How To Be A Successful Electronic Artist According To Label CEO

Summary

Join us in this fascinating conversation with Anton Partridge, the founder of Good Company Records and former global director of electronic music at Warner. This episode delves into the distinct characteristics of the electronic music scene compared to the commercial industry, exploring the nuances of breaking as an electronic artist, and the differing strategies for success without relying on social media. Anton provides insider knowledge on sustaining a long career in electronic music, emphasizing the importance of venue selection for branding and financial success outside of mainstream hits.

Highlights

• Anton Partridge discusses his journey from Warner to founding his own independent label. 🎤
• The podcast explores the unique elements of electronic music marketing and distribution. 🚀
• Understanding the club vs. commercial dance scene is crucial for artists. 🕺
• Anton shares insights on how artists can achieve success through focused musical identity, rather than chart-topping hits. 🎼
• The importance of proactive marketing and building a presence in specific territories is emphasized. 🌐

Key Takeaways

• Being an electronic artist is more about the music and club culture than social media fame. 🎧
• Venue selection is crucial – playing the wrong venue can damage your career. 🏢
• Success in electronic music doesn't always involve the charts; club success and loyal fanbases matter more. 🎶
• Major and independent labels have different approaches to nurturing artists, with indies focusing on long-term growth. 🤝
• Curating personalized playlists and understanding market nuances in different countries can be key to global success. 🌍

Overview

Dive into the vibrant world of electronic music with Anton Partridge, who shares his illustrious journey from being at the helm of Warner's electronic division to establishing Good Company Records. This episode unfolds a spectrum of insights on navigating the electronic music landscape beyond the confines of social media. Anton sheds light on the authentic ways artists can thrive, focusing on the intrinsic connection with club culture and music authenticity.

The discussion reveals the critical role of venue selection and the fine line between underground and commercial success. Anton shares how artists need to choose their gigs wisely to maintain their branding and credibility. He emphasizes the essence of loyalty in fanbases within the electronic scene, and how success is defined more by live performance and audience engagement rather than mainstream chart success.

Anton also discusses the strategic differences between major and indie labels, where independents often prioritize sustainable artist development. The conversation touches on the importance of global perspectives in music distribution and the innovative approaches for small labels to elevate their artists in a crowded market. Get ready to explore an engaging dialogue that deciphers how to be a successful electronic artist today.

How To Be A Successful Electronic Artist According To Label CEO Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 welcome back to the music industry podcast today we're going to be joined with Anton Partridge he was the global director of electronic music at Warner and now he owns good company records which is one of the leading electronic independent labels it's a super interesting conversation we talk about everything from the streaming space to the live space social media and whether it's actually needed in this genre and he also talks about some of the biggest artists he's worked with which literally have had viral tracks across Tik Tok or
• 00:30 - 01:00 even got in the charts but also the difference of how the electronic music industry differs from the commercial industry because there is a lot of different ways to break as an electronic artist you can also make mistakes like I didn't even know that you as an electronic artist you can play the wrong venue and destroy all your credibility and your career and he also talks about how to make money from not necessarily hitting the charts you're not looking to necessarily go viral to have a
• 01:00 - 01:30 successful long career as an electronic artist he says that social media is not necessarily needed to be successful as an electronic artist also uh the fact that he said that Warner had a lot of emphasis on their own playlists and how he looks for that which kind of validated us a little bit because that's essentially if you work with bero that's what you will get we have our own network of playlists that we generate a
• 01:30 - 02:00 huge audience of music lovers and pump them into our playlist which get exposure for artists so so if you're looking to anything like that then I'll leave an inquiry form uh in the description and also in the comments if that's something you're looking for you want to get your career off the ground and I hope you enjoy the episode we're joined with Anton Partridge the founder of good company records dance would you call it dance record yeah it's a house label it's a house label well we have we have two we have good and the sister
• 02:00 - 02:30 label get together M good company is very focused and centered around the cultural importance of house music and um more Club orientated releases yeah and get together is unashamedly commercial okay okay I think it'll be a good one for us cuz we've never had anyone on the podcasts in dance house electronic genre I mean we had plasti on yeah um a while back but we've never really explored this genre a little bit so I think it would be interesting but you uh I saw that you were you were at
• 02:30 - 03:00 Warner before I was I spent quite a bit of time at Warner I had I was there for eight years initially um with my own imprint one more tune I left to set up oh I say I left my contract wasn't renewed to set up and then uh I chose to set up my own Indie as I'd had a yearning to do that for bloody ages um and then they had an idea of
• 03:00 - 03:30 buying 50% of it I didn't like that idea it was too early and they said okay you carry on doing what you do would you come back and orchestrate our strategy on a global level for everything electronic wise as far as music is concerned across all of the Frontline labels be Atlantic parone Warners you know the German office the American office and set up the help set up the um dance label coming out for Warner
• 03:30 - 04:00 Records in La which is Major recordings run by Sam MRA as well mhm what does global actually mean then is obviously it means worldwide but as in what what difference does it make in terms of your role and what do you focus on well it made it made I'd like to think it made a huge difference because everybody signs a global deal right so um they the the there was a propensity to sort of
