaker 3: that she wasn't offered the Masters, the reason I was
- 52:49Speaker 3: under NBA was because we were in negotiations to sell.
- 52:51Speaker 2: It back to her.
- 52:52Speaker 3: I just choose to believe her that maybe they didn't
- 52:55Speaker 3: tell her her team, like maybe her team didn't tell
- 52:58Speaker 3: her didn't understand the negotiation. But the thing, you know,
- 53:01Speaker 3: for me, the only thing that I really regret is
- 53:04Speaker 3: that it's easy to have a monster if you never
- 53:07Speaker 3: meet them. And Taylor and I have only met three
- 53:10Speaker 3: times in our life, and I think at that point
- 53:12Speaker 3: we hadn't seen each other in two three years. I
- 53:15Speaker 3: was managing people she wasn't a fan of, and she
- 53:17Speaker 3: probably saw my name come up and was like, I
- 53:19Speaker 3: don't like those people, so I don't like him. But
- 53:23Speaker 3: you know, we never had an opportunity to sit in
- 53:24Speaker 3: front of each other and actually have a conversation to
- 53:26Speaker 3: this day, and I think that you know, most of
- 53:29Speaker 3: the time, when people actually sit in front of each other,
- 53:31Speaker 3: the monster isn't real, that there's an understanding, that there's
- 53:33Speaker 3: a healing, you know that you know people kind of
- 53:36Speaker 3: a conversation. And because when I was asking for that,
- 53:39Speaker 3: it just never happened. It really awry, and I chose
- 53:43Speaker 3: to not say much. But the cool part is if
- 53:45Speaker 3: you actually pay attention, everybody in the end won.
- 53:48Speaker 1: What do you mean?
- 53:50Speaker 3: Well, yes, she could have bought them back and that
- 53:53Speaker 3: could have been part of the victory, but I choose
- 53:54Speaker 3: to think of a team. Maybe he didn't tell her,
- 53:56Speaker 3: but like we ended up when they turned it down,
- 54:00Speaker 3: we ended up selling it to someone else because she
- 54:02Speaker 3: didn't want us to have it.
- 54:03Speaker 2: We did very well in that.
- 54:04Speaker 3: Sale because we bought it at at a really great price,
- 54:07Speaker 3: and the value Masters went up. And the thesis when
- 54:11Speaker 3: I sold it was she had announced she was going
- 54:13Speaker 3: to do rerecords and I, if you understand music, the
- 54:18Speaker 3: value went up for Masters because Spotify and streamers created
- 54:22Speaker 3: a longer decay than buying just CDs, so like people
- 54:25Speaker 3: would listen to them more so there's a longer decay,
- 54:27Speaker 3: but it's still decaying. But when she records, all ships
- 54:31Speaker 3: rise in a world of streaming, so people were going
- 54:33Speaker 3: on and they were a being them.
- 54:34Speaker 2: They were listening to see how much they sounded like.
- 54:36Speaker 3: So she did incredibly well and basically had the biggest
- 54:40Speaker 3: moment of her career, reinvigorating her career.
- 54:42Speaker 2: With each one. It was brilliant on her part.
- 54:44Speaker 3: But also each time she released one, you saw a
- 54:47Speaker 3: spike in the original catalog, and that's how we were
- 54:50Speaker 3: able to tell, Okay, if she doesn't want them, this
- 54:52Speaker 3: is still a really great asset. And we actually created
- 54:55Speaker 3: an e n out. We did every one of our
- 54:56Speaker 3: earn outs and we were right. So funny enough everyone
- 54:59Speaker 3: involved in the Sofa from a business standpoint one, she's
- 55:02Speaker 3: the biggest she's ever been, biggest artist of all time.
- 55:05Speaker 2: We did really well with the asset. The people who
- 55:07Speaker 2: bought the asset did really well because of those spikes.
- 55:11Speaker 3: The only thing that I'm sad about is that's a
- 55:14Speaker 3: great example where everybody all ships can rise and there
- 55:17Speaker 3: doesn't need to be an enemy. There doesn't need to
- 55:19Speaker 3: be and and in that if her team, you know,
- 55:22Speaker 3: she could have bought them back, but like, even with
- 55:24Speaker 3: not doing that right, I wish kids and people out
- 55:28Speaker 3: there understood that, like there are scenarios in life where
- 55:32Speaker 3: there doesn't need to be an oppressor and oppressed. There
- 55:35Speaker 3: are scenarios in life where it's a misunderstanding yet everyone
- 55:39Speaker 3: can succeed. And the whole reason I did that deal
- 55:43Speaker 3: was not only because I believed in Big Machine and
- 55:44Speaker 3: Scott and Thomas Rhett and you know Florida, George I
- 55:49Speaker 3: and all the amazing acts they had on Big Machine.
- 55:51Speaker 3: But you don't make a deal at that level unless
- 55:55Speaker 3: you believe in her. Yeah, you know, so I believed
- 55:58Speaker 3: that she was going to become exactly who she's remained
- 56:01Speaker 3: to be. And you know, the narrative since then, you
- 56:04Speaker 3: know me even talking about this, now there's gonna be
- 56:06Speaker 3: Hello Swifties. They're gonna be yelling and screaming and you
- 56:08Speaker 3: know this, that and the other. You can't say anything right,
- 56:10Speaker 3: and it is what it is. And you know my
- 56:13Speaker 3: response to that is they made the horrible, you know,
- 56:17Speaker 3: miscalculation that I care. You know, My thing is that
- 56:21Speaker 3: i'd you know, I just I don't know those people
- 56:25Speaker 3: out there, and if I met them in person and
- 56:26Speaker 3: they needed my help.
- 56:27Speaker 2: As a stranger, I would help.
- 56:28Speaker 3: Them, and I've seen that on a human level, and
- 56:32Speaker 3: I think people forget that when you have a fan
- 56:34Speaker 3: base that big. If ten thousand people are yelling at you,
- 56:36Speaker 3: it feels like the world is ending. But that's less
- 56:38Speaker 3: than one percent of a fan base that big. I
- 56:40Speaker 3: think most people are dealing with their own problems. I
- 56:43Speaker 3: think most people are dealing with their own insecurities the
- 56:45Speaker 3: same way I am, the same way you know, every
- 56:47Speaker 3: artist and every human being is. And I think that
- 56:50Speaker 3: it's just a more productive use of your time to
- 56:53Speaker 3: not get stuck in the craziness of celebrity fodder and
- 56:57Speaker 3: focus more on being kind to people.
- 56:59Speaker 1: Interesting to hear that everybody won Like netnet, you made money,
- 57:03Speaker 1: she made money. The thing that she told Time that
- 57:06Speaker 1: I am curious about is she said, with the scooter thing,
- 57:09Speaker 1: my masters were being sold to someone who actively wanted
- 57:11Speaker 1: them for nefarious reasons. In my opinion, what do you
- 57:14Speaker 1: think she's referring to.
- 57:16Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't have any nefarious reasons. You don't.
- 57:20Speaker 2: That was a major risk for me at the time
- 57:22Speaker 2: to buy that company.
- 57:23Speaker 3: I couldn't afford to do it for nefarious reasons to go, Like,
- 57:26Speaker 3: just from a financial standpoint, that doesn't.
- 57:29Speaker 2: Make any sense.
- 57:30Speaker 3: I needed her to be successful for me to take
- 57:34Speaker 3: that risk. There's nothing nefarious about it, there's nothing. I
- 57:39Speaker 3: don't know what she was told, but the monster if
- 57:42Speaker 3: she ever wanted to sit in front of me, the
- 57:43Speaker 3: monster doesn't exist, and she'd.
- 57:45Speaker 2: Be met with kindness.
- 57:46Speaker 3: I just wish that it didn't take such a toll
- 57:49Speaker 3: on my family, with all the people that were activated
- 57:52Speaker 3: by that stuff, because there were.
- 57:54Speaker 2: It was a very tough time for us.
- 57:56Speaker 3: Because there's a lot of people out there that don't
- 57:58Speaker 3: understand and they hear this stuff and they take it
- 58:00Speaker 3: to a level that's really not okay, and I think
- 58:03Speaker 3: that's dangerous. You said earlier that she helps pay for
- 58:07Speaker 3: people's college tuition.
- 58:09Speaker 2: Yeah, good on her.
