First 3 Team Members Every Artist NEEDS

One more time. Then we do it one more time. One more time. Spin it, rock, spin it one more time. Hit it, baby, one more time. So you consume podcasts. A few. You watch them on YouTube, video form. Yeah. Does it bug you as a consumer when people bring out like very obviously, you know, branded like things that may or may not be sponsored and people, you know, are kind of adding things that you know are kind of there to sell the audience. Does that like bug you as a consumer? Do you understand it from their perspective, trying to make some extra dollars? How do you feel? Bro, I can't not look at it without my podcaster hat on, though. As a podcaster, maybe not a great one to ask because you just see the dollars. I'm the worst person to ask this question. So we've kind of like wanted sponsors on the show. Do you think like just throwing stuff up here is a good method? Like what, and you know, then now we maybe hit maybe hit up Jack Daniels and see what they got uh going on. Is this your is this like your feeble attempt at getting us a sponsor? I did one story post on Yerba Mate and they hit us up for free products. And they dropped off some cases.

I'm gonna keep it going. Yeah. No, I mean, for me, I think clearly, um, I think what the hardest thing for podcasters and content creators to do is to integrate them, the the sponsors into the the conversation or the content creatively exactly. So for me, if you're just putting something on a table and we're still talking about whatever the fuck that is that we're talking about, right? That I don't think it's an issue. Yeah, because you're not changing your regularly scheduled programming. No, exactly. Whenever it feels like it's not supposed to be there, it's jarring. Mr. Beast is the greatest. He'll be like a helicopter. Like, like while we're in this helicopter, let me tell you about honey. All you gotta do is a browser extension, install it, it'll save you money. It's crazy. Back to the being chased by an FBI agent. He's on a private island. Like, let me tell you about TurboTax. Well, we're on this private island. The shark is chasing you, bro. Like, you can't you're gonna do the ad now?

What the fuck? Yeah, he's incredible at it. He's so good, man. We have a lot to learn. no one else has really bitten that approach. The very standard one is middle random point in the middle of a video, insert clip from like recorded on another day. That's so obvious all the time. That like, hey, sorry to interrupt this video, but we have a message from our people at Jack Daniels. Try the original recipe. It's Tennessee honey uh liqueur blended with Jack Daniels, Tennessee whiskey. Now back to you know, and it's just like, man, like I I'm usually hitting the plus 10 seconds on those. I know, but some people do it so good. Yeah, like Theo Vaughn and Andrew Schultz, like they just crush their ad reads, bro. Yeah, and sometimes I actually listen to them all the way through. If you can be funny with it, and I love every bit of it for sure. Well, you guys let us know if this was annoying or not. I mean, I kind of was annoyed a little bit. Because this was like a bit, but it was also kind of an ad. Maybe Jack Daniels wants to contact us now.

For sure. So my wife went to the movies recently by herself. You uh you a movie By yourself movie guy? by yourself kind of guy. My dad is a by yourself movie guy. I always knew something was weird about your dad. Him and and Lana got something in common. They seem like this type of little psychopaths. It's not for me, for sure. Um, I get it, I get the big screen thing, but also like no, but do you okay? Fuck the movies. The it's the by yourself aspect. Do you get that? Does that appeal to you? Well, I think you have to be obsessed with the big screen, the surround sound, the popcorn. You have to really love that vibe. To go by yourself. To do that. Like you have to be obsessed with that. It's kind of like a date night. This is like you chose for this to be your thing. For sure. Your thing. I've gotten to the point now, it's kind of sad where like I'll watch an action movie on my phone. Oh my God.

Okay, you're like a whole new type of psychopath. Movie goers and movie purists hate me. Jesus Christ. I see the Buzzfeed article. Moviegoers hate him. But like, yeah, no, that's that's kind of where I'm at. Um, yeah, and like going to a restaurant by yourself, do you do that? Fuck no. Get served. Bro, no. I want you to just take me out. I take it home. I'm look, I've done it out of you know, necessity. Of course, if I'm like at an airport and I uh, you know, have a fucking layover, I gotta go get a bite to eat, get a drink, whatever it is. I've done it, yeah, and I make the best of it, but I'm not seeking that experience out. Yeah, and I think actually, I wish that I could. I I really do wish I was actually was that type of person that could do that because I I see these people, these friends of mine that are like, I'm going to St. Louis by myself to go to a Braves. See, I like that. St. Louis game. I'll go out of town by myself. I'm incredibly comfortable being by myself. Yeah, and you clearly eat by yourself out there. I mean, you're not, you don't know anyone there to like.

eat with you. But I'm bringing you home. I don't know. Oh, you are? Yeah. Oh, I'd rather get it takeout in the hotel room. Or not. well, I mean, if you go out of state, bro, are you eating at the restaurant by yourself? I I have now that I like if I'm out of town, that's when I'm the most likely to eat at a restaurant by myself. Yeah, that seems weird. Not at home, though. I don't know. That seems weirder to me. Yeah, no, just take it back to your crib. Yeah, that's fucking weird. Put on some TV, get comfortable. You got the AC, you know, at the right temperature and shit. Yeah. So Jason Reddick, who is the director of creative services at ASCAP, your favorite neighborhood PRO. Um is that their new slogan? No, I just came up with that. Sounds like Applebee's. They probably shouldn't use that. Um, so he, you know, he came on the podcast. He also manages artists, and we asked him if he were to recommend the people that independent artists should bring onto their team first. Uh, who would those people be? Like Well, you know, what are those personas, right?

