Lessons

Lesson Info

Steve Rennie on The Business Music

This is what stage D here's for toe gives chance talk to those folks. One of them is a friend of family. Steve Rennie. So, Steve, you spent quite a time quite a bit of time in the music industry. But for those of us who aren't familiar with you want to give us your career? Snapshot slash life story was not snapshot. Okay, I'm a manager. Currently, I managed a rock being called Incubus. Been, uh, work with those guys for about 16 years. I started in the music business back in college as a college concert Booker. And after I graduated college, I went to work in the concert business for years at a company in L. A called Avalon Attractions, um, which is now part of the live nation empire. And, uh, after work there for a few years, became a manager at a lot of bands and answers, is in my time as a promoter, and thought it would be, uh, I might make a great manager. So I did that for a few years with a bunch of up and coming bands, and, um then left that to goto work it, uh, Internet startup...

. Actually, actually first went to Epic Records, which is part of Sony Music, and, uh, worked, uh, the label for four years, which was a great experience and left there to go into what was one of the first Internet music star. That's a company called Artist Direct, where we were attempting to, ah, help artists empower themselves and take the initiative in terms of building out, you know, their own channels and music platforms to to not only distribute their music and promote it, but to sell stuff. And I think we're a little bit ahead of the time. And, uh and then I left there Teoh to start managing Incubus, and that's brings us to today. Here we are. So our big focus for today here a grave live is entrepreneurship. And most people that might not sound like it has a lot to do with rock and roll with doing some things you've done like were talking about earlier booking black flag shows in the eighties. Um but I bet you feel differently. So can you tell us what entrepreneurship means in the context of music and our bands? Just a small business. Yeah, I think it it operates on any number levels. I think you know, when I first started in the concert business, my first business was actually started a concert company putting on shows, and it was the purest form of entrepreneurship. You'd raise the money book a band, you put tickets on sale and your business as it where was either successful or a failure. You knew that night. So it was very pure form of it. Um, in the context of a band, I think it's It's a perfect analogy. A ban really is a small business, and it goes through all the various phases that ah, big business would go to the testing. Hey, we're playing some music together. Hey, this is kind of fun. Let's do a gig on you, get a gig, and then you do another one, and hopefully people adopt your product and they start showing up again. And then maybe you get a gig where you get paid and and you get out of high school and start thinking Well, God, maybe this could It could be something I could do for a living. And if you're lucky enough, you go through that kind of start up phase where you're doing everything yourself. You're booking your shows As we talked about promoting your shows, you're figuring out how to budget. You know how toe, how to make things happen and learning how to promote, distribute and all those things they teach in business school. And if you're lucky enough to be successful, you go to a point where your business starts to take off and you're being accepted and money is coming in. And if you're lucky enough, you get to stick around long enough. My friends and income Is it been at it for, you know, going on 18 years now, professionally speaking. And, ah, they may not be selling as many records is they sold in their heyday, But they have a very strong business people that show up and come to the concerts. And so we're in that kind of maturity phase of a business. So, um, I think the ban is an absolute perfect example of entrepreneurism. Uh, and I encourage musicians to think about their band is a business, because if you don't, um, you won't be successful at a certain looks like it's one of those things that nobody tells you and you don't find out until you realize you either pull it off for you. Didn't. Yeah, I think musicians in general have Ah, I think they're not naturally predisposed to think of their music in business terms. I think it makes it feel kind of tawdry and impure in some ways, you know, But but the reality is, your product, if you're in a ban, is great songs and great performances. And if you have that, you have a chance to build a career in the music business, you have gotta have great operations tour. You gotta have great operations. You have to be able to hire, you know, at the appropriate moment, key members of your management team. You have to have people that are thinking strategically, you have to have people there thinking, you know, much more in the moment in all of those elements, the same elements that you would have in any successful business, not unlike what you guys are doing here. We were talking about, you know, this whole streaming, um, world that we're living in now, where you can sit there and do in a small room here with a room full of guys in a glorified jacked up computer, doing when a TV studio used to dio. And when I started the business, it would have taken 34 trucks worth of equipment and countless stagehands to do just what we're doing here today, and we've been too expensive to do so. You know, everybody's kind of learning on the fly, and it's