• 04:00 - 04:30 the action starts in a territory that you signed and then everybody else waits to see whether or not there was some there's some sort of movement any element of success before they kick on with it obviously not if you're a huge household name with huge success everybody sort of moves at the same time but in the Dance Arena what would happen is America might sign something UK might sign something someone in Holland would do and then everybody would sit back and go okay what's the story what's this and my role role my previous role was to try
• 04:30 - 05:00 and get the flow of traffic and information much more concise and sort of like be ahead of the curve so that we'd be looking I was slightly like an adjudicator of like hello I think this could work in Germany if someone had something in in the UK or this this feels like it's going to be really good and start that momentum a lot earlier so
• 05:00 - 05:30 when it came to that record working or looking like it was going to work it wasn't starting from a cold standing point in another territory so we might go and hire independent radio pluggers or Club promotions people or put a little bit of spend into social media advertising specifically in other territories as opposed to it all happening in the UK is it a hit in the UK uh not quite all right well if it's not hit in the UK we're not going to try it anywhere else um
• 05:30 - 06:00 and you know you also then get the artist and the management Buy in on that and you get them sort of being very much more proactive and doing something for those territories whether it's just promotion or a shout out or anything else like that it's just having and and doing DJ mixes on radio shows over there and and doing stuff like that creating more of a presence and an awareness at specialist level so that it by the time it got to a commercial level and it was looking like it was
• 06:00 - 06:30 going to have Commercial Success all the ground workor had already been done and that ground workor could take up to two months um whereas previously that groundw would start post the success in any other given territory mhm um helping people close deals you know stuff like that I've been around for so bloody long that you know I'll probably know a lot more managers than the very good and younger anr staff that I in the company
• 06:30 - 07:00 and if someone wanted to sign something but they didn't know the manager hey you know this manager yeah okay cool I'll call him in let's do this I'll help you get this over the line it's your signing but I help you get it over the line and in global strategy for electronic music how would you say that would differ uh compared to say the more commercial stuff like what were you looking at in certain countries to see that there is potential there um specifically in the electronic space compared to say commercial or rock or other genres well
• 07:00 - 07:30 it's it's looking at the nuances in each country you know sonically okay like you might have this record that sounds great and I used to get this a lot from some of the European labels and they were having huge success in Europe it's going to be gold Germany Platinum France this that the other and it's like look this sonically this isn't going to work we can help it and we can get awareness going and we can do
• 07:30 - 08:00 these several things to make sure that the artist has a presence but quite honestly I'm prepared to be proven wrong in this circumstance but from what I can hear in all my experience and looking at the entry points that we would have to hit to build this into being a hit I can't see The Gatekeepers that are going to take this record on or this sound on more than anything um so it's looking at that it's building ecosystems as well you know um creating playlist
• 08:00 - 08:30 our owned playlist our our owned playlist that had the majority of the music was the Warner dance catalog from around the world and giving um trying to give all the records a platform of any sort whether or not it be from a visual context on YouTube to playlists and streams on something that was brand new that isn't going to get an editorial look immediately and and provide that platform to go look okay
• 08:30 - 09:00 we're going to put you in the these playlists that we own here this Global playlist this playlist in Germany doing things like that hiring the independent radio people just having activity because it's it's it's really an independent label mindset you know it's that thing of you as are we as an independent you celebrate much smaller winds all right and you chase those smaller winds wherever you can so long as something is moving but our bar and our Benchmark is
• 09:00 - 09:30 a lot lower to what is a is a win by comparison to in a major so you know we might work on a record longer or we might work Sly specifically just in this territory because we can see it moving whereas The Benchmark within the major is understandably has it hit this number what are the trigger points to like to spend more money on it and to do this and to do that um and quite often a lot of the time even on the data signed record they don't hit the benchmarks and they
• 09:30 - 10:00 just kind of sit there and nothing really happens whereas we kind of invest as much in the Artist as we do for our label because if we don't promote and test the ground wherever we can and wherever we think that the record is appropriate to give it an opportunity we might miss that opportunity so we might not do something in Germany thinking well you know and we'll we'll will the great thing about
• 10:00 - 10:30 having independent people on the ground and you choose the ones that don't take records for the sake of taking records and just give you an invoice you choose people that go look you know what I'm not sure this is going to work in Holland um if you want me to I can test it with a few people but I don't want to take this on right now because I don't want you in a month's time or six weeks time to be going where's my results why haven't you got this played on the radio so you use those people as sort of a barometer as well as to whether or not you've got an
• 10:30 - 11:00 opportunity or that they think that they can do something with the record and they'll always ask you okay how you going to back me up what's the plan what do you you know what advertising or is the is the artist going to have any presence have they got any gigs in the in the territory you know doing that sort of thing so you know especially now it's got a lot more involved because it's a lot harder um that you know if you rely solely on Tik Tok or insta it's like choosing six
