Latest / Arroe Collins Like It's Live / Before Any Live Event We Need A Tommy D From Juice Entertainment
Transcript
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- 0:30Speaker 2: Good morning, are you doing.
- 0:31Speaker 1: Doing very well? Tommy? How are you today?
- 0:33Speaker 3: Sir?
- 0:34Speaker 2: Doing great? Doing great?
- 0:36Speaker 4: To meet you.
- 0:36Speaker 1: What an amazing thing that you have done throughout this
- 0:39Speaker 1: process and then to bring it all together. You you
- 0:43Speaker 1: are the lost art of a formation of gatherings that
- 0:47Speaker 1: that so many different bands are starving for you today
- 0:50Speaker 1: because they need that leadership that you forged. You were
- 0:53Speaker 1: the one that took that step in the beginning.
- 0:57Speaker 4: Yeah, it's been in a long splaight opsbsolutely, I did
- 1:00Speaker 4: take that stuff. O.
- 1:02Speaker 2: We're about sixteen years ago now.
- 1:06Speaker 1: To get the confidence to do that, because you know
- 1:08Speaker 1: what it's like to be in those night clubs, I
- 1:09Speaker 1: mean those owners, I mean they change every five minutes
- 1:12Speaker 1: or they've got a better idea, and it's like you've
- 1:14Speaker 1: got to make sure that you you know that the
- 1:16Speaker 1: entertainment gets on that stage and you've got to work
- 1:18Speaker 1: your way through it. How are you able to build
- 1:20Speaker 1: up that confidence and make sure that you stayed true
- 1:22Speaker 1: to your process.
- 1:25Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a great question because it was always definitely
- 1:29Speaker 4: get challenging with some of the club owners where they
- 1:32Speaker 4: wouldn't want some of the creativity that you had to
- 1:36Speaker 4: stay true to it. Really, I just have to tell them, Look,
- 1:38Speaker 4: this is part how we're going to put the event.
- 1:40Speaker 4: This is a talent I'm going to put on there.
- 1:42Speaker 2: This is this theme we're going to do. If you
- 1:43Speaker 2: don't want it, I'm going to move it to another
- 1:45Speaker 2: venue and pack out. There's got good enough. We're lucky
- 1:48Speaker 2: enough most of them. Let me keep my creativity.
- 1:50Speaker 1: I'm so glad that you said that, because I know
- 1:52Speaker 1: when I was with ninety five DOUBLEQ, one of the
- 1:53Speaker 1: things that we did with the clubs is we put
- 1:55Speaker 1: a gigantic spaceship in the center of the club. And
- 1:57Speaker 1: he looked at us, going, what are you talking about?
- 2:00Speaker 1: I said, because that's exactly what we want. And and
- 2:03Speaker 1: and you know it's like, okay, well, well, if you
- 2:05Speaker 1: don't want us here in your building which really doesn't
- 2:07Speaker 1: get business. And it's one of those timmy where you
- 2:09Speaker 1: sit there and you go, I've been watching you. I
- 2:11Speaker 1: see how many cars that don't come here anymore. We
- 2:14Speaker 1: want to make sure that we fill up your parking lot.
- 2:16Speaker 1: Did you ever have to do a speech like that?
- 2:19Speaker 4: Oh? Yeah, absolutely. At a club I was doing a
- 2:23Speaker 4: beach party I was doing in their place was empty,
- 2:26Speaker 4: and I was filling the whole entire club up with
- 2:28Speaker 4: the sand, the whole entire place said, I was covering
- 2:30Speaker 4: the whole clean up, making this crazy beach team party.
- 2:33Speaker 2: And the owner had said to.
- 2:35Speaker 4: Me, He's like, yeah, I can't put that in my club.
- 2:38Speaker 2: I was like exactly. I was like, your club's dead.
- 2:40Speaker 2: I pack out all the clubs. Will me and my
- 2:41Speaker 2: team do So if you want it, we're gonna We're
- 2:44Speaker 2: gonna do it. Well, we'll pay for all the cleanup.