And I edited a very adorable clip with emojis of all the people and Ben hated on it. No, let's go ahead and run that clip real quick. So if I'm an independent artist, who are the first few people that I need to have on my team to succeed? A manager that believes in you while you're creating, they're trying to get those business and um revenue ideas for you. A real lawyer. I've seen people pretty much have a false start in a sense where they think they're going and then their paperwork's not right, or you talk to them and they're assigned to six people and you don't even know an engineer you trust. Because especially if you're putting out a lot of music, you got to get that turnaround. Some graphics people, because the cover art matters. There's nothing worse than you have the song, but the cover art you're waiting on. You're waiting on graphics, motion video, things that will set you apart. So his top four people to bring on to your team, you know, initially were manager that believes in you. Okay, so he wasn't saying go get a manager that's got an A-list artist on their roster, right? He was saying that it's super important for you to have a manager that's gonna go to bat for you, that's gonna work their ass off, who believes in you.

You need someone that's like begging you to be there, man. You're the your manager, you know what I mean? Yes. Almost. Not the not the opposite. Not the opposite. Right. And then he said uh an engineer, yeah. Or no, a lawyer was was uh number two, excuse me. Uh-huh. Yeah. So then he said a lawyer. Um, you know, we'll dive into that in a second. Then he said an engineer. And then he said a graphics person, right? So we wanted to bring our top three people that you and I collectively decided were the most important. and we agreed on this and we never agree on anything. No. this is amazing. This is like normally this would be a back and forth like here's my three, here's Ben's three. We kind of agreed on this. For sure. So this is like the one more time official recommendation for independent artists right now. Yeah it felt somewhat like a it was very harmonious. It was it was it was spiritual I said one and you were like yeah. And then you said one and I was like yeah. Yeah it it felt weird actually a little bit yeah so we'll get back to disagreeing after this we won't do it again. But so ours were uh a producer I can't believe Jason didn't say producer. He didn't say producer.

Uh so ours were producer engineer and then a visual content coordinator character right someone to help you pump out content man it's it's, it can't be over like you can't undervalue the just content and quantity and quality of content is so important today clearly so so let's unpack them why did you want to pick producer first as a guy that's you know produced a couple records. You have um check out his uh catalog possibly a little biased for sure um but sure we live in a day where there are YouTube type beats there is beat stars there are people advertising beats there's people sending out free beats there's all types of stuff like that but um I think what he said about graphics person was standing out to me, locking in with a producer is something that will help you stand out on the actual music side, which to me is incredibly important these days. There's a lot, a lot of music that sounds like other music. There's so much music that sounds like other music.

And a lot of it is a result of usually just one person, you know, making a song. No other ideas were going into it, no other opinions were had. It was one person's vision. You can't overstate how important it is to have another person that's really there with you to see the song through, be there for every step of it. Sure, they can make the beat, but not even just that. Like they can be there when you're recording. They can have ideas in the vocal recording process. Post-production, like too many people are finishing songs after the vocals are cut. We need to be doing post-production. Like that's when the fun begins. When the vocals are recorded on the beat, to me, the song's like 70% done. Yeah, it's it's crazy because you and I, even though we decided what our top three were, we didn't actually dive into why. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm I'm hearing it and I'm like, oh my God, this episode will go down in history as us agreeing. Yes. Because I think what you're saying about the collaborator in the producer, it's almost like fuck calling it a producer and more so like an artistic creative collaborator. Yeah.

Right. It's just someone who's going to take your ideas. They're going to bring their ideas into the in into the equation, and they're going to help create something that's innovative, fresh, and unique that doesn't necessarily sound like something that's already out. Right. It might have uh elements of familiarity, which is something that we talk about as being super important. You don't want to be like off the fucking wall, like so new and innovative and unique that no one has any like frame of reference to to latch on to. But you do have to stand out, man, because there's just there's a hundred thousand songs or some shit uploaded a day. It's just it's an insane astronomical amount of competition out there. Yeah. So to compete for people's attention uh with music is harder than ever right now. Let me shout out an OMT alum too. I was mastering the new grip project. Also, Too is the guy T-U, baby. or uh exclamation point, excuse me. Ah, Yes, yes. One of my favorite producers. Love him. I was mastering the new grip project, and he's

definitely a producer in the truest sense. Because what you're saying is really what a producer should be doing. I just think the term producer is skewed a lot these days. He produces in the truest sense. He's there with the artist when he starts the beat. He's laying down some hooks, some ideas. He has some crazy vocals, don't even sound like him. It's the songs are almost more his vision than the artist. And to me, that's a beautiful thing. You know, it doesn't matter whose idea was more, but just having someone else who it can you can share that process with. Invaluable. Absolutely. Invaluable is the right word, right? That doesn't mean worthless. Um, I always got confused with that and infamous versus famous. Yeah, you know, those are the two I get confused. with. That I actually get infamous is like famous for a shady reason. Okay, well, so is invaluable like valuable for a shady reason. And then flammable and inflammable. Yeah, that too.