• 11:00 - 11:30 numbers at the end of the week you don't know if it's going to happen no one can dictate that you know that's one beautiful element of it where it's like it is dictated or the the the decision is made by the public as to whether or not they like something and they're going to go for it and but the success of a record shouldn't depend on whether or not it's a success on Tik Tok or insta you know that's kind of a very fleeting moment those are really Lean
• 11:30 - 12:00 Back experiences from music it's very easy to just like it pass on move on there's no or there's very little long-term engagement with that artist or even that track MH and it's very track based and what would you say the focus would be for you guys then obviously as an independent label you can be more focused on what you think is the the best way to grow an artist obviously you want to focus on all areas but where have you found that you are putting your
• 12:00 - 12:30 most most your your staff are focusing on this area or like most attentions on this or is it it's very spread out yeah it's spread I'd love to be able to say that there is a blueprint and we can follow that blueprint and if we've got the right record bang wall up you know um you know I have my staff do an exercise once a week with a new record that's come out that isn't ours to do the research on it what was the what playlist did it get what radio plays did it get what Shazam numbers reacted to
• 12:30 - 13:00 that via the radio plays you know where it started how it grows and we kind of look at them for a four to 6 week period and then move on so any given time we've got six records in play that we're monitoring that aren't ours to see if we're what the path of records are and there's hardly a path that is identical to another you know outside of it's a hit on Tik Tok and everybody just goes bananas and chases after it but even then you know it it's so
• 13:00 - 13:30 fleeting the majority of the time it's so fleeting that hit on Tik Tok or that that you know by the time you kind of like got your ass into gear or even tried to sign the record invariably it's got a sample and you have to clear that sample you have to do all that sort of thing by the time you got the deal done the sample clearance done you know if you're lucky it's four weeks in it's probably about 8 weeks in and that moment's gone and then you're left with a record on your hands going all right well what do we do with this mhm cuz the place it only lived was on social media mhm are there any specific attributes to
• 13:30 - 14:00 look for in an artist to know that they're got a better chance of being successful over another artist for example like whether they can play Live whether they can create content on Tik Tok is there anything you're specifically looking for is it just like more so on a track by trck basis um firstly it's always about the music is it great you know we pride ourselves it's getting more diff ult because of the landscape and how the algorithms are
• 14:00 - 14:30 working and the personalization of playlists and things like that you know when we we have big artists uh and we're very proud to do artists that are make have done their first record um and they might not have any monthly listers on any streaming platform and they might not have any Tik Tok followers but we think it's a great record and you know like okay we're going to try and navigate through this and that's got a lot harder that's got incredibly that's got like furiously harder like even the
• 14:30 - 15:00 ones that do work what used to be what we used the timeline that we used to be able to do was about to to get a record to a point where we could get a clear idea as to whether or not it would just turn over nicely or kick on was about two months um it's about four or five now you know it's it's a much slower process the the playlists don't return as much the personalization of it sort of slices
• 15:00 - 15:30 everyone into different groups and tribalist thingss and it becomes slightly Echo chamber like more than Discovery um um you know the human creation of curation of a lot of playlists was at times a really good thing if the editors were really really good and I still think the editors are good but there's so much music and they have to serve to so many people that the the personalization I mean the personalization stuff doesn't work for
• 15:30 - 16:00 me because if I get if I listen to one of those playlists and I hit one or two records in the first five or six that I'm not into it's like you don't know me I'm going to go and look for my own music mhm I don't know about you recommends me the same thing same artist every time I get a bit bored with it especially if you don't follow artists on Spotify you release radar is just the same stuff over and over and over so you used to find that like the playlisting side was more beneficial than it is now it is yeah I mean again back to your question about you know looking for an
• 16:00 - 16:30 artist sometimes you know firstly music um if they've put out stuff previously sometimes it's about how many you know how long they spent really properly chipping away at their career um you know there are people at the moment we have a guy called Rossy he's unbelievable DJ great producer and having his moment right now you know that sound is in um he he's honed his
• 16:30 - 17:00 sound and his DJ technique to a te that's been a minimum of seven years you know and now this year he's been out there with everyone from Jame back toback with Jamie Jones Corola is you know the anybody that's an aspiring DJ it's he's hit the the housan he's he's got the Pinnacle of it and um but for a lot of people they probably would have thought he'd done that in the last 6 months yeah um and not seen the hard yard for years before has this kind
• 17:00 - 17:30 of echo chamber as you put it changed your strategy at all over the years in a sense where I noticed people complaining about the glastenbury lineup and you know the likes of Elton John and pearljam Etc are the headliners but when you think about it there aren't there hasn't been any like huge stars in the last 10 years that have really come out to be Headliners or even being in contention like say the likes of like David gter for example uh or a v so now
• 17:30 - 18:00 because of that the way the algorithms work or the way the editors work and everyone's in their own little tribal Zone does that change it does it changes because the Loyalty now most of the time the Loyalty now is to the track not to the artist and I remember sort of saying this I remember doing a I can't remember what the speech or the talk was for four plenty years
• 18:00 - 18:30 ago I remember saying um like you know in the physical days when someone might hear something they like it or they buy buy one single you might buy another single talking from my experience when I bought things uh physical product I I was very aware that I was spending money on that person and and so I like right i' I've spent what it a 12in record that