- 2:46Speaker 2: We have everything you know in place, and if not,
- 2:49Speaker 2: we leave, we walk and we'll bring it somewhere else
- 2:51Speaker 2: and let us do it. And it was a super
- 2:54Speaker 2: successful party.
- 2:55Speaker 3: And see, because the average person doesn't understand what goes
- 3:00Speaker 3: into the presentation of a performance, because they don't understand
- 3:03Speaker 3: the weeks or the months that it takes even just
- 3:06Speaker 3: to prep for it, and the endless meetings.
- 3:10Speaker 1: Oh my god, those meetings.
- 3:13Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely, most people don't realize. They look at the industry,
- 3:18Speaker 4: they'll look at a promoter, they'll look at the artists
- 3:19Speaker 4: and they just see them, you know, they'll see me
- 3:22Speaker 4: sitting there hanging out with Snoop Dogg or whatever.
- 3:24Speaker 2: They're like, Oh, it's so easy. I want your job.
- 3:26Speaker 2: I want this as a career. Not easy, and it's.
- 3:28Speaker 4: Not on you put a ton of countless and endless
- 3:31Speaker 4: time of preparation, like you said, that's put in there.
- 3:34Speaker 2: Just every writing to be right, sound, marketing. It's just
- 3:41Speaker 2: it's it's so much.
- 3:42Speaker 4: That goes behind the scenes, and those meetings, like you said,
- 3:44Speaker 4: they're NonStop around the clock.
- 3:46Speaker 2: So it's it's definitely if people don't realize there's a
- 3:48Speaker 2: lot of work that goes behind the scene. They just
- 3:50Speaker 2: see that stage pop up and see the show and
- 3:52Speaker 2: stay awesome.
- 3:53Speaker 4: Are ad, but ton of work that that's gone behind
- 3:56Speaker 4: the scenes a lot.
- 3:57Speaker 2: You're right on the money there.
- 3:58Speaker 1: You brought up Snoop Dogg name, and I chuckled because
- 4:01Speaker 1: we did an event two and a half hours late
- 4:03Speaker 1: and it's like, and you know, I know what was
- 4:06Speaker 1: going through our minds because you had people out there
- 4:09Speaker 1: that you know, didn't have the two and a half
- 4:10Speaker 1: hours to wait. How did you deal with those situations
- 4:13Speaker 1: where other people's time was more important than your time?
- 4:19Speaker 2: Yeah, I got it. Definitely would be some bit of
- 4:23Speaker 2: somewhat of a challenge. Luckily enough, over time.
- 4:26Speaker 4: I built my reputation up pretty good enough through the
- 4:28Speaker 4: industry that most all the artists were.
- 4:31Speaker 2: Actually beyond time.
- 4:33Speaker 4: But I did have a couple of times where there's
- 4:36Speaker 4: crazy situations you couldn't control, and it was really hard
- 4:41Speaker 4: to keep the fans, make sure that DJ is playing
- 4:44Speaker 4: some really good music, give some drink specials out.
- 4:47Speaker 2: When you're waiting for that artist to get there. Yeah,
- 4:49Speaker 2: that's one of those.
- 4:50Speaker 4: Definitely you're holding your breath when you got thousands of
- 4:53Speaker 4: people inside and thousands of people out online and you're like,
- 4:56Speaker 4: all right, this person doesn't show up, this gonna be
- 4:58Speaker 4: a problem.
- 4:58Speaker 2: But yeah, definitely stressful.
- 5:00Speaker 1: Oh my god, because I've been with those club owners
- 5:02Speaker 1: that have got fire in their eyes and they're saying,
- 5:03Speaker 1: I need more people at the bar, I need more
- 5:06Speaker 1: people at the bar. What are you gonna do. What
- 5:07Speaker 1: are you gonna do? Change it up?
- 5:09Speaker 4: Now?
- 5:09Speaker 1: I need sales, dude. And it was like, oh my god,
- 5:12Speaker 1: keep your stuff together. We got this, we got this.
- 5:14Speaker 1: Just have trust.
- 5:17Speaker 4: Yeah. Absolutely, so I figure that when I when I
- 5:19Speaker 4: first started in industry, I got all that same.