- 58:11Speaker 3: I'd rather talk about her doing that than talk about
- 58:14Speaker 3: her nefarious.
- 58:15Speaker 2: Reasons with me.
- 58:16Speaker 1: You think there's a difference between what actually happened and
- 58:18Speaker 1: what people think happened.
- 58:19Speaker 2: Yeah, of course.
- 58:21Speaker 3: So that's ninety nine percent of the things that people
- 58:23Speaker 3: read on the internet. But at the same time, that's
- 58:25Speaker 3: the whole lesson of self work. You can't define yourself
- 58:29Speaker 3: by what everyone else thinks. Especially people that don't know you.
- 58:33Speaker 3: That's the gift of being in the public eye, because
- 58:36Speaker 3: when you're not in the public eye, you can maybe
- 58:39Speaker 3: hide it a little bit more, But when you're in
- 58:41Speaker 3: the public eye, it's so much easier to be misunderstood,
- 58:44Speaker 3: and you better go deep inside yourself to figure that
- 58:47Speaker 3: part out. But you're talking about someone who doesn't know me,
- 58:50Speaker 3: and I don't know them, so why would I wish
- 58:52Speaker 3: them ill?
- 58:53Speaker 1: You helped make so many other people famous. What surprised
- 58:57Speaker 1: you the most when your name was in the headlines
- 59:00Speaker 1: surprised you about how you reacted.
- 59:02Speaker 3: It was the first time that I had ever had
- 59:05Speaker 3: any negative press. What surprised me is how overnight everything
- 59:11Speaker 3: I had done before didn't matter. What surprised me is
- 59:14Speaker 3: how before that I was known for helping people and
- 59:18Speaker 3: philanthropy and success and all these different things. And what
- 59:23Speaker 3: surprised me was like, the next day, all of that
- 59:27Speaker 3: was out the window. You were defined by this one moment.
- 59:29Speaker 3: That's what it felt like, and what a gift, best
- 59:33Speaker 3: gift ever, because that was when I started the lesson
- 59:37Speaker 3: of learning that all the praise that I thrived on before.
- 59:42Speaker 2: Wasn't real either.
- 59:43Speaker 3: That's why I told you earlier, the praise wasn't deserved
- 59:46Speaker 3: and the hate wasn't deserved because none of these people
- 59:48Speaker 3: knew me, and at that point in my life, I
- 59:50Speaker 3: really didn't know myself. So the hate forced me between
- 59:54Speaker 3: that and losing my marriage, which had completely nothing to
- 59:57Speaker 3: do with that, something completely different, and there were rumors
- 1:00:00Speaker 3: about that, but like that was just all of that
- 1:00:04Speaker 3: led me to wanting to go to a deeper place.
- 1:00:06Speaker 3: And it's the reason I'm doing a podcast with you. Like,
- 1:00:08Speaker 3: I'm almost annoyed that we're talking about this. I think
- 1:00:11Speaker 3: you can understand. I don't want to talk about it.
- 1:00:13Speaker 3: I understand you're doing your job.
- 1:00:14Speaker 1: I do have two more.
- 1:00:16Speaker 2: We'll see.
- 1:00:17Speaker 3: But what I can tell you, like as we joke
- 1:00:19Speaker 3: about it, what I really hope comes out of this
- 1:00:22Speaker 3: is that someone goes damn, like I'm gonna forget all
- 1:00:26Speaker 3: that noise and maybe look in word. You know, That's
- 1:00:29Speaker 3: what I really hope, I sik, somebody realizes that like
- 1:00:32Speaker 3: everything you need is and self love. And I know
- 1:00:34Speaker 3: that sounds cheesy and cliche, but it is so true.
- 1:00:39Speaker 2: Now she's about to take me with two more.
- 1:00:43Speaker 1: Have you talked to your kids about it?
- 1:00:44Speaker 2: I had to at this point.
- 1:00:46Speaker 3: My kids were really young then, but my oldest is
- 1:00:48Speaker 3: ten and someone said something very mean to him at school.
- 1:00:52Speaker 3: But the beautiful thing is I didn't have to talk
- 1:00:53Speaker 3: that much because my kids know who their dad is.
- 1:00:56Speaker 1: You mentioned a rumor about your marriage. There's been a
- 1:00:59Speaker 1: lot of rumors with Taylor. There's lyrics in vigilante shit.
- 1:01:03Speaker 1: I hate cursing, but in vigilante shit she writes and sings.
- 1:01:07Speaker 1: She needed cold heart proof, so I gave her some.
- 1:01:09Speaker 1: She had the envelope. Where do you think she got
- 1:01:11Speaker 1: it from?
- 1:01:12Speaker 2: Go ahead, keep going.
- 1:01:13Speaker 1: Now she gets the house, gets the kids, gets the pride.
- 1:01:15Speaker 1: Picture me thick as thieves with your ex wife? Ex wife?
- 1:01:19Speaker 1: Did you ever think these were about you?
- 1:01:20Speaker 3: No, because I talk to el every day. My ex
- 1:01:23Speaker 3: wife is one of my best friends. So me and
- 1:01:26Speaker 3: my ex wife laugh about that stuff. We don't even
- 1:01:28Speaker 3: call each other X. That's like my partner, you know.
- 1:01:31Speaker 3: That's the mother of my children. That is my family
- 1:01:33Speaker 3: for life. I have a tattoo on my finger that's
- 1:01:36Speaker 3: the same team after my divorce because she and I
- 1:01:39Speaker 3: are same team for life. It's what we say to
- 1:01:40Speaker 3: each other. So no, I never thought that was about us.
- 1:01:44Speaker 3: She never thought it was about us and everyone else.
- 1:01:46Speaker 3: Kind of feeding into the fire.
- 1:01:48Speaker 1: Great strategy move, but like, Nah, can we talk about
- 1:01:53Speaker 1: your divorce?
- 1:01:54Speaker 2: Yeah? Sure, I'll decide if I want to answer.
- 1:01:57Speaker 1: So you seem so fueled by success at least in
- 1:02:01Speaker 1: your pre Hoffman life. Did you see divorce as a failure.
- 1:02:05Speaker 2: At the time.
- 1:02:06Speaker 3: Yeah, No one in my family had ever been divorced.
- 1:02:09Speaker 3: And at that time I had built up this foundation
- 1:02:12Speaker 3: of Scooter because I didn't think Scott was strong enough.
- 1:02:15Speaker 2: I didn't know that yet.
- 1:02:17Speaker 3: So having the perfect career, the perfect wife, the perfect life,
- 1:02:20Speaker 3: the kids, the success, I thought.
- 1:02:23Speaker 2: That made me worthy of love.
- 1:02:24Speaker 3: And it wasn't until our marriage came apart and I
- 1:02:28Speaker 3: couldn't fix it. I felt like a failure because I
- 1:02:32Speaker 3: didn't have a foundation. But it was the greatest thing
- 1:02:35Speaker 3: that ever happened to me.
- 1:02:37Speaker 2: Because the ups.
- 1:02:39Speaker 3: And downs of artist's life, the tailor stuff, none of
- 1:02:42Speaker 3: that actually affected me.
- 1:02:44Speaker 2: Losing my marriage affected me.
- 1:02:46Speaker 3: The idea of not being with my kids fifty percent
- 1:02:49Speaker 3: of the time deeply affected me so much so that
- 1:02:53Speaker 3: October twenty twenty, when I didn't really even understand what
- 1:02:56Speaker 3: was going on.
- 1:02:58Speaker 2: I had a suicidal thought at the height of my.
- 1:03:00Speaker 3: Career for twenty minutes wow, because my marriage falling apart.
- 1:03:04Speaker 2: No one really knew. I knew.
- 1:03:05Speaker 3: I couldn't understand why, and I was like, man if
- 1:03:09Speaker 3: I can't be the father to them and you know
- 1:03:11Speaker 3: this life, I felt like I didn't want to be there.
- 1:03:13Speaker 3: And after that twenty minutes went by, I was like,
- 1:03:15Speaker 3: what the hell was that? That was really scary. I
- 1:03:17Speaker 3: never want to feel like that ever again. And then
- 1:03:21Speaker 3: the next day I actually opened up to a friend
- 1:03:23Speaker 3: and he recommended Hoffmann and I went.