• 18:30 - 19:00 if it came in as an import I got absolutely rinsed for at like8 pound a go or something I spent 16 quid on these last records you read about him or something you go and see him or her and you know playing out and you're like I'm in you know I've accumul I've spent this accumulation on that one person and I love what they do I'm in the minute that the sort of all you can eat buffet which is great it saved the music industry to a large extent from the line wires the pirate bays and all of that sort of thing but the loyalty is the
• 19:00 - 19:30 loyalty is to whoever you paying your money to so the loyalty is to Spotify it's to Apple it's to Netflix it's it's the things like that and so you know if if you're given a choice every Friday morning to choose to pick a your favorite song out of a playlist that has 200 brand new songs in it it's you know the value of it to you not commercially the value of it to you becomes more and more inconsequential H does that mean you're signing you're
• 19:30 - 20:00 choosing to sign or you're seeing that labels are signing individual tracks rather than an artist on a long-term basis because that makes more financial sense I mean it's it's a weird one because dance music is very the majority of it is very track based yeah right and you you can have people that like set out to make commercial music and want to follow that path a lot of a lot of the uh dance tracks that become hits weren't
• 20:00 - 20:30 made to be hits they were just great Club records and lived in the club for six months a year however long it was and then just by its own popularity you know it became a hit but those people that sometimes make those records that are Club records just want to make another club record they don't want to like follow it up and like I want to hit the charts again you know the majority because also
• 20:30 - 21:00 you know if if you're going to sort of if if it happens under its own there's lot more Integrity in having a hit if it wasn't ever meant to be a hit and it became one by its own kind of velocity of the amount of people that liked it or it's the the the the the forward motion of it if you then sing and it's probably got a certain sound that doesn't sound like a normal hit record isn't like Verse Chorus pre
• 21:00 - 21:30 chorus doing this doing that um it might have just an eight bar vocal hook in it and be quite dark and deep but it's been a huge hit that person invariably feels maybe under the pressure to like okay now I've got to put a full song in and I've got to get my record on the radio and stuff like that but th those are Chang it's kind of like now it's those people their careers are for by long-term live careers and DJing and
• 21:30 - 22:00 doing that and the DJ world is a precarious world to be in if you put the wrong if you put a foot wrong you play in the wrong Club as far as The Branding or whatever is concerned or you put the wrong record out it could hurt you explain that to me because it's not a genre I know very well in in terms of the the club space and the I'm staying at home with a cup tea you won't see me in a club so so usit made underground record and it ends
• 22:00 - 22:30 up being a hit just because it just becomes more and more popular and more and more DJs are playing it and suddenly everyone's loving it um and that DJ is playing really cool clubs Circle Locos of the world you know motion which unfortunately Bristol's about to close you know playing a very um play playing clubs that are really about the culture of the music and not about booking people that have had lots
• 22:30 - 23:00 of hit records in fact there's probably less chance of playing at the club if you've had hit records unless they have been under their own guise of this just happened because everyone loved it and it doesn't sound like it's trying to be a radio record or a it's not put together like a uh a normal commercial record would be then you got the other arm which is the brilliant worlds of Joel Cy and Calvin Harris and ghetto where it's like no I'm just going for
• 23:00 - 23:30 the jugular I've done my 10,000 hours of whatever it is of being cool and that now I'm just and I've and I have the ability to write another hit record and a record that works for both the floor in a different type of Club you know in a more Commercial Club and the radio and do that sort of thing so there are the two sort of lines of the commercial World of Dance and the underground or more Club Centric World of Dance and if
• 23:30 - 24:00 you're on that more Underground club world it's not about having hit mhm it's about playing a certain style of music and being a really bloody good DJ more often than not now you also have to make your own tunes and that you are also in line with being a great DJ you are a great producer and being a great producer and putting out your own records shows that you understand the scene really well and this is what your sounding is within that scene mhm it's
• 24:00 - 24:30 funny cuz that sounds more like what we were talking about before how we're kind of lacking that loyalty to an artist and there aren't these like cult Lake fan bases that sounds more like it's a there's huge loyalty to those artists those DJs obviously smaller groups smaller groups um and it depends what your the metric is for Success yeah you know because invariably those records aren't doing 100 million streams yeah right but they don't need to they don't
• 24:30 - 25:00 want to like if if one does off its own back because it blows up and it's just played everywhere great but there isn't the need to desperately do that again because if you purposefully try to do that again in that area probably is never ever going to work MH you know you need just to do what you do um and then it comes to and then it comes to the four you know people like Samy vergie and paa and
• 25:00 - 25:30 stuff like that that are in a very cool Lane but have got to the point now where they have really rapid Big Fan bases and they constantly being talked about online and they you know music is being swapped or did you hear this tune in his set do you think this is his record you know it's is like there's a real fan base whereas and it was always the case with pop or commercial dance music wasn't too
• 25:30 - 26:00 dissimilar to having a pop act it's just that you had somewhere in a base for it to work from and that was the club and a different set of clubs which sort of brings you on to another world of like well those big Oceana clubs and those Mega commercial clubs have all really suffered in the last few years and through covid cost delivering crisis all that sort of thing um and there's a lot