- 5:22Speaker 2: Pressure and I got kicked out of some venues. I
- 5:25Speaker 2: was running literally because of that. But after I grew
- 5:28Speaker 2: I got fortunate enough.
- 5:30Speaker 4: You know, I wouldn't bounce that pressure because I was like, look,
- 5:33Speaker 4: I know how to pack these parties, and me and
- 5:34Speaker 4: my team know we're doing and we'll get people to
- 5:37Speaker 4: your bar, but we're not going to go tell.
- 5:38Speaker 2: The DJ to change the music. You know what I mean.
- 5:41Speaker 2: We make it last.
- 5:42Speaker 4: We run long, successful parties for long times and uh,
- 5:46Speaker 4: but definitely starting off that was a pain.
- 5:48Speaker 2: Yeah, but that's something I wouldn't think about them that.
- 5:52Speaker 4: You know, listen to the club owner to day either.
- 5:54Speaker 4: It's like I was like, you got your club, my
- 5:55Speaker 4: job's to pack it. See you think it's the back
- 5:57Speaker 4: of relax. Yeah.
- 5:59Speaker 1: I got to ask you the question though about the
- 6:01Speaker 1: MySpace Live because that proves to me how much of
- 6:04Speaker 1: a pioneer you really are even today, because I mean,
- 6:07Speaker 1: you were doing something on MySpace that nobody else was
- 6:11Speaker 1: doing and you worked it, you knew how to do it,
- 6:13Speaker 1: and you stayed true to it. Where where did that
- 6:16Speaker 1: vision come from? And was it something that hits you
- 6:18Speaker 1: in the middle of the night, were you driving in
- 6:19Speaker 1: the car? What made you say take the step now
- 6:23Speaker 1: before somebody else beats me to it?
- 6:26Speaker 2: Yeah, it was.
- 6:27Speaker 4: It was kind of random because I had done a
- 6:30Speaker 4: lot of events from I did a couple events out
- 6:32Speaker 4: on the West Coast a long time ago, and stuff
- 6:35Speaker 4: out in Cancun, and I ran into some people that
- 6:38Speaker 4: were kind of in the startups and my Space and
- 6:41Speaker 4: then I did some events out there.
- 6:42Speaker 2: With Steve O MTV Jackass.
- 6:45Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, I did some Stevo events, got in
- 6:48Speaker 4: these guys camps, we started working together and then did
- 6:51Speaker 4: a lot of successful events with some of those guys
- 6:53Speaker 4: and they were like, look, we want you to run
- 6:56Speaker 4: on my Space events exclusively.
- 6:58Speaker 2: Here and it kind of got offered to me. So
- 7:01Speaker 2: it was really cool.
- 7:02Speaker 4: We got to do those events throughout, you know, throughout
- 7:04Speaker 4: the country.
- 7:05Speaker 2: Throughout you know, proably through the East Coast exclusively.
- 7:08Speaker 4: All the talent would come into really like at no cost,
- 7:11Speaker 4: because they wanted to be on my space and my job.
- 7:13Speaker 4: They trusted me with it and maybe just kept it
- 7:15Speaker 4: going and it helped my space blow up and helped
- 7:19Speaker 4: me a lot in return too, So it was great.
- 7:21Speaker 1: Please do not move. There's more with Tommy D coming
- 7:24Speaker 1: up next. Absolutely one of the greatest pioneers of live
- 7:30Speaker 1: entertainment and events. We are back with Tommy D. To
- 7:35Speaker 1: create your own business, to be the CEO of Juice Entertainment.
- 7:39Speaker 1: That in itself is a step forward that a lot
- 7:42Speaker 1: of people don't do, but you did, and you changed
- 7:45Speaker 1: a lot of people's lives because I always think of
- 7:48Speaker 1: what happens is that when you bring in your event,
- 7:51Speaker 1: guess who's driving a beautiful car? The owner? Guess who's
- 7:55Speaker 1: I mean, you know what I mean. I mean, so otherwords,
- 7:56Speaker 1: you help make a lot of money for other people.