- 1:03:25Speaker 2: Two weeks later.
- 1:03:27Speaker 3: The same day, Arianna was releasing Dangerous Woman. But I
- 1:03:31Speaker 3: just decided, you've done it this way for so long
- 1:03:33Speaker 3: and look what it got you.
- 1:03:35Speaker 2: You know, this deep depression. Now you've got to choose
- 1:03:37Speaker 2: something else.
- 1:03:38Speaker 3: And October twenty sixth I went into the Haffin process
- 1:03:42Speaker 3: and started healing and got to this beautiful place where
- 1:03:47Speaker 3: here I am six years later. Before, never divorced, no
- 1:03:53Speaker 3: one ever said anything negative about me, and the press
- 1:03:55Speaker 3: there was, everything online was very beautiful.
- 1:03:57Speaker 2: There's nothing negative. Later I'm divorced.
- 1:04:00Speaker 3: People talk about me constantly and I couldn't be happier.
- 1:04:05Speaker 3: I wouldn't trade it in a million years, The relationship
- 1:04:07Speaker 3: I have with my children, the relationship I have with
- 1:04:09Speaker 3: my friends.
- 1:04:10Speaker 2: Do I wish you know? Do you wish? Like you know?
- 1:04:15Speaker 3: Certain things didn't happen because they were painful, absolutely, but
- 1:04:17Speaker 3: they were so necessary.
- 1:04:19Speaker 1: That must be weird though, when your insides don't match
- 1:04:22Speaker 1: the outside.
- 1:04:24Speaker 2: I didn't know because I didn't know how to be present.
- 1:04:26Speaker 2: So I always kept moving because.
- 1:04:27Speaker 3: I thought like, that's how other people, that's how I
- 1:04:30Speaker 3: deserve love. And when I finally had to slow down
- 1:04:33Speaker 3: because I couldn't control it anymore, I broke. I had
- 1:04:36Speaker 3: no foundation, and that's when I had to put myself
- 1:04:38Speaker 3: back together, and other people helped me. And Hoffin didn't
- 1:04:41Speaker 3: fix me, but it started fixing me. And it started
- 1:04:44Speaker 3: me on a journey to like study breathwork and study meditation,
- 1:04:47Speaker 3: and do therapy and study stoicism and study kabbala and
- 1:04:50Speaker 3: study all these different things that I'm still doing every
- 1:04:53Speaker 3: single day today. You asked me about like being flawed,
- 1:04:56Speaker 3: I'm still flawed. I'm still battling every single day.
- 1:05:00Speaker 1: Do you battle?
- 1:05:01Speaker 2: You know?
- 1:05:01Speaker 3: There's this book Many Lives, Many Masters by Brian Weiss,
- 1:05:04Speaker 3: one of my favorite books, and it's this idea of
- 1:05:06Speaker 3: past lives, and one of the things.
- 1:05:08Speaker 2: He talks about, you're life past life.
- 1:05:11Speaker 3: It's more this idea that he says, you're here to learn,
- 1:05:14Speaker 3: and usually when you go, it's because there's nothing more.
- 1:05:16Speaker 2: For you to learn.
- 1:05:17Speaker 3: The reason why I jump out of planes, like learning
- 1:05:20Speaker 3: I jump learn how to jump solo for my forty
- 1:05:22Speaker 3: second birthday, or like I'll go swim with sharks, it's
- 1:05:25Speaker 3: because I know that I'm so screwed up and I'm
- 1:05:27Speaker 3: still trying to learn every day that I really don't
- 1:05:29Speaker 3: think it's my time to go because that book. So
- 1:05:33Speaker 3: I believe I'm flawed like everyone else, because I still
- 1:05:36Speaker 3: feel resistance. I still have moments where I'm like, oh,
- 1:05:39Speaker 3: the ego wants to win, or I'm hurt, or I'm angry,
- 1:05:41Speaker 3: or I'm disappointed or I'm like hurt by someone, and
- 1:05:45Speaker 3: I'm always trying to go towards it because that's where
- 1:05:47Speaker 3: the good stuff is. And as long as I keep
- 1:05:51Speaker 3: having that resistance and keep having that hurt and keep
- 1:05:53Speaker 3: having that struggle, I know I'm still in it.
- 1:05:56Speaker 2: So I choose to it.
- 1:05:58Speaker 1: When does that trigger come up randomly?
- 1:06:00Speaker 3: Sometimes it's a friend you know, is celebrating something and
- 1:06:04Speaker 3: you see it online and you're like, was there a
- 1:06:06Speaker 3: reason I wasn't, Like, like, you know, it's it could
- 1:06:09Speaker 3: be on the other side of the country and you
- 1:06:11Speaker 3: just feel like left out or something, or your insecurities
- 1:06:14Speaker 3: make you think you have to do with something that
- 1:06:15Speaker 3: has nothing to do with you.
- 1:06:17Speaker 1: I'm more personal or professional for you.
- 1:06:20Speaker 3: Personal, yeah, but it's also like the slightest thing of
- 1:06:23Speaker 3: like sometimes it's an old thing that you think you
- 1:06:26Speaker 3: were past and someone brings up an old wound and
- 1:06:29Speaker 3: you were like, damn, I thought I was past that.
- 1:06:30Speaker 2: But okay, I'm not. Let's keep working on this.
- 1:06:32Speaker 3: And luckily I talked to a therapist once a week,
- 1:06:35Speaker 3: which I never did when I was younger, and she
- 1:06:37Speaker 3: keeps me extremely accountable. She calls me on my bullshit.
- 1:06:41Speaker 3: She goes, no, you're dealing with that. I know you are,
- 1:06:43Speaker 3: and I'm really grateful for her hit me with.
- 1:06:47Speaker 2: The next time.
- 1:06:47Speaker 1: No, there there's really none my I mean personally, I'm curious.
- 1:06:53Speaker 1: I don't know if you want to talk about this,
- 1:06:55Speaker 1: but like Hive has since bought what is it called
- 1:06:58Speaker 1: quality Control Music, so like you've since bought other people's Masters,
- 1:07:03Speaker 1: and there's no headlines and no issues, so it didn't
- 1:07:06Speaker 1: scare you away from it. Do you feel like there
- 1:07:09Speaker 1: is like a legal moral way to do it that
- 1:07:12Speaker 1: it doesn't work?
- 1:07:12Speaker 2: Sure?
- 1:07:13Speaker 3: I think on this side of my career, I think
- 1:07:14Speaker 3: there's lots of things I realize about the laws of
- 1:07:17Speaker 3: the music industry that don't make sense, you know, And
- 1:07:20Speaker 3: I won't even talk from a master's point of view.
- 1:07:21Speaker 3: I think masters is you get what you negotiate in
- 1:07:25Speaker 3: the music business. It's kind of like the Wahwah West,
- 1:07:27Speaker 3: and Masters is a way that major labels feel comfortable
- 1:07:31Speaker 3: investing in artists because they don't participate in publishing. So
- 1:07:35Speaker 3: by owning masters or participating in Masters, it gives them
- 1:07:38Speaker 3: a reason to take a big risk and a chance
- 1:07:42Speaker 3: on emerging artists and helping you break like that's the
- 1:07:45Speaker 3: reward that they're.
- 1:07:46Speaker 2: Signing up for.
- 1:07:47Speaker 3: I'll give you an example though, on the publishing side
- 1:07:49Speaker 3: that I disagree with and I actually wish it would change,
- 1:07:52Speaker 3: and I've been a part of the problem in the past. Songwriters,
- 1:07:55Speaker 3: I think that they're the most underpaid people in our industry.
- 1:07:58Speaker 3: I think that they're for the melodies and the stories
- 1:08:02Speaker 3: that we love. They're unseen and they're not rewarded the
- 1:08:06Speaker 3: way they should. And I think that one of the
- 1:08:09Speaker 3: problems when you're majing a major artist is unless that
- 1:08:12Speaker 3: artist has a piece of the publishing, there's no way
- 1:08:15Speaker 3: for the artists to protect their rights. So, for example,
- 1:08:18Speaker 3: if an artist doesn't own a piece of the publishing,
- 1:08:20Speaker 3: you can take the lyrics of their hit song and
- 1:08:22Speaker 3: you can sell t shirts without.
- 1:08:23Speaker 2: Them with any design you want because you own the publishing.
- 1:08:27Speaker 3: But that doesn't protect the integrity of the artist's brand,
- 1:08:29Speaker 3: or the design work, or all the thoughtfulness they went
- 1:08:32Speaker 3: into creating their merch and protecting everything that they've worked
- 1:08:35Speaker 3: hard on. But the only way to protect that artist
- 1:08:39Speaker 3: is by demanding a piece of something that is a
- 1:08:43Speaker 3: very small revenue stream that those songwriters need. I think
- 1:08:48Speaker 3: that there should be a way to protect the performer
- 1:08:50Speaker 3: and the rights of the performer while not taking away
- 1:08:53Speaker 3: from the revenue stream of the songwriters. And that's something
- 1:08:56Speaker 3: that I'd love to see happen and something that I
- 1:08:59Speaker 3: realize now in this part of my career that while
- 1:09:02Speaker 3: I was protecting my clients, I might not have always
- 1:09:04Speaker 3: been doing the right thing by the songwriters because I
- 1:09:08Speaker 3: was doing my job. But what I'd like to do
- 1:09:11Speaker 3: on this side, if anyone want to advocate, I'd be
- 1:09:13Speaker 3: right there with them, saying the laws need to be
- 1:09:15Speaker 3: changed where you don't need to cut into someone's revenue
- 1:09:17Speaker 3: stream to do the right thing by the performer.
- 1:09:19Speaker 1: But even with labels, as much as it is true
- 1:09:23Speaker 1: that they're taking all the risk, they're putting all the
- 1:09:25Speaker 1: money up up front, they don't have anything without the artists.
- 1:09:28Speaker 1: And all these young artists now like Chapel Rone just
- 1:09:32Speaker 1: talked about it at the Grammys, they're like starting to
- 1:09:35Speaker 1: wave their hands saying this isn't right, like the labels.
- 1:09:38Speaker 1: I don't know how else to say it, but the
- 1:09:40Speaker 1: labels like just have them.
- 1:09:42Speaker 2: Look.
- 1:09:42Speaker 3: I think there's things about it that are wrong, and
- 1:09:44Speaker 3: then there's things about it where, you know, how many
- 1:09:46Speaker 3: artists who aren't successful are asking the label to keep
- 1:09:49Speaker 3: investing millions of dollars in them when it's not worked yet, right,
- 1:09:53Speaker 3: you know? So, I think there's always two sides of
- 1:09:55Speaker 3: that coin. That sometimes the artist in their individual situation
- 1:09:58Speaker 3: is spot on, But then what do you tell the
- 1:10:01Speaker 3: other artists where you're saying, well, because they said this,
- 1:10:03Speaker 3: I no longer have the revenue to take a chance
- 1:10:06Speaker 3: to break your next favorite artist, you know. I think,
- 1:10:09Speaker 3: like any business that needs to grow, it needs to change.
- 1:10:12Speaker 3: There also needs to be stop fighting against technology and
- 1:10:15Speaker 3: understanding technology can bring us new revenue streams that can
- 1:10:18Speaker 3: change our business. I think people come really hard at
- 1:10:21Speaker 3: Spotify and they're like, oh, they're not paying us correctly,
- 1:10:23Speaker 3: But they also forget that if it wasn't for Daniel Leck,
- 1:10:27Speaker 3: we wouldn't have the music industry value we have today.
- 1:10:29Speaker 3: He saved a dying industry. He took a risk, and
- 1:10:32Speaker 3: people are mad that he's done so well. But at
- 1:10:35Speaker 3: the same time, if it wasn't for him and streaming
- 1:10:38Speaker 3: and what Spotify did, we wouldn't be having in the
- 1:10:41Speaker 3: revenue that we have right now. So it's always it's
- 1:10:44Speaker 3: easy to kind of point fingers back and forth. I
- 1:10:46Speaker 3: think it's better if we find ways to work together
- 1:10:48Speaker 3: to create more more prosperity for everyone.
- 1:10:52Speaker 1: Well, to your point, with streaming and so many independent labels,
- 1:10:55Speaker 1: you artists need big labels anymore?
- 1:10:57Speaker 2: I think it really depends on the case.
- 1:10:58Speaker 3: I think sometimes a big a big label can use
- 1:11:01Speaker 3: its power and its its strategy and boots on the
- 1:11:04Speaker 3: ground around the world to actually make a difference for you.
- 1:11:07Speaker 3: And sometimes you're able to break through using the internet
- 1:11:09Speaker 3: and you can do you know, a distribution deal, And
- 1:11:13Speaker 3: you know, I really think it depends on your needs.
- 1:11:16Speaker 3: You know, some types of acts don't need a lot
- 1:11:18Speaker 3: of money to tour or do things. Other acts need
- 1:11:21Speaker 3: a tremendous amount of money to develop the music, videos,
- 1:11:23Speaker 3: the strategy, the development every act is different.
- 1:11:27Speaker 2: And I think that.
- 1:11:29Speaker 3: You know, pointing fingers at each other while others make
- 1:11:33Speaker 3: money off of all of us is not necessarily the
- 1:11:36Speaker 3: most productive thing.
- 1:11:37Speaker 1: What do you think about the TikTok isation of music?
- 1:11:41Speaker 2: Too old? I mean, that's honestly the truth.
- 1:11:43Speaker 3: I think when other people are coming on, they're like,
- 1:11:45Speaker 3: what is this, and like, I'm getting to that age
- 1:11:46Speaker 3: where I'm like, I don't understand the TikTok Like it's
- 1:11:49Speaker 3: I'm too old, Like I'm not native to the technology anymore.
- 1:11:53Speaker 3: So the same way my dad discovered vinyl, I discovered
- 1:11:57Speaker 3: DJ Clu mixtapes. And you know, some kids today is
- 1:12:00Speaker 3: discovering on TikTok. The one thing that has remained constant
- 1:12:03Speaker 3: is the love of discovery of music. So I'm not
- 1:12:07Speaker 3: going to bad mouth how a kid discovers music today
- 1:12:09Speaker 3: because that's their generation.
- 1:12:12Speaker 1: But artists are making music for TikTok. Do you remember
- 1:12:15Speaker 1: in the Instagram era, everybody thought that Drake would make
- 1:12:19Speaker 1: these songs just so we would all have Instagram captions.
- 1:12:22Speaker 1: And whether that's true or not, I don't know.
- 1:12:24Speaker 3: I don't think all artists make songs for TikTok. I
- 1:12:26Speaker 3: think artists, like art, take different mediums and date different
- 1:12:30Speaker 3: types of art. So what I mean by that is
- 1:12:33Speaker 3: there are some artists who are still making albums, there
- 1:12:36Speaker 3: are other artists who are focused on singles, then there
- 1:12:38Speaker 3: are artists who are focusing on TikTok. I think people
- 1:12:41Speaker 3: make art specifically for the art they want to make,
- 1:12:44Speaker 3: and we seem to judge it based on who makes
- 1:12:47Speaker 3: the most revenue. That's been the biggest issue for me,
- 1:12:51Speaker 3: not just with music.
- 1:12:51Speaker 2: Across the board.
- 1:12:52Speaker 3: Why are bachelor and bachelorette lists based on network and
- 1:12:56Speaker 3: not kindness or you know, not even like if the
- 1:12:59Speaker 3: person's a try active anymore. It's just like, seriously, it's
- 1:13:01Speaker 3: like how much how rich are they?
- 1:13:03Speaker 2: You know? And I think, what are you talking about?
- 1:13:04Speaker 2: Bachelor and bachelorette.
- 1:13:05Speaker 3: Lists Like when we look at them, like when you
- 1:13:08Speaker 3: see the most eligible bachelors in the world, Oh, okay,
- 1:13:11Speaker 3: you know they'll be like showing their net worth.
- 1:13:13Speaker 1: Oh yeah.
- 1:13:14Speaker 2: And I think that we've gotten women's beauty.
- 1:13:16Speaker 3: It's like women's It's.
- 1:13:18Speaker 2: So to me.
- 1:13:20Speaker 3: What's interesting about AI if it really does take away
- 1:13:25Speaker 3: a lot of.
- 1:13:25Speaker 2: Jobs and does replace a lot of things.