• 26:00 - 26:30 that are closing down at a rate of knots yeah but that's difficult when that's your that's that's live venues it's not even to do with dance music as well it's like you know smaller places where which used to incubate bands yeah you know that might only have 3 400 maybe at the most a th000 cap mhm you know they're closing down cuz Tik Tok kind of comes in in a way of you can still communicate or bring in those new fans by doing live
• 26:30 - 27:00 sets and creating content stuff but I guess you're not seeing that return financially because people aren't paying for anything through Tik to yeah and you know what I think that it I I think that it's a really dangerous world at times when the you know your fan base is built via social media because it's so passive it's you know no one yeah you can do so to a certain extent but I just don't know if
• 27:00 - 27:30 that if that's it if that's all you do right that's fine for a moment and then your moment will go quite quickly if there's no other Foundation of which your career is built on mhm so you spoke about the underground scene and then more the commercial space do you deal with both of those through the label yes we like we have good company sort of more Club focused culturally relevant and then get together which is uh just you know commercial much more wider appeal um I think if I I I mean I love
• 27:30 - 28:00 both I genuinely love both I'm I'm not in this oh all that commercial music is [ __ ] and doing this it's like you know I have fun with it um and easier to Market guess more competition as well though so not necessarily actually because if you're cool and you have that fan base you know you know you got a fan base too with the commercial stuff you're kind kind of going on the back of the sound of a record mhm um and whether or not that works or not um but it's fun
• 28:00 - 28:30 it's a different area it's you know you do different things you learn different things you're not just in this little rabbit hole of doing one thing and one thing only mhm so what's the difference in the marketing strategies then like what what firstly at what stage do you pick up an artist and look to sign them in in their career it's all it's various stages like you know we've only just recently done rossy's last two records and he's been plowing away for years as I said uh Fisher had had a few records
• 28:30 - 29:00 out before and you know we picked up losing it when it was well before it was the record that it became um that is my gym goto that track I feel like it's like GNA it's in my brain as soon as you said it you are powering through the gym L yeah um you know it's it's it's so variable someone might send me something that they've never put a record up before we just picked up a an Australian DJ um when did we put his record out
• 29:00 - 29:30 February or March and this is for the commercial label called a DJ called Levi it had one record out which was about four years before um there were a couple of videos of him is like a afro house version it sampled Rihanna's jump which was her cover of genin's Pony um and know started you could see a few people using it on Insta and we like you know what the record sounds good I quite honestly I didn't know it was
• 29:30 - 30:00 going to do what it ended up doing you know um and it got it by no means was it a viral record on either insta or Tik Tok but it it had this grounding and it had somewhere to build from with that so we're like geez it's you know really moves in Germany and uh where else was it France or Holland something like that before it came to the UK you know and we had because it did have that little bit of a platform of the social media element you know we we were for someone
• 30:00 - 30:30 like him that hadn't had a record out for ages we were fortunate that we were starting on 20 or 30,000 streams a day which is a lot for someone that's brand new but within 3 months we were on 350,000 streams a day and we were his platform that worked best um was insta you know it did okay on Tik Tok but the engagement there was really strong engagement for him on Instagram so we really honed in on that and we very then then sort of went right
• 30:30 - 31:00 which territories Germany okay which cities in Germany let's let's go in for this here let's get the radio plugger on board in Germany let's build this out let's create a story out there um which then sort of spilled over into France and then turkey and Greece and then the numbers start becoming bigger and then just by proxy the UK numbers started going up so we then started Ming the editorial team at Spotify and apple and
• 31:00 - 31:30 stuff like that going look have you've seen these numbers these are all organic you slowly it starts going into playlists and you know and then he's getting bookings and he's four sold out shows in Germany and and that was since the end of FB Snowball Effect yeah so do you have an anr team that are constantly looking out for things like it's myself and a girl called Corin so we had um Joe kenes I know Joe I used to work with him um yeah he's the president of UK now he he said to us in the whole time he worked in anr there was only one
• 31:30 - 32:00 situation you could think of where an artist reached out to him and that got them signed because you're an independent artist do you find that that's different like do people reach out to you and that means that you sign from there is it usually Word of Mouth socials live events that sort of stuff that a lot of anr no no no we you know people reaching out to us um I mean it might not be the artist direct it might be the management of the artist but you might not have dealt with them before or anything like we've got on the commercial side again we got an amazing
• 32:00 - 32:30 duo in Scotland called that kind you know they were boyfriend girlfriend they're now husband and wife um and Taylor the female side of it uh the singing writing side of of it she's got this gorgeous uh Scottish Celtic Soulful voice bit like Tracy Thorn or something like that and but her favorite music are things like Fleet with maack and Paramore and Jack her husband was signed to a dance label when he was 13 and EDM music and slightly fell out of love with
• 32:30 - 33:00 it all and they started making tracks again and they just sent us a batch of six demos and just one stood out massively and so we just you know ran with it and know I'd like to think we've we we've given them a career over the last three years of working with them yeah but I think it's three years where you know they they're earning whilst not being in the charts cuz also as a lab as a independent label