- 8:00Speaker 1: How do you handle that in your heart knowing, oh
- 8:02Speaker 1: my god, they're making the money. I'm the one that's
- 8:04Speaker 1: busting tail here.
- 8:08Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 8:08Speaker 4: I was always cool with that, you know, as long
- 8:10Speaker 4: as everybody makes their money.
- 8:11Speaker 2: Yes, some of the clubs, some of the clubs obviously.
- 8:14Speaker 4: Started off making them a lot of money, you know,
- 8:17Speaker 4: But you know, as long as me and my team
- 8:20Speaker 4: were able to eat fairly, the club owners made more
- 8:23Speaker 4: when they put the money into it.
- 8:24Speaker 2: You know, it's fine with me, you know, something that
- 8:26Speaker 2: didn't really bother me.
- 8:28Speaker 1: Do you see this as a David and Goliath story?
- 8:30Speaker 1: Because the more and more I read about you and
- 8:32Speaker 1: have experienced you over the years, it's like, my god,
- 8:35Speaker 1: this guy has taken on the world and he has
- 8:37Speaker 1: said we can all do this, but it's going to
- 8:39Speaker 1: require some focus and some loyalty as well as a
- 8:42Speaker 1: real solid team to make this thing happen.
- 8:47Speaker 4: Yeah, people, people, people use that word David versus Goliad.
- 8:53Speaker 2: I've been uh. I got in the industry at a
- 8:56Speaker 2: super young age sixteen.
- 8:58Speaker 4: I think I saw my first beach party at like
- 9:00Speaker 4: thirteen years old on the beach in a while with
- 9:02Speaker 4: New Jersey. So I think I've been playing the uphill
- 9:07Speaker 4: battle most of my life. So but yeah, it's a
- 9:10Speaker 4: it's a big fight versus the largest company in the
- 9:12Speaker 4: you know, in the entertainment industry.
- 9:14Speaker 2: That's for sure, thirty six billion dollars. But it's really
- 9:16Speaker 2: about the fans.
- 9:17Speaker 4: I'm one person the fans of the army, So you know,
- 9:20Speaker 4: that's that's what it'll take to geb real change.
- 9:22Speaker 1: So then when you travel around the country, each region
- 9:25Speaker 1: has their own idea and plans. How do you deal
- 9:27Speaker 1: with with those regional areas because being up there in
- 9:30Speaker 1: Jersey versus Carolina, versus Seattle, Washington, everybody has their own vision.
- 9:36Speaker 2: Well, I think one huge part is you. You are,
- 9:40Speaker 2: like you know myself and other promoters, You're the visionary. Yes,
- 9:44Speaker 2: you you create it.
- 9:46Speaker 4: You know, people tell me you do an event uh
- 9:49Speaker 4: down in Miami and it's something I did up in
- 9:51Speaker 4: New Jersey and New York and it's not gonna work.
- 9:54Speaker 2: I said, well, I think it's gonna work. We just
- 9:57Speaker 2: have to put the time, put the effort, put a
- 10:00Speaker 2: theming behind it.
- 10:01Speaker 4: And you know, obviously you have to drift a little
- 10:02Speaker 4: bit to like different sets of music in different areas,
- 10:05Speaker 4: that's for sure. If you have your vision and you
- 10:07Speaker 4: you put it all into it and make it really creative.
- 10:10Speaker 2: I think I've been able.
- 10:12Speaker 4: To copy and paste stuff pretty much almost every single market.
- 10:15Speaker 1: You bring up Miami, and right away, I'm starting to
- 10:17Speaker 1: think of South Beach and I've always wanted to have
- 10:19Speaker 1: that big festival out there by Versace's old House and
- 10:22Speaker 1: just a just a big event outside, because that's the
- 10:24Speaker 1: one thing about South Beach is that you don't have
- 10:26Speaker 1: to go into the clubs, hang out outside and just
- 10:28Speaker 1: attend everybody's party.
- 10:32Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 10:33Speaker 4: Absolutely, I d Miami used to be a great time
- 10:36Speaker 4: Winter Music conference every year, the events down there.
- 10:40Speaker 2: I did an event actually at back in the day.