- 1:13:29Speaker 3: We've been a generation, the generation before us that's defined
- 1:13:31Speaker 3: by what we do.
- 1:13:32Speaker 2: The next generation might need to be defined by who
- 1:13:34Speaker 2: they are.
- 1:13:37Speaker 1: Interesting because if you get a lot of people who
- 1:13:43Speaker 1: have more time on their hands, there's possibly like an
- 1:13:45Speaker 1: artistic renaissance.
- 1:13:47Speaker 3: Either artistic renaissance or we're gonna have to deal with
- 1:13:49Speaker 3: ourselves and not just be defined with what we do.
- 1:13:53Speaker 1: I don't know. Shakespeare says idle hands are the devil's
- 1:13:55Speaker 1: play things.
- 1:13:57Speaker 2: We're gonna find out.
- 1:13:59Speaker 1: Okay, at the height of it, how many calls.
- 1:14:01Speaker 3: I hope it's an artistic renaissance, like you said, and
- 1:14:04Speaker 3: not idle hands.
- 1:14:05Speaker 1: I hope so too. I think if AI, we don't
- 1:14:08Speaker 1: have a great track record in America, but if AI
- 1:14:10Speaker 1: gets into the right hands.
- 1:14:12Speaker 3: Well, it seems to be in all our hands, especially
- 1:14:14Speaker 3: with all the open source and everything that's happening. But look,
- 1:14:17Speaker 3: the world's going to change drastically in the next couple
- 1:14:19Speaker 3: of years, and we always seem a way of.
- 1:14:21Speaker 2: Figuring it out and going on a new journey. And
- 1:14:23Speaker 2: I think that.
- 1:14:25Speaker 3: There's going to be a lot of opportunity for experience
- 1:14:28Speaker 3: and art and it's going to be an interesting world in.
- 1:14:32Speaker 2: The next ten to fifteen years, if not sooner.
- 1:14:35Speaker 1: At the height of your managerial career, how many calls
- 1:14:39Speaker 1: were you making a day?
- 1:14:40Speaker 3: Oh, it is all day emails, calls all day, like
- 1:14:43Speaker 3: more than three hundred.
- 1:14:44Speaker 2: Yeah, probably like over a thousand emails in texta day.
- 1:14:49Speaker 1: And were you a zero in box guy?
- 1:14:51Speaker 2: Yeah?
- 1:14:52Speaker 1: How did you do it at nighttime?
- 1:14:54Speaker 3: It was funny my assistant with jokereg in like two
- 1:14:57Speaker 3: three in the morning. It was just like, this is
- 1:14:58Speaker 3: just because I'd be answering everything.
- 1:15:01Speaker 1: Wow, a scooter. What's it been like to work this hard?
- 1:15:13Speaker 2: I've never been asked that. I don't think I knew
- 1:15:20Speaker 2: any other way.
- 1:15:21Speaker 3: For a really long time, the more interesting question has
- 1:15:25Speaker 3: been what is it like to work different? The last
- 1:15:29Speaker 3: couple of years learning how to be present, it's less
- 1:15:34Speaker 3: a question of what to feel like to work that hard,
- 1:15:39Speaker 3: and how nice it is now to be here. I
- 1:15:43Speaker 3: don't think I knew how to be here. I think
- 1:15:46Speaker 3: I knew how to live in the future. I think
- 1:15:47Speaker 3: I knew how to prepare, pare for every single moment.
- 1:15:50Speaker 3: I knew how to always be on getting ready, getting ready,
- 1:15:54Speaker 3: getting ready, And that made me really good at business.
- 1:15:58Speaker 1: But you took a breath when I said that. Tailed
- 1:16:01Speaker 1: why because.
- 1:16:05Speaker 3: I've learned how to exhale. That's the reason.
- 1:16:08Speaker 2: It's when you're working so hard before, you.
- 1:16:12Speaker 3: Don't know how to breathe. You don't know how to
- 1:16:13Speaker 3: take a moment. You don't know how to not look
- 1:16:15Speaker 3: at your phone. You're so afraid of what you're building,
- 1:16:19Speaker 3: not working. It's like my grandparents' Holocaust survivors. Like you said,
- 1:16:23Speaker 3: it was a lot of Holocaust trauma. Like tomorrow they're
- 1:16:25Speaker 3: gonna come and.
- 1:16:26Speaker 2: Take it all away. Yeah, And the last couple of years,
- 1:16:31Speaker 2: the pain of the last.
- 1:16:32Speaker 3: Couple of years forced me to learn how to be
- 1:16:35Speaker 3: here and learn how to take a breath. And that
- 1:16:39Speaker 3: has been really nice because the closest thing I can
- 1:16:43Speaker 3: relate to that is being a kid.
- 1:16:46Speaker 2: Is like being a kid.
- 1:16:46Speaker 3: Who's riding a bike around his neighborhood, a kid who
- 1:16:49Speaker 3: liked the ThunderCats and was silly and had fun and
- 1:16:54Speaker 3: didn't have a phone yet. And it was a lot
- 1:16:59Speaker 3: more joyous than I was in my adult years. And
- 1:17:01Speaker 3: I've got that back then you.
- 1:17:02Speaker 1: Had the playfulness though, like I mean, maybe it was
- 1:17:05Speaker 1: just on Instagram, but.
- 1:17:07Speaker 2: I don't know. I did.
- 1:17:09Speaker 3: But I was afraid of tomorrow. I didn't know how
- 1:17:11Speaker 3: to be here today. And so my friends feel like
- 1:17:14Speaker 3: you haven't changed where They're like, now you're back. I
- 1:17:16Speaker 3: didn't know how to be vulnerable. I didn't know how
- 1:17:18Speaker 3: to like tell that, you know, what was really happening
- 1:17:21Speaker 3: with me.
- 1:17:22Speaker 2: I was.
- 1:17:24Speaker 3: I was protecting all the time, and now I'm a mess,
- 1:17:30Speaker 3: just like you. It's fine.
- 1:17:31Speaker 1: Did you shed people?
- 1:17:33Speaker 3: Yeah, but I think that happens naturally. I don't really
- 1:17:36Speaker 3: like shedding anybody, Like I'm just not built. They my
- 1:17:39Speaker 3: friends actually say it's a problem, but I just think
- 1:17:41Speaker 3: you get to a point where you realize it's okay.
- 1:17:44Speaker 3: Like and I changed in a week, so I actually,
- 1:17:47Speaker 3: at the same time shed people, I also know that
- 1:17:50Speaker 3: they can change in a week and we could be
- 1:17:51Speaker 3: friends all over it again, you know. So I give
- 1:17:54Speaker 3: people the benefit it out the same way I'd want them.
- 1:17:56Speaker 2: To do for me.
- 1:17:57Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, I was reading an article you and there
- 1:18:00Speaker 1: was a blind quote and they said he's a good
- 1:18:04Speaker 1: guy and can be ruthless in business. What's it like
- 1:18:07Speaker 1: to hear me say.
- 1:18:08Speaker 2: That that's their opinion?
- 1:18:11Speaker 1: Is it true?
- 1:18:13Speaker 2: I think that in my opinion, everyone who's ever.
- 1:18:17Speaker 3: Done a deal with me has made a multiple I've
- 1:18:20Speaker 3: never lost money for anyone.
- 1:18:22Speaker 2: I've never screwed anybody.
- 1:18:23Speaker 3: I take a lot of pride in the fact that,
- 1:18:25Speaker 3: especially in his town, there are not many people that
- 1:18:27Speaker 3: can say that every investor they had did well, every
- 1:18:30Speaker 3: partner we had did well.
- 1:18:31Speaker 2: That I'm still doing deals with those partners.
- 1:18:33Speaker 3: I'll never apologize for fighting for our worth and some
- 1:18:36Speaker 3: people might have found that that be a tough negotiator,
- 1:18:40Speaker 3: but I always believe both sides can win, and in
- 1:18:42Speaker 3: the end we got there and being great an entrepreneur.
- 1:18:45Speaker 3: Jeff Bezos says, you better expect to be misunderstood, and
- 1:18:48Speaker 3: I'm okay with that. So when I hear it, I
- 1:18:50Speaker 3: don't take any offense to it because that might have
- 1:18:52Speaker 3: been their experience. But you know what they said, The
- 1:18:54Speaker 3: most important thing I thought, I was good guy. So
- 1:18:57Speaker 3: that's sweet, that's nice to them.