• 33:00 - 33:30 our be all and end all is not being in the charts right if that happens that's great and we'll support it but we don't our metric success isn't been having a top 10 record in the OCCC like how many streams has it got how much money have we made from this how much money have we spend okay do you know what we're up it's a success would you like to do another record with us and that was at the early days and now if someone's having success and we sort of right should we do it four single deal should do a five single deal do something like
• 33:30 - 34:00 that and then we know that we can spend more money in building them and because if it's just a oneoff record yeah you're going to spend money on promoting that record but there are so many other things that you could spend money on to develop the artist profile and do things that don't have sorry for the shitty marketing speak an Roi immediately you know it's kind of like well we know if we do this now hopefully that's going to pay off on single three or single four um so yeah there's I it's people giving us stuff
• 34:00 - 34:30 people tipping us off on things people reaching out to us directly um uh yeah I mean a lot a lot of even my Warner's days were contacts hit me up I've got a record James hype you know knew his managers so he was um he was just a guy that was a wicked DJ doing
• 34:30 - 35:00 loads of bootlegs and Sergeant Kev hit me up his managers who Serge I'd known for years and he had done a record with Kelly lee um needed a few tweaks and stuff like that but it just sounded great it was a cover of um on voges um hold on and uh it just you know ended up being a top 10 record mhm um but there were no there were no
• 35:00 - 35:30 metrics to say this is a hit there were no yeah there's no you know big social media campaign or social media moment prior to that just like well this just sounds like a hit should we should we should we roll with this so you mentioned that because you're an independent artist you're not just like thinking about charts all the time unlike the the majors would you say that's one of the the biggest differences um from an artist signing with a major independent that it's more Hands-On it's more focused on those
• 35:30 - 36:00 small wins what would you say like those really big differences from an artist being yeah I mean no metric is different they've got a lot more Mouse to feed you know they've got a lot more lights to keep on um and you know the they they they have to have this fine balance between market share and being an ambassador for the culture of music you know and that's a very fine balance you know that they have to sort of walk
• 36:00 - 36:30 down the line of there's they yes they they their metric is how much Start success which isn't different to which is different to mine um from an artist point of view if an artist wants that it doesn't mean that we can't do it you know there are times when we will spend more money on a record at the beginning of his life than they might do because they're not seeing the the trigger points for them to activate those marketing spin mhm um and we're not necessarily waiting for the trigger points we're like we have to create
• 36:30 - 37:00 those and so therefore we need to spend some money and put it here put it there put it there um you know if you're an artist we do you know our label is what I wanted to set out was something that was very fair and collaborative and so our our deals are 50/50 net receipt deals where whatever the costs are come off the top and then whatever the profit is we split 50/50 with the artist um as as opposed to and the reason why a major labels deal is
• 37:00 - 37:30 25% to the artist 75% to the major label is that only the recording costs and advances come off the top and the marketing costs and the promo costs get swallowed by the label but more importantly they' probably put down a really large check for that record especially if it's been a hot Tik Tok record and they've had to pay 100 grand for it okay well you know what we've got our marketing and promo costs and things like that to recoup and we've just laid out 100 grand for you on this
• 37:30 - 38:00 um speed is the big thing you know it's like being able to see something and move on it immediately um that's and not have the levels of bureaucracy that you have to go through for approvals or clearances and you know the the sort of chain of command that I always used to get told off and I was at Warners cuz I used to circumnavigate that chain of command and it was I get it it was disrespectful you know the the outcome was the same but
• 38:00 - 38:30 I'd probably be pissed off if someone cut me out and I wasn't involved in something that became a hit and I could have been or I could have added my 10 P worth in to help that process um but I was very aware that if we don't do this and we don't do this now there's no [ __ ] point in doing it in 4 weeks mhm right we're just going to waste money so let's just do this and whilst it was
• 38:30 - 39:00 being under nard about i' just do it and um luckily luckily more often than not it worked thank God thank I know I kind of like someone said to me something long I always like love those Sage likee words of advice that are small sound bites that you get along the way from great people that have put their arm around you at times and I always remember someone saying like it's better to seek forgiveness than it is approval yeah you know and I'm like look let's
• 39:00 - 39:30 just roll I guess that's why you ended up starting your own thing cuz for us as well having own thing being able to just have an idea and do it is and not have to persuade someone it's a good idea where very much like do it and just see see what happens really consequences on that yeah and it's like you know I I I specifically do not micromanage my team you know yes there's a fair bit that they want my opinion on and stuff like
• 39:30 - 40:00 that but I'm always like look you're not going to learn if you don't [ __ ] this up yourself yeah but we're really lucky that if anybody does we can probably turn it around quite quickly and no one's going to die yeah so if you do it just don't do the same [ __ ] up twice right because then you're it just shows me you're not really learning um and you know you Empower people and you know we we've been a nurturing
• 40:00 - 40:30 ground not only for art artists you know we we furthered the careers of established artists like Fisher and people like that and you know we give new artists a platform to find their way in the industry and that could be same of said the same of the uh sort of recruitment policy that I have that you know myrs always end up being poached because they've been trained quite well and and a Major's going to come in and double what I can pay them mhm um and
• 40:30 - 41:00 that is it it's like you know what great you look how well they're doing do you find that with artists as well where like you might develop them and then an a label will come with a massive check and just kind of yeah yeah and I get it you know if you've not got a thriving Live Career and you're not earning tons of money from it and someone's waving a huge check in front of you for your next record M you know you're going to take