- 10:43Speaker 4: It was Madonna's old club Liquid Place was dead, and
- 10:46Speaker 4: it kind of shows you of a theme and I
- 10:50Speaker 4: ran back in the day when you can get away
- 10:52Speaker 4: with two more crazy parties, I at a theme party
- 10:54Speaker 4: called literally Keep It Simple Sex Party. Yeah, made a
- 10:57Speaker 4: crazy theme that I've had like five people in it.
- 11:01Speaker 4: We put that theme party down in Miami. We had
- 11:05Speaker 4: I don't even know how many people fitting it, but
- 11:06Speaker 4: we had five thousand people on one that didn't get in.
- 11:08Speaker 4: So that's why, if you got your vision, I think
- 11:12Speaker 4: you can work in every market.
- 11:13Speaker 1: Tommy, How did you deal with situations though? When real
- 11:16Speaker 1: life events mess up your party? And then, and only
- 11:19Speaker 1: because I remember doing this, we had this big, big
- 11:22Speaker 1: event here in Carolina and all of a sudden, a
- 11:25Speaker 1: White Bronco appears on TV and everybody who was there
- 11:29Speaker 1: for that celebration we had to watch what OJ was doing,
- 11:32Speaker 1: and the whole party didn't matter how much money we
- 11:35Speaker 1: invested in it. It was done. There was no way
- 11:37Speaker 1: we could save that party. You had to have gone
- 11:40Speaker 1: through situations like that as well.
- 11:43Speaker 2: Absolutely so being out of New York and New Jersey.
- 11:45Speaker 4: I'll tell you one thing, the New York Yankees, they
- 11:49Speaker 4: crossed so much business whenever they I became such I
- 11:52Speaker 4: became a Red Sox dad just because of.
- 11:56Speaker 2: The area.
- 11:57Speaker 4: People were like hey, because that was something I could
- 12:00Speaker 4: not overcome. When they did into the playoffs, I would
- 12:04Speaker 4: put people on to go to bars and run clubs.
- 12:07Speaker 2: So I had like the law. I put a screen.
- 12:09Speaker 2: I think it was probably the largest screen at the time.
- 12:11Speaker 2: I think anybody ever tried to put in.
- 12:12Speaker 4: A nightclub advertise that everything it's still weighted.
- 12:16Speaker 2: So that game was over, the place was dead.
- 12:19Speaker 4: So I would try to really look around and follow
- 12:22Speaker 4: the schedules, and when it was in the playoff season,
- 12:25Speaker 4: I'd be like, really keeping my talent budgets down, not
- 12:28Speaker 4: spending too much money because it wouldn't matter if the
- 12:32Speaker 4: Yankees were in a deep in the playoffs.
- 12:34Speaker 2: People weren't coming to the events would be lower. And
- 12:38Speaker 2: then in New Jersey.
- 12:40Speaker 4: We got the World Cup going on right now. Back
- 12:42Speaker 4: in the day in New Jersey. Everybody's Italian if you're not.
- 12:46Speaker 2: So.
- 12:48Speaker 4: It was the World Cup and it was Italian. I
- 12:50Speaker 4: think it was friends and I had a party at
- 12:52Speaker 4: the Silp Club, a beach club, indoor, an outdoor, huge event.
- 12:57Speaker 4: We were looking at doing about like ten fifteen thous people.
- 13:01Speaker 4: I never in America, people at this time didn't like soccer,
- 13:05Speaker 4: so I never expected soccer to affect that event. That
- 13:08Speaker 4: one I.
- 13:09Speaker 2: Walked pretty bad.
- 13:10Speaker 4: We had that when it's like super extra innings of
- 13:14Speaker 4: or whatever it's called in soccer, and we we ended
- 13:17Speaker 4: up doing I think like maybe six hundred people.
- 13:20Speaker 2: It was after the game because it was sill late.
- 13:22Speaker 4: But that one, yeah, so most sports it was the Yankees,
- 13:24Speaker 4: but you really have to keep an eye on I,
- 13:27Speaker 4: like you said, OJ Simpson something like that, but he
- 13:30Speaker 4: mostly Yankees one time World Cup. But I would always
- 13:33Speaker 4: keep an eye on it and look at all sports.