- 1:18:58Speaker 1: I'm glad you didn't ignore that part at at all.
- 1:19:01Speaker 1: So someone you've done a few deals with said to me,
- 1:19:03Speaker 1: Scooters able to determine what people want in a situation
- 1:19:06Speaker 1: more than anyone. You wrote on Instagram that you like
- 1:19:10Speaker 1: in meetings to ask people what their greed is? What
- 1:19:13Speaker 1: do they want? Are you always cognizant of people's desires
- 1:19:18Speaker 1: in your interactions with them?
- 1:19:21Speaker 2: Yes?
- 1:19:21Speaker 3: And it also makes things easier because people misunderstand the
- 1:19:25Speaker 3: word greed. They think you know it's a dirty word
- 1:19:30Speaker 3: because it's usually the thing that you feel shameful to say.
- 1:19:33Speaker 3: But it's usually the thing I need to know to
- 1:19:35Speaker 3: make the right deal. Sometimes greed is money. Sometimes greed
- 1:19:40Speaker 3: is fame. Sometimes greed is I want to spend more
- 1:19:42Speaker 3: time with my kids. Sometimes greed is I want to
- 1:19:44Speaker 3: be seen for who I am. Sometimes greed is I
- 1:19:48Speaker 3: want to make sure this charity I love makes money.
- 1:19:51Speaker 2: You never know what the greed is, but if.
- 1:19:52Speaker 3: Someone can just say it and stop hiding it, you
- 1:19:57Speaker 3: can build a deal that works for everybody you know.
- 1:20:00Speaker 3: And so for me, I try to push people to
- 1:20:04Speaker 3: feel comfortable enough to say what they actually want, so.
- 1:20:07Speaker 2: We can make a deal that works for everybody.
- 1:20:09Speaker 1: And it served you. Yeah, you said, you asked Jeff
- 1:20:13Speaker 1: Bezos that what did he say?
- 1:20:15Speaker 2: Asked him what what his greed was? I never asked
- 1:20:18Speaker 2: him that. I probably should.
- 1:20:20Speaker 3: I asked him what he wanted. I didn't ask the
- 1:20:23Speaker 3: greed question, but I said, what do you want?
- 1:20:25Speaker 1: Yeah?
- 1:20:25Speaker 3: And I here, I was looking at someone who I admired,
- 1:20:28Speaker 3: who is misunderstood. You know, someone who has provided more
- 1:20:32Speaker 3: jobs for this country than any person alive today. Someone
- 1:20:37Speaker 3: who provided more jobs in covid than anybody. Someone who
- 1:20:40Speaker 3: changed the minimum wage at the corporate level when the
- 1:20:43Speaker 3: federal government wouldn't. He did, and other companies followed and
- 1:20:47Speaker 3: changed into fifteen dollars because he said, we can actually
- 1:20:49Speaker 3: do this. Someone who's built made trillions of dollars of
- 1:20:53Speaker 3: wealth for other people, not just himself, but also as
- 1:20:56Speaker 3: one of the most commercially successful people individually in the world.
- 1:20:59Speaker 3: And I got to ask him, you know, what do
- 1:21:02Speaker 3: you want? And he looked at me and he said,
- 1:21:04Speaker 3: I want to evolve. I want to be more vulnerable.
- 1:21:06Speaker 3: I want to be a better partner, I want to
- 1:21:09Speaker 3: be a better father, I want to be a better friend,
- 1:21:11Speaker 3: and I thought to myself, I don't need two hundred
- 1:21:13Speaker 3: billion dollars to start that, and I felt like it
- 1:21:16Speaker 3: was a cheat code. And I'm the reason I don't
- 1:21:18Speaker 3: like to tell stories about certain people in my life.
- 1:21:20Speaker 2: But I feel proud to tell that.
- 1:21:21Speaker 3: Story about him because I hope more people hear it,
- 1:21:25Speaker 3: because no one needs that level of wealth to start
- 1:21:29Speaker 3: that journey.
- 1:21:30Speaker 1: You seem really passionate about people doing self work. Is
- 1:21:33Speaker 1: it because you feel so much better now?
- 1:21:37Speaker 2: Yes?
- 1:21:38Speaker 3: And I don't want them to be in the place
- 1:21:42Speaker 3: that I was to start it. I had plenty of
- 1:21:45Speaker 3: people who loved me trying to tell me to start
- 1:21:47Speaker 3: self work, and I just didn't turn off the rat race.
- 1:21:52Speaker 2: I said, I don't need that. Look at the whole
- 1:21:54Speaker 2: world is telling.
- 1:21:55Speaker 3: Me I'm great, So I'm great, and I refuse to
- 1:21:58Speaker 3: hear that little voice inside of me that was like,
- 1:22:01Speaker 3: come get me, we should start this.
- 1:22:04Speaker 2: And I only started when I was in deep pain.
- 1:22:07Speaker 3: So I talk about it a lot now because I
- 1:22:10Speaker 3: don't wish that pain on anybody. And it's such an
- 1:22:12Speaker 3: easy thing to start, and you don't have to be
- 1:22:14Speaker 3: in pain to do so, so I kind of wish
- 1:22:16Speaker 3: people start it before they get to.
- 1:22:17Speaker 2: The place I was in.
- 1:22:19Speaker 1: I'm sorry you were in so much pain, you know what.
- 1:22:21Speaker 2: I'm here now, so it's all good.
- 1:22:24Speaker 1: What do you want moving forward? What's your agreed?
- 1:22:29Speaker 3: I want people to stop asking me about past dramas.
- 1:22:33Speaker 1: Maybe after this interview we can put it to bed.
- 1:22:36Speaker 2: And maybe I would love that. Honestly, what do you
- 1:22:39Speaker 2: really want?
- 1:22:41Speaker 1: Like, no podcast answered, what do you actually want?
- 1:22:44Speaker 3: I would like to build something that I could share
- 1:22:46Speaker 3: with my children.
- 1:22:47Speaker 2: Interesting, I'd like.
- 1:22:48Speaker 3: To build something next that if they said, Dad, can
- 1:22:51Speaker 3: we come do this with you? There's enough space for
- 1:22:55Speaker 3: them to not only do it with me, but find
- 1:22:57Speaker 3: themselves in it as well. And I could share my
- 1:22:59Speaker 3: care creativity with them, Like if they wanted to do
- 1:23:02Speaker 3: more of the business side, I could share that with them.
- 1:23:04Speaker 2: Like I would like to do something that.
- 1:23:06Speaker 3: If they choose to do their own thing, that's great,
- 1:23:08Speaker 3: But if if there was an opportunity that they wanted
- 1:23:11Speaker 3: to kind of do something with their dad.
- 1:23:13Speaker 2: That would be a lot of fun.
- 1:23:15Speaker 1: You shared a lot of stories with me today about
- 1:23:18Speaker 1: like a more Fati and Marcus Aurelius, and you seem
- 1:23:22Speaker 1: to have these sort of like ASoP fables in you.
- 1:23:25Speaker 1: You post some of them on Instagram. I'm wondering why
- 1:23:28Speaker 1: being a storyteller is important to you or why stories
- 1:23:32Speaker 1: matter to you.
- 1:23:35Speaker 2: Does they have meaning?
- 1:23:37Speaker 1: Is that how you learn?
- 1:23:39Speaker 2: I think so.
- 1:23:40Speaker 3: I think you learned from your own experiences, but I
- 1:23:42Speaker 3: think you can learn a lot from stories. I think
- 1:23:44Speaker 3: I loved always reading stories about great people to kind
- 1:23:47Speaker 3: of like have cheat codes. Like the story Jeff gave me,
- 1:23:49Speaker 3: that's a cheat code. Yeah, you know, here's someone who
- 1:23:52Speaker 3: has all that and that's what they're looking for.
- 1:23:54Speaker 2: That's a cheat code. Like great stories are a cheat code.
- 1:23:57Speaker 3: Like my favorite story in the scripture was like two
- 1:24:02Speaker 3: weeks ago in a parsha and like it's a cheat code,
- 1:24:06Speaker 3: it's the story, Like do you.
- 1:24:07Speaker 2: Know who actually parted the Red Sea? Who do you
- 1:24:10Speaker 2: think Moses?