All right, well, yeah, let's move on from that. We're not dissecting the English language. Uh okay, retention, retention, retention. Yes, yes. So speaking of that, number two on our list was an engineer. Right. And so I think uh for you and I, the biggest uh point about having an engineer on your team early on is that the output that is required to get started as an artist, it's just higher than ever right now. Like you need to be dropping music consistently. You need to be building catalog because once you do find your fan, to your point, it's you don't want it to be like finding a new TV show and the pilot being the only episode out. Yeah. You need them to have something to go dive into to really dig into your you know discography, right? So with that means that you need to be having a lot of music drop, you know, early on, right? Um, and there's gonna be a lot of songs that don't get a lot of streams early on, right? And that's okay.

But I think that they could still get streams later. Exactly. They're out there forever. Yeah, because good songs, you know, we've had too many examples of you know, people that have been on here and just people that we've seen in the industry that have dropped music years and years ago that has blown up into another fucking stratosphere, to be honest. And yes, you can learn how to record on a fucking iPhone, but it sounds like trash. It sounds like trash. And and for me, it's it's more so do you really want to be having to focus on the recording process while you are trying to record the best take? I think about that all the time as a producer engineer myself. Like what would my production career look like if I didn't also just have this engineer brain that was so concerned with everything else? It's like if I was a rapper and I also needed to focus on like how does the beat sound, how does the mix sound? Maybe I forget to think how do the bars fucking sound, how does the song sound as a whole? Exactly.

Like it, you know, the recording process these days is very technical. Yeah. And I think that if you have to consume yourself with all the technicalities that uh come with the recording process, you have to be I I don't know what percentage it is. Is it 1%? Is it 50% that you're losing? You got to be losing some sort of percentage of your ability to deliver as an artist, right? I mean, yeah, that's that's definitely why if you can get an engineer, once again, both of these people, producer and engineer, you do not need to pay them up front necessarily. If you get those two people to buy into what the fuck you got going on as an artist, they will take probably more back end than is standard, right? If you were to be paying them up front, but it might be worth it for everyone to fucking win in the end, where you guys succeed together, you come up together. We all know all the different stories out there of producers and and you know, artists coming up together. You don't hear as much about the engineers and the artists coming up, but I feel like we need no, but I've done deals as an engineer for back end for stuff I believe in. And it's just about being creative.

You guys are so creative with your music, maybe get creative with your business. Exactly. So the third and final uh, you know, team member that we suggest, like bringing early, bringing on early into your career, right? As an independent artist, is that visual content coordinator, iPhone holder, iPhone holder, iPhone holder. chief editing officer, whatever it is the fucking ideas, coming up with ideas, shooting, editing, whatever they can do, just helping you get content out, man, because we know what it's like to be consistent with content, and it is a bitch and a half. And trying to do it on your own is just five bitches and a half. I don't even know. That's like seven and a half bitches. It is the definition of a grind, man. Uh, I think a lot of content creators refer to it as like the hamster wheel. Yeah. You just feel like the second that you just recorded content and either you edited it yourself or you brought on an editor to edit it, right? Um, the second it is that you have to do it again, bro.

Yeah. It's like I feel like we literally just were sitting here like yes it feels like yesterday it wasn't yesterday we're gonna be sitting here tomorrow we literally are and it it's it's a a nonstop grind and I think that having someone along for the ride uh of the content journey is key man because you're gonna get burned out bro if you're having to come up with all the content ideas shoot them yourself uh or pay someone to shoot it edit it yourself or pay someone to edit uh versus once again like building that team like there's someone out there who's hungry and passionate about what you got going on who believes in you that has a visual eye or has the the appetite to learn the visual side of of this you know artistry uh you know business for me it's almost worth it to just have the person literally standing next to you while you're doing this shit it's just like having company is almost worth it to just be in like your room every day trying to do all this shit come up with the idea shoot it edit it post it my god I would just low key pay someone to just stand next to me and you know talk to me while I'm doing it like am I doing this right no I absolutely I mean I think the reason why you and I work so well together is exactly that too where I mean bro this I don't understand how people do it on their own man. Yeah podcasting music comedy whatever art form that you're you're doing I mean everyone at a high level has a team we have learned that there's no one even the most successful independent artist there's a whole team behind that. Independent does not mean by yourself.

For sure. For sure so so I wanted to just you know wrap up with just uