No. Oh my God. That – they shouldn’t go. Don’t come. I’m serious because bands make a big – they have a misconception that they have to be in New York or LA to make things happen. That is not true. If anything, there’s a lot of apathy here for the music industry. Try to pull some music industry people to the Viper Room to see a band on any given day. It’s like pulling teeth. And when bands move here, they tend – or artists move here, they tend to start thinking more about the business than about their art and that is a big, big mistake. Even though I preach to artists, “You need to know about your business. You need to, need to, need to know,” you absolutely cannot have the business before the creative, okay? You always have to have the creative as your highest priority and know about your business, okay? There’s a big difference in that.
So bands or artists that end up living elsewhere, you know, they’re not – have all these business people. I mean, it’s very disheartening. You know, it’s very stressful to walk into a club and have 10 business people in there. You know, you’re nervous. You don’t perform well, I mean, things like that. I – and another thing is too, because of the internet and MySpace and all these things, we know – I know automatically if you live in Idaho and you’re bringing 600 people to your show, I will know that. And it’s – we’re not gonna know that because we monitor things like that, okay? So you don’t have to live here to get attention of anybody in the music industry. You know what I mean? If you’re, you know, an unsigned band on the Warped Tour and you’re selling 10,000 CDs and you have, like, you know, 300 crazy, you know, 15-year-old girls that are trying – you know, following you around the country, we’re gonna know about that. You know, you don’t necessarily have to live here.
I think the only reason you move to New York and LA is because you become successful and then you have to be here. That’s why you come here because then you have to be here because your record company’s here and you have to go down there and schmooze with the promotions department all the time and bring them cookies. Your lawyer’s here. You have to go up there and, you know, be nice to her and bring her snack. You know, you have your publishing company here. You wanna go and talk to the publishing people about co-writing, you know? So you have to live here once you’re successful, but do not move here until you’re successful.
Yeah, you can – like Music Connection Magazine in LA has, you know, a list of music lawyers and they put out the music lawyer issue every July. You know, you could also go to the Musician’s Atlas, which is a, you know, a big musician’s catalog that’s put out. It’s like $20.00 and you can buy – find booking agents, publishers, record companies, music supervisors, music lawyers. You know, you could also Google. I mean, I love the internet. Googling you put in, you know, music lawyer, entertainment lawyer in Google and a bunch of things pop up. Word of mouth is good. You know, always, you know, Don Passman’s book. You know, go read it. That’s an amazing, you know, resource because he tells you all the things that you need to do to find the people that you need to do it with.
You know, and that’s, like, different things like that. Reading in the trades. You know, you could always look at somebody’s CD, your favorite artist, you know? If you’re in love with, you know, Eminem, open Eminem’s CD and see who his business team is because he thanks them, legal, you know, this guy, manager, this person. You know, that’s how you know who people are.
I think the more different they are, the hard-working they are – I mean, I’m telling you, like, groups that are hard-working – look at Maroon 5. I mean, these guys worked their asses off even before they signed their deal, you know? And then they were on an indy first and worked their asses off there, you know? Then they got upstream to a major. I mean, they are like a – you know, hard, hard, hard-working band. Look at, you know, people like Kelly Clarkson, you know, from American Idol to, like, superstar, you know? It won’t be long before she’s in movies, too. I mean, these people’s talent, you just can’t hold them back. I mean, once they lock into their creative force and they start – they can channel that into making money and then everybody gives them attention and allows them to be creative and supports them in their creativeness, it’s like their talent is like – it’s radiating from their toenails, you know?
And the next thing you know, they’re writing movie scripts and doing this and acting and doing – I mean, it’s just amazing. You know, I just think the good – the really good will succeed. You know, they understand the business, you know? Not like put the business first and foremost, but understand the business. Certainly understand what a mechanical royalty is. Understand what the lawyer does and what the manager does. I mean, a lot of people call me up and they say, “Oh, I have a manager already.” I say, “Oh, you do?” “Yeah.” “Who is it?” “My cousin because she’s great at the mailing list and she really keeps our computer database going and updates our website.” “Honey, that’s not a manager.” And I have a rule of thumb. If the manager is not more powerful than me – okay? That’s – you know what I mean? The manager has to be head of the organization, okay? Because when I’m having problems getting a deal done I have to be able to call the manager who in turn has to call the president of the record company and slap them around. You know, the bass player’s girlfriend can’t do that. No.
[End of Audio]