• 41:00 - 41:30 it is that where you'd say the most money in that genre is then in the live stuff yes but the caveat to that is it's kind of like for a very top set like top 1% at earning what the top I don't know the percentage but you know if you're renowned and you can sell hard tickets you know you're going to get paid a really good fee if you're kind of finding your way like anything probably going to be taken advantage of by a lot of people oh you want to be a DJ yeah
• 41:30 - 42:00 come here I'll give you 25 quid and a few drinks to to play for the evening you know and of course if you're young and you want to be a DJ yeah yeah I'm going to do that um yeah there's a lot of money I Fisher's live income far out strips only think he does from a records point of view doesn't mean to say that the record stuff isn't doing phenomenally well mhm it's just he's headlining massive massive 20,000 30,000 cap venues and stadiums around the world
• 42:00 - 42:30 and and there's a great sign of loyalty you know when the record blew up uh when losing it blew up we hadn't quite signed the deal and everyone came piling in he was like no you there first you know so it does exist yeah imagine the competition is fierce MH um especially with the the major labels in a sense where it's be very tempting to go just a safe bet as a major label uh
• 42:30 - 43:00 compared to an independent is there any kind of like selling point for for you as an independent of I I don't think I don't I don't think there are any safe bets you know more illusion everything is so subjective right as far as people's taste in music and nothing has been ever the the the playing field is so wide and ever shifting at the moment as to what tastes are doing your root to Market all that sort
• 43:00 - 43:30 of thing it used to be every year maybe every 18 months that you saw sort of genre shifts and consumption shifts and things like that it's probably six months at a time now a genre will come to the fall be really big and spent two years three years getting there and suddenly everybody copies that sound and kills it and it's to sort of has to reinvent itself you know just because a major signs you and spends a lot of money on you doesn't mean that that's any form of
• 43:30 - 44:00 guaranteed success um it's you when when I first start a good company and get together I licensed out a couple of Records to Majors that were doing well and everyone saw the metrics and came in for them and stuff like that and I after the second or third one I I'm not doing this again one I'll giveing away my catalog but two I'm tired of sitting in
• 44:00 - 44:30 meetings going how is it that I've spent more money as an indie on you that on this record than what you spent on why did you give me 50 grand for the advance why didn't you give me 25 Grand and say we going to put the other 25 Grand into marketing um that's not tiring that whole industry with that same brush but you know the the the the the the major element of it from a
• 44:30 - 45:00 from the records label side you know they need hits they want hits they're hit they're hit driven they're hit based so you know data has come into it so much more all right this record's got 100 million views on Tik Tok this is doing that still doesn't mean that it's going to be a success you know still doesn't mean it's going to be an OCC record it might have a very long tail on it and if you spent 200 Grand on it and everyone looks at it in his first six months and goes oh dodged a bullet there ultimately it may end up making its
• 45:00 - 45:30 money back um but if it does that it's not going to help improve the market share which is the most important thing because that determines what the price point is that they all get paid for a stream as far as a Major's concerned and gives them all weight in any um negotiations that they're having so you know more and more people are trying to go the independent route and whether or not
• 45:30 - 46:00 that signing to Someone Like Us or doing it themselves through a distributor stuff like that um you know the the the thing that and it's it's what I'm a huge stickler for with our team is the service that we provide like whether or not a record does bug or all or does really well there should be no room for anyone to go oh here sign it to them they didn't really [ __ ] do anything you know it's like well we signed it to
• 46:00 - 46:30 them and they they've given us this plan they've got us filming this content they're like given us the strategy of what they're doing they're doing that they're doing this and if we've done all of that on our records and it still doesn't work the most you can do is do everything right leave no stone unturned and so they can't be any accusation leveled at us that I well we signed it just chucked it out did bug a r with it and that will either make
• 46:30 - 47:00 people come to us or actually come back to us and also when people do their own little Dro deals and set their own labels up I don't realize how much bloody work there is in it you know it's it's intense and even more so if you've got a successful record you have to really coordinate where you going to be what you going to do I'm going to promo here going to need you over there going to do this going to do that well actually more importantly we're saying no to this or we saying not yet if you do this now it's going to stop you being
• 47:00 - 47:30 able to get the big thing there so hold off you know trying to coordinate and the best moments are when the artist is totally aware of who they are and what they stand for or don't right like right give it here's a plan no I'm not going to do that not going to do that that's not me I I like that I like that great we know exactly how we have to focus on you uh the management is there going hustling out there as well when
• 47:30 - 48:00 everybody's working together it's whether or not it works commercially financially whatever it's a dream seeing bits move seeing things sort of come to fruition what's the journey look like for an artist who has at the beginning and they end up having you know a successful I don't want to say hit but a successful track because we get a lot of uh questions like when when do I get an
• 48:00 - 48:30 editorial and you know they've got like 2,000 streams or something like that we need to push to the editors they need to hear this and it's like it's not going to happen so so what do this journey look like of certain kind of milestones for an artist to know they're progressing through you know it's uh it's difficult it's funny you know the journey when was dancing I saw good really good piece yesterday that was done by uh roster that there's a a website that accus accul Ates all information on artists and management and stuff like that and sort of puts it