- 13:35Speaker 4: So I was, you know, really purcous, I'm looking at things.
- 13:38Speaker 2: Like that that would be an effect in the market share.
- 13:40Speaker 1: Here's something that the listeners will never understand. But because
- 13:43Speaker 1: we have lived the lifestyle for as long as we
- 13:45Speaker 1: have the moment the lights come on at the end
- 13:48Speaker 1: of the night. I don't know why I love that moment,
- 13:51Speaker 1: but it's almost like the big surprise, the oh my god,
- 13:54Speaker 1: we really tore up this joint kind of a feeling.
- 13:59Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, it's definitely, definitely a good time, and it's
- 14:05Speaker 4: also and it's also like an old ship moment. It
- 14:08Speaker 4: is because when you have everything in control and all
- 14:12Speaker 4: those lights come on and you've got thousands of thousands
- 14:14Speaker 4: of people, you got to really watch the crowd control
- 14:17Speaker 4: because then people have fists because they're having a great
- 14:19Speaker 4: time and they don't want to leave.
- 14:21Speaker 1: That is so true. That is so true.
- 14:23Speaker 4: So it's a it's awesome, but it's also a little
- 14:26Speaker 4: always in nerve racking moment of like we got to
- 14:29Speaker 4: be on point now.
- 14:30Speaker 1: Don't you see that? With today's industry, with all the
- 14:33Speaker 1: DJs that are, you know, creating their own paths as
- 14:35Speaker 1: well as the bands that are doing their own thing
- 14:37Speaker 1: on the road, do you find yourself being called to
- 14:40Speaker 1: that stage again and those performances because it seems like
- 14:44Speaker 1: it's all grown back into we've got the artist, we've
- 14:48Speaker 1: got the promoter, let's make the event.
- 14:53Speaker 2: Yeah, it's you know that. I don't the industry. To me,
- 14:57Speaker 2: everything recycles itself. People always look at it say like,
- 15:01Speaker 2: this won't change. This is the process is all. This
- 15:04Speaker 2: won't happen again.
- 15:06Speaker 4: It can reach it rechanges, you know, history repeats itself.
- 15:09Speaker 4: You know, people say this, this seems dead.
- 15:12Speaker 2: Someone can recreate it, you know. So that's that's how
- 15:14Speaker 2: I really see it.
- 15:15Speaker 4: There.
- 15:16Speaker 1: God, what leadership you've got. Where can people go to
- 15:18Speaker 1: find out more about what you're doing? And are you
- 15:22Speaker 1: on a speaking engagement to talk to these club owners
- 15:24Speaker 1: that just want to bring life back to the towns
- 15:27Speaker 1: that they're in.
- 15:30Speaker 4: I'm more than happy to speak to any club owner
- 15:33Speaker 4: for really to support that independent scene that's that's really
- 15:36Speaker 4: needed more more of Right now. They can find me
- 15:40Speaker 4: on Tommy D Juice Entertainment dot com if they google
- 15:44Speaker 4: my name Tommy D Tommy Dorfman lad Nation to see
- 15:47Speaker 4: it out there, and then my Twitter Tommy D Prime
- 15:53Speaker 4: Time Trime Tim Side, Tommy D Prime Tim One.
- 15:58Speaker 2: That's where you can find me reach out.
- 16:01Speaker 1: You got to come back to this show anytime in
- 16:02Speaker 1: the future. You've got so many stories tucked inside those caverns,
- 16:06Speaker 1: inside your heart and it's like it's like, oh my god,
- 16:09Speaker 1: I just want to hear everything.
- 16:12Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely, it would be a pleasure. There's definitely a
- 16:15Speaker 4: lot of stories, that's for sure.
- 16:17Speaker 1: I love it. Will you be brilliant today? Okay, mister
- 16:19Speaker 1: Tommy D
- 16:21Speaker 4: All Right, Yeah, thanks, thanks a lot for having me
- 16:23Speaker 4: on and thanks for anybody listening.