- 1:24:12Speaker 3: People think Moses part of the Red Sea. Moses didn't
- 1:24:15Speaker 3: part the Red Sea?
- 1:24:16Speaker 2: Pharaoh, Nope. So the real story, I'm gonna go biblical
- 1:24:21Speaker 2: on you.
- 1:24:22Speaker 3: The real story is the Egyptians were coming and they're
- 1:24:25Speaker 3: going to kill everybody, and everyone's freaking out, and Aaron
- 1:24:30Speaker 3: and Moses are standing up there saying God says, trust him,
- 1:24:33Speaker 3: go into the sea, and the sea is like choppy
- 1:24:35Speaker 3: as hell. The current's crazy, like people go in, You're
- 1:24:37Speaker 3: gonna die, and they're like Moses wants us to commit suicide,
- 1:24:41Speaker 3: like this is We're not doing that. And Aaron's brother
- 1:24:44Speaker 3: in law's name was not Sewan. He was the head
- 1:24:46Speaker 3: of the tribe of Judah. He was this regular dude
- 1:24:49Speaker 3: who was like the leader of his family. Something came
- 1:24:51Speaker 3: over him and God said trust me and not shown
- 1:24:54Speaker 3: not Moses walked into the sea and his family started
- 1:24:57Speaker 3: screaming like, don't do this, You're gonna die, and it
- 1:25:00Speaker 3: it wasn't until his mouth and his nose went under
- 1:25:02Speaker 3: the water that God parted the sea. And it's like
- 1:25:06Speaker 3: one of my favorite stories ever of this idea of
- 1:25:09Speaker 3: trust and in life it's not until you go into
- 1:25:12Speaker 3: a place that is unreasonable, into a place of danger.
- 1:25:17Speaker 2: That shows up.
- 1:25:20Speaker 3: And I love that story because that's like one of
- 1:25:22Speaker 3: the greatest gifts. It's a cheat code of like that's life,
- 1:25:26Speaker 3: you know, like success and failure live next door each other.
- 1:25:29Speaker 3: You have to go into the resistance, you have to
- 1:25:31Speaker 3: go into the fear, and it isn't until you put
- 1:25:33Speaker 3: yourself into a place of unreasonable danger that usually the
- 1:25:36Speaker 3: miracles happen, and I really like stories.
- 1:25:41Speaker 1: That was a great one.
- 1:25:42Speaker 2: Thanks, Oh it's not mine.
- 1:25:45Speaker 1: I'm curious when you felt the closest to that fear
- 1:25:49Speaker 1: and success. I mean, I've heard you talk about with
- 1:25:51Speaker 1: Bieber like you were basically down in your last dollar
- 1:25:53Speaker 1: at Asher and justin Yeah, but is there anything later
- 1:25:57Speaker 1: in your career where it felt that way, Like were
- 1:25:59Speaker 1: you really felt like you were taking a big risk?
- 1:26:02Speaker 3: My life change after that where I'll admit it, like
- 1:26:06Speaker 3: I have the luck of not being in that financial
- 1:26:09Speaker 3: position ever again after that.
- 1:26:11Speaker 2: But yeah, Like I think, it's not just about finance.
- 1:26:13Speaker 2: It's about all aspects of your life.
- 1:26:14Speaker 3: It's about going towards When I did the self work
- 1:26:18Speaker 3: for the first time, I was lost and I went
- 1:26:21Speaker 3: in to do something that was so out of character,
- 1:26:23Speaker 3: that was so surrender, which I never did before. And
- 1:26:27Speaker 3: it wasn't until I put myself in surrender in a
- 1:26:31Speaker 3: place of being vulnerable in front of strangers that I
- 1:26:35Speaker 3: started to actually have the healing and the miracles take place.
- 1:26:39Speaker 3: So I can talk about it from a business standpoint,
- 1:26:41Speaker 3: but the most powerful in my life has actually been
- 1:26:45Speaker 3: you know, understanding that I'm not completely in control and
- 1:26:48Speaker 3: that I've actually been taking care of Most of us
- 1:26:52Speaker 3: have been taking care of our whole lives. So, for example,
- 1:26:55Speaker 3: if you mind I ask you a question. Sure, okay,
- 1:26:59Speaker 3: what if you had a friend your entire life who
- 1:27:03Speaker 3: every single time, every single time you've got in a
- 1:27:06Speaker 3: bad position where you didn't think you were gonna make it,
- 1:27:08Speaker 3: that friend showed up and said, I will take care
- 1:27:11Speaker 3: of it. And now you're this age and you're back
- 1:27:15Speaker 3: in that position where it's the worst it's ever been.
- 1:27:18Speaker 3: You feel like it's the worst it's ever been, and
- 1:27:20Speaker 3: like you cannot control it. It's gonna fall apart, You're screwed.
- 1:27:24Speaker 3: And this friend comes to you and goes, Okay, listen,
- 1:27:26Speaker 3: this one need you to do. I've earned this. I
- 1:27:28Speaker 3: need you to completely trust me. You have no control
- 1:27:31Speaker 3: of the situation. I need you completely surrender and I'll
- 1:27:33Speaker 3: fix it. Could you do it?
- 1:27:36Speaker 1: Yeah?
- 1:27:37Speaker 2: You really?
- 1:27:37Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 1:27:38Speaker 3: I'm proud of you because most people are going to
- 1:27:40Speaker 3: be like complete control, like, yeah, the friend can help me,
- 1:27:42Speaker 3: but like I'm talking, you're not even allowed to know.
- 1:27:44Speaker 2: You have to just say I trust and fall back.
- 1:27:47Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 1:27:48Speaker 2: Okay, I'm really proud because you're an evolved person.
- 1:27:51Speaker 1: In some ways to me, that's the universe.
- 1:27:53Speaker 2: That's God.
- 1:27:54Speaker 3: Like, how many times have all of us in our life.
- 1:27:56Speaker 3: If you're at an age of like over twenty, over thirty,
- 1:27:59Speaker 3: you've already had enough like experienced that There's been so
- 1:28:01Speaker 3: many points in your life, Yeah, where you thought there's
- 1:28:04Speaker 3: just no getting out of this, so many of them
- 1:28:06Speaker 3: that you've forgotten at this point because they've been healed
- 1:28:09Speaker 3: since where you thought it was the end of the
- 1:28:10Speaker 3: world and it's far years later and you've removed.
- 1:28:13Speaker 2: And every single time steps up.
- 1:28:17Speaker 3: So now I got to a point in my life
- 1:28:19Speaker 3: where it was like, okay, cool, you think you've been
- 1:28:21Speaker 3: controlling this, but I've actually been the one helping you
- 1:28:23Speaker 3: the whole time, So can you just fall back and
- 1:28:25Speaker 3: let me help you? And I finally gone and got
- 1:28:28Speaker 3: to the point and I work on that every day
- 1:28:29Speaker 3: because you say, yeah, I'm still working on full surrender.
- 1:28:32Speaker 2: I'm not there yet. You're better than me.
- 1:28:34Speaker 1: No, not full. But the caveat is had I not been,
- 1:28:38Speaker 1: had I not had those moments, I couldn't have said yes.
- 1:28:42Speaker 3: Well, I think we've all had those moments, and I'm
- 1:28:44Speaker 3: still not able to say fully yes.
- 1:28:45Speaker 2: It's the thing I'm working on every day.
- 1:28:47Speaker 1: That's really interesting. I'm shocked to hear.
- 1:28:50Speaker 2: That I'm better at it, but like, because.
- 1:28:54Speaker 1: You had to surrender your whole life.
- 1:28:56Speaker 3: Yes, but I still struggle with it because it's scary.
- 1:29:00Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm so much better than it was. But it's
- 1:29:02Speaker 2: scary every single time because what if they're not going
- 1:29:04Speaker 2: to be there? But they've proven you know, God, universe
- 1:29:07Speaker 2: has proven me a thousand times.
- 1:29:08Speaker 3: It is Yeah, that's called faith, and I think I'm
- 1:29:11Speaker 3: still working on that.
- 1:29:13Speaker 1: Is there anyone in your life who has like, really
- 1:29:15Speaker 1: really beautiful faith that you admire, that you look to.
- 1:29:19Speaker 2: My mom does really believe in the goodness in people.