• 48:30 - 49:00 in pecking orders and it was talking about the Grammys and so I did this brilliant piece um where how many years that artist had been doing their thing since their first release to the point where they got Grammy nominated it was like 10 years 12 years seven years things like that it's like you have to be in this for the long run
• 49:00 - 49:30 or there's the other am where you're like I just want to make a few records if they work they work great fine I'm not really out late a DJ I'm just a producer I lock out records and try and get a streaming game going on you know um it it really depends because there are parallels is that okay you're in your commercial world you're having success you're having radio records you're having chart success then that leads to you know Calvin if you go and see Calvin at aw like Calvin is the only person like has 12,000 people it's outdoors finishes at 11:00 um starts in
• 49:30 - 50:00 the afternoon I think he's the only DJ on the island playing on the island that sells out all of his shows before the season even starts and then you go there and it's just like a pop concert it's brilliant he's it's really cool he's sort of just playing a lot of his own Tunes he's remixed some of them it's still like powerful people are on each other's shoulders singing his songs and you know like like okay you know that's been a long road because he Ed off almost like as a Indie shoe gazer and decided to you
• 50:00 - 50:30 know go into the World of Dance he was out there with the band and stuff like that um but his talent was phenomenal both as a producer and as a songwriter and he backs it up so I guess every journey is just different yeah it it really is you know and it's like who do you want to appeal to who do you want who if you're a DJ who do you want to play your record right what scene do you want to attach yourself what scene not even attach what
• 50:30 - 51:00 scene do you love right okay so what record are you going to make for that someone in that scene to play and you're going to do this you're like oh this is a really good record got oh do you DJ as well why why don't you come out and DJ with me you know there there's so many different points to looking at what are the Milestones or or what are the Tipping points I mean the Tipping points are a bit different oh you had this record
• 51:00 - 51:30 played by these DJs and your next record and it's like that and then you suddenly got on a set with them and then people start become more aware of you and it's like ah there's the Tipping Point you know Milestones people can be happy with like I got to 200,000 streams it's bloody brilliant oh my God yeah you know just as a final question are there any like hidden gems that you think the artist are missing sometimes when they come to you like for example
• 51:30 - 52:00 uh not concentrating on Soundcloud or not concentrating on YouTube like we spoke to a distributor a couple weeks ago who said we think that like a lot of artists Overlook YouTube or is there anything where you think artists at the moment are just kind of sleeping on it um soundcloud's a good point actually you know because I really I Love SoundCloud I I love it as a promotional tool and a tool of Engagement because it's the only music platform that you can see who's listened
• 52:00 - 52:30 to your record how many times they've listened to your record and then message them directly you know and build some proper engagement with people that like your music um if your music gets played on YouTube unless someone leaves a comment obviously but if your music gets played on YouTube if it gets played on Spotify or um Apple and you don't know if anyone person or Spotify you can
• 52:30 - 53:00 see on the back end like you can see how many streams you've done in a week by from certain playlists but not from people's own music libraries if they've sort of created a public playlist of tunes that they like and so you're like oh right you've there's 100 plays this week from this person but you still can't reach out to them you can't say blood thank you you know what's your email I'll send you some music I'll build up a poor SoundCloud is brilliant for that love it you know it's it's not
• 53:00 - 53:30 about like having the millions stream count stuff like that it's about building up a community and about building up engagement and having the ability to directly converse with people that like your music and might share your music uh and do things like that I think you know there there's a there is a big shift there's there's artists um that connect
• 53:30 - 54:00 with their listeners that will turn into fans cuz listeners aren't fans you know listeners are people that appreciate your music once or twice or might have it on in the background cuz it's on a playlist that they've got 50 other tracks on and it just fits in nicely and oh I like this one but they're not there you know someone someone that suddenly does that with quite a few of your records and and become starts becoming a fan but
• 54:00 - 54:30 they become more of a fan if you've reached out to them or you've had some sort of Engagement or people are using Whatsapp groups and stuff like that and inst has got broadcast channels but it you know it is a broadcast it doesn't seem two-way it's sort of oneway traffic um you know the WhatsApp groups and our SMS groups and stuff like that um and not being afraid to sort of put your music out to these groups early as an MP3 you know what thank you for
• 54:30 - 55:00 all the support this is out in four weeks on Spotify and apple and stuff like that OT can have it first [Music] um if I really like someone and they sent me that I'd be buzzing you know and that's at 54 if I was 18 I'd probably die of a heart attack um you know it's it's about getting a connection back um for a lot of artists um for any artist actually it's it's about trying to connect with the people
• 55:00 - 55:30 that do really like what you do because everything even when you've had success it feels so passive there is there is no engagement unless someone's bought a ticket bought some merch done this done that you know but they don't necessarily everything there's everything is you know at arms length it needs to be brought closer cool yeah nice we have a full podcast on Soundcloud as well so I'll L that down below if you're looking for
• 55:30 - 56:00 another episode to listen to after this yeah yeah yeah it's great good place to end it yep great well thank you so much for watching if you're watching on YouTube and if you're listening thank you very much and we will see you in the next one