exciting. Well, you know, one of the things that we're trying to do is each creative entrepreneurs, which musicians are one variety, the things that we all wish that we have learned when we were starting out and seems like they're really within the traditional. To the extent that there is like a music education industry, nobody really tells you this stuff. So what is your assessment of the music education industry as it as it exists? Yeah, you know, I think college lots of colleges, air teaching, you know, You know, it's one thing to teach about playing music. That's more of a skill thing. This idea of teaching the music business is a little bit fuzzier, and I'll see that, you know, I think it's great going to college. Um, I think it's great being involved in those classes. But whenever I speak it, colleges and I do quite a bit. The first question I asked him, Are you on the concert committee? So I always I'm always amazed that some kids in the music business program, but he's not working at the college stations question, because that's how you really learn. And I think in not too, you know, to minimize while the great things that can happen in college. I can say without hesitation that the greatest lessons I've had in my business career have all been come from doing. And I think it's, you know, it's one thing to dream about stuff. That's what college is about, in my opinion, is about dreaming. It's about trying to figure out what what it is you're all about, um, but great businesses. They're built by doers, people that have decided to do something. You know, if you're a musician and you're calculating the odds of success in the music business, you would you wouldn't do it, and yet people set out and they decide to do it, and that's that's really where the rubber meets the road. And so whether it was in successes or failures, maybe sometimes Maurin the failures. I've learned everything about the music business from doing. I was fortunate to have some some gentlemen early in my career that took an interest in me and men toward me and helped fast track me through some of this stuff. Which kid? I could let you go out, make all these mistakes on your own. But here, I'm going to give you a hint. Don't go there. Get to there. But dip it. Go to their It a little tidbits. You make such a difference. Really? Hey, dude, just so you know, don't Don't do that. Okay? You go really? Well, Cool. Okay. I won't. Yeah. And then you look at all your friends that did do that thing. And you're like, Yeah, he told me not to do that. Yeah, I know you learn more by stepping over the bodies. Sometimes horrible, but But that's those of the lessons that that have permanence that have this lasting impact. The ones you go, How could I have been so wrong? I'm not gonna do that again. And hopefully learned from others. Mistakes not. Yeah, but yeah. Easier said than done on that. Yeah, exactly. Well, if you do, when you're gonna be screwing up from time to time here, just got to accept that you gotta love winning more than you hate losing. There you go. Um, so we are again running short on time, but I wanted to ask you one more thing, which is that you have what I think is an awesome Internet TV show. Yes, you would go it. Can you tell us a little bit about what that is and kind of what you've invested a lot of resource is and building that there. What made you so passionate about about creating that? Well, as I mentioned, I was lucky in my music business grew that I had some people that took an interest in the very early and that meant toward me and, um and it was a huge, huge impact, you know, in terms of just, you know, shaping my mentality about things. And so is I've worked in the music business over the years. I've constantly been involved with bands, homemade live shows, and you get a chance to see your customers up front. So so many times, you know, kids have come up and ask me for advice. If they were in a band or they wanted to be a manager in the music business, might have been my caddie at the club who wanted some advice. So I've been giving that kind of advice for a very long time. But, you know, you've arrived when you have a story about your caddy asking you for Yeah, well, good. Well, I was that kid caddying, you know, when I was younger and met some guys in ironically, in showbiz, I used to caddy for sure. It kind of operates both ways, but in any event, his bands get successful. They take longer breaks in between albums cycles. And, uh, I mentioned golf. I love playing golf, and I play a lot of competitive golf. But for some reason, when the Incubus guys decided to take a break this time, um, for years, I had kind of joked around with one of the guys in the band. You should start in your own school of rock. You got all these great stories and your eyes teaching people. So I decided to stop dreaming about and start doing it. So I started with this idea of building a website called Rand Man. Music and Business. Not exactly the most clever, you know, name, but certainly kind of describes what we dio. And so I started putting up these videos that were kind of, you know, the broken to two catties. One was kind of how to get your head in the right place to do something great. And then mawr fundamental. Here's what different people are doing and that they did that, built the website around it and then started doing a live show Webcast because I believe I left love the whole idea of the Internet broadcasting. So we started doing that one show. I did the 1st I got a friend to do and then another one and another one. And now we're doing them three days a week Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and we've had a chance to talk about today's music because it's not the fairy tale version. It's not a reminiscing exercise. It's talking about what works today. And that's one thing I like about you, By the way, is that you know, there's so such a tendency for people to look back at some idealized version of the past that never happened, which is basically when they were through, most relevant for him, like that's all that mattered. And everything that happened after that is dumb. And kids now don't get it. And you're not like that, You know, even if it's not for you. Yeah, You know, you respect what is going on now, and I think that's so important. Well, you know, I have a managers, managers If you can be a successful manager, you're interested in what works, and, uh and you tend not t the idealist. You tend to be much more of a realist. And so for me, I'm still in. The music is I have guys that are counting on me to give him the best take of what works today. And, uh, and that said, I've been doing this show. I've got a chance to talk to everybody from, you know, presidents of big labels, big publishing companies, promoters, agents, right on down to a young gal that started in the mailroom it William Morris endeavor. And so we've had this wonderful opportunity to talk about the business from so many different places and on, and I will have a certain perspective based on my years of doing it, but somebody that's just starting to starting in the music tech company or starting a new band today that are doing things in a different way. They're unburdened in some ways by some of the baggage that I have there also could benefit from some of the things that I've learned that haven't changed about the music business. You still got to write great songs. You still have to be a great performer. You still have to build a great team about you. You still have to act like you're coming back for another day. Those things haven't changed. And so it's been It's been a fun chance for me to share and do it on a worldwide basis. And it's been it's been what started to something of a whim and kind of a fun thing is Ah, you know, now starting to scream a little bit louder. Me. I had a great bit of advice when I was from one of my mentors. He told me something I'll share with you guys that he goes, you know, life, Steve. A 1,000,000 things will whisper at, he said on Li. Listen for the screams, you know, And, uh, I've lived my life that way. And this whole idea of education in, you know, the moving away of boundaries about teaching and not having to be in a physical location is really a big picture, game changing thing that's going on because of the Internet. And, uh, you know, what started as a whispers is starting to scream a little bit at me. Yeah, well, I love watching, and I stopped paying attention to anything, you know? I mean, I don't really pay attention, like and interviews and stuff like that amongst you read one new freedom, all our new. It was great rock, you know, But I think you know, you have a different perspective on it, and I think that when you're coming from the place you are, which is somebody that obviously has just this vast amount of, you know, experience and knowledge. I think people see that you know, instantly. This isn't just another. I think it also they pick up on the fact that I like hanging out with musicians. You know, if I could have been one could have sung, I would have done that. But, uh, you know, life's not fair. So I got it. Probably will be broke. Yeah. Yeah, well, saying your ankle is always kids because you should have been a rock star. Well, if I could have only son, so we'll get what you get in life. All right. Well, we will cut to the main stage here in a minute. Do you want toe, uh, let people know how to get in touch with him on the internet? You can, uh, type in www ren man r E N M A N M b for music business dot com. And if you get to the front page of our site and you want to see one of our shows, you kick click on the live tab. But if you go there, you'll see all you'll see 3 400 clips of great bits of music business wisdom. What's what's one that even suggest they check out? Yeah, um, you know, some of the you know this will sound shameless promotion, but some of the best ones were those original 24. I did that. We're really just big picture stuff. It wasn't a detail. It was like, you know, dream it and then do it. You know, another one that's not so g rated, you know, Fuck the gatekeepers. You know, it's this idea of waiting, huh? Get way. We got plenty of shirts that idea of deciding to do something in focusing on how you're going to get it done. Not all the reasons why you can't or who's holding you back. It's wasted time. And so many people talk themselves out of doing something great because they asked, the question answered. I say, Fuck it, do it, you know, and you're gonna be right. Are you going to be wrong? And what I've learned is that the joy and satisfaction comes from the ride, not necessarily getting to the destination. The ride is what you gotta love. And so if you're looking to do something great in general, I think there's some great moments of inspiration from people who, in their own way all say the same thing. Dream it, do it, commit and just say, Screw it. I'm doing this. So there you have it in your Twitter, my twitter at Ren Man MB. My YouTube is youtube dot com at r slash rent man MBI and um in have that hope you enjoyed and tell your friends. Cool about. Thanks for joining us. No problem. Thank you Way, Finn. Heavy metal guy. Who knew? Right? Hey, undercover.