- 1:29:22Speaker 3: Obviously it will change that they get older, but because
- 1:29:25Speaker 3: of my kids are still kids, I get.
- 1:29:27Speaker 2: To see it in them.
- 1:29:28Speaker 1: You've been behind some of the most iconic careers of
- 1:29:31Speaker 1: the last fifteen years. When someone asks your eldest son
- 1:29:35Speaker 1: what his father does, what do you.
- 1:29:37Speaker 2: Hope he says, he's Jagger's dad.
- 1:29:41Speaker 1: I have some rapid fire questions for you, something that
- 1:29:46Speaker 1: really scares you whatever.
- 1:29:49Speaker 2: The first that was health for my family.
- 1:29:51Speaker 1: The biggest misconception about.
- 1:29:53Speaker 2: You that I control everything and I'm a crazy man.
- 1:30:00Speaker 1: Wish you knew when you started out in the music
- 1:30:02Speaker 1: industry that I don't control shit. What's a risk you're
- 1:30:07Speaker 1: glad you took even if it didn't work out.
- 1:30:09Speaker 2: I tried.
- 1:30:11Speaker 1: What does that mean?
- 1:30:12Speaker 2: I just got out there and tried.
- 1:30:14Speaker 1: Do you believe in karma?
- 1:30:15Speaker 3: Yes, but in a way that it's teaching you, never
- 1:30:18Speaker 3: hurting you say more.
- 1:30:22Speaker 2: I think karma.
- 1:30:23Speaker 3: I believe that like all of us are on our journey,
- 1:30:25Speaker 3: and I think karma's there to give us corrections, never
- 1:30:27Speaker 3: to hurt us.
- 1:30:28Speaker 2: It's always to teach us. I like that.
- 1:30:33Speaker 1: What's something everyone should try once?
- 1:30:36Speaker 3: The first thing that came to mind with skydiving, But
- 1:30:39Speaker 3: I don't know if that's a good idea.
- 1:30:41Speaker 1: I can't. If you were a tree, what kind of
- 1:30:43Speaker 1: tree would you be?
- 1:30:44Speaker 2: Oka and olive?
- 1:30:46Speaker 1: Something that you've changed your mind about recently, or an.
- 1:30:49Speaker 2: Orange tree i'd like to give people. Yeah, yeah, probably
- 1:30:53Speaker 2: an orange.
- 1:30:53Speaker 1: Tree, just like lasting fruit. Yeah, something you've changed your
- 1:30:57Speaker 1: mind about recently.
- 1:31:00Speaker 2: One thing I've changed my mind about recently.
- 1:31:03Speaker 3: I was doing like a really healthy diet and yesterday
- 1:31:05Speaker 3: I was like, screw this, I want that cookie. So
- 1:31:07Speaker 3: I changed my mind about the diet yesterday and I
- 1:31:09Speaker 3: ate the cookie.
- 1:31:10Speaker 1: Okay, a book that changed your life, something you think
- 1:31:13Speaker 1: everybody should read.
- 1:31:14Speaker 2: Many Lives, Many Masters, that's a really good one.
- 1:31:18Speaker 1: You grab the question Everything card game and pick a
- 1:31:20Speaker 1: card which everyone speaks to you this is the one.
- 1:31:23Speaker 2: Or you're okay. What's your superpower?
- 1:31:27Speaker 1: Oh?
- 1:31:31Speaker 3: I think I try to see people. Yeah, I think
- 1:31:34Speaker 3: my superpower is I think sometimes superpowers can hurt you,
- 1:31:39Speaker 3: and that's a good thing. So I think my superpower
- 1:31:42Speaker 3: is deep down, I really just want everyone to be okay.
- 1:31:48Speaker 3: That's my superpower. I get people to benefit of the doubt.
- 1:31:50Speaker 3: I actually just want I don't like conflict with people
- 1:31:54Speaker 3: like I. I want everyone to be okay. I want
- 1:31:57Speaker 3: people to get along. And I think even when people
- 1:32:00Speaker 3: are treating you know, even when my friends think I
- 1:32:03Speaker 3: shouldn't be like that, I'd rather be that way.
- 1:32:07Speaker 1: That's interesting because usually what we give people is what
- 1:32:10Speaker 1: we need most.
- 1:32:11Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 1:32:13Speaker 3: See, I just want to be okay and understood. Maybe
- 1:32:18Speaker 3: this is a great therapy session.
- 1:32:20Speaker 1: Music takes Okay, these are gonna be fun. An album
- 1:32:23Speaker 1: you listen to No.
- 1:32:24Speaker 3: Skips Lauren Hill Miseducational larn Hill Usher Confessions.
- 1:32:29Speaker 2: Another one No Skips that's a good one too.
- 1:32:31Speaker 1: Okay, Three albums to listen to for the rest of
- 1:32:33Speaker 1: your life.
- 1:32:35Speaker 3: One I just named, well, I'll name other ones. Three
- 1:32:38Speaker 3: albums the rest of your life.
- 1:32:40Speaker 2: Tribe. God, that's so hard.
- 1:32:42Speaker 3: I know, albums rest of your life just because you
- 1:32:46Speaker 3: know named my kid after Sticky Fingers by the Stones
- 1:32:50Speaker 3: and Born to Run or Springsteen.
- 1:32:55Speaker 1: Obama would agree with you. AI good or bad for
- 1:32:58Speaker 1: the music industry.
- 1:33:00Speaker 2: I think things of all of them. When we fight them,
- 1:33:02Speaker 2: we get in trouble.
- 1:33:02Speaker 1: So could Spotify or Apple Music.
- 1:33:07Speaker 3: I'm a fan of both companies, but I have been
- 1:33:09Speaker 3: a long term supporter and shareholder of Spotify, and I
- 1:33:12Speaker 3: think what Daniel.
- 1:33:12Speaker 2: Did is remarkable.
- 1:33:15Speaker 1: Who's an artist we should all have our eye on?
- 1:33:18Speaker 1: Scarlet Opera first CD or tape? You ever bought?
- 1:33:27Speaker 2: Kevin Campbell the single Round and Round.
- 1:33:31Speaker 1: A song you wish you had discovered? Oh excuse me,
- 1:33:33Speaker 1: a singer you wish you had discovered or managed?
- 1:33:35Speaker 2: First? I mean alive or dead?
- 1:33:38Speaker 1: And you're saying, yeah, an artist you wish you had managed.
- 1:33:42Speaker 2: I don't ever want to manage again.
- 1:33:44Speaker 1: But in the past, is there ever someone that you
- 1:33:47Speaker 1: really wanted on your roster that you never got I'm good.
- 1:33:50Speaker 2: I had a great run. I'm good.
- 1:33:52Speaker 3: That's my answer to the question, like I don't have
- 1:33:54Speaker 3: that wish anymore. I had an amazing run, I had
- 1:33:56Speaker 3: an incredible management career. I'm good, and I think everyone
- 1:34:00Speaker 3: was with the person they're supposed to be.
- 1:34:03Speaker 1: Yeah, peace, love and happy endings. Okay, an artists, people
- 1:34:07Speaker 1: would be surprised that you love George Benson a concert
- 1:34:12Speaker 1: that blew your mind, Michael Jackson bad an artist that
- 1:34:18Speaker 1: you think is still underrated even after all their success.
- 1:34:22Speaker 2: Tory Kelly.
- 1:34:24Speaker 1: I agree. I also put Mario in there, Miguel.
- 1:34:30Speaker 2: But I just I'm saying Tori toy. I've worked with Tory.
- 1:34:34Speaker 3: I think she's one of the most remarkable voices of
- 1:34:35Speaker 3: all time. And you talk about underrated Tory.
- 1:34:39Speaker 1: Kelly lyric that lives rent free in.
- 1:34:41Speaker 3: Your head, cooler than a polar bear's toenails. Oh hell,
- 1:34:46Speaker 3: there he goes again, talking that shit scooter, thank you
- 1:34:51Speaker 3: or I'm from Jamaica, Queens where I beat you up
- 1:34:53Speaker 3: and take your jeans.
- 1:34:54Speaker 2: I always thought that was a funny line.
- 1:35:00Speaker 1: Okay, you know what time it is, Today's a good day.
- 1:35:04Speaker 1: To have a good day. I'll see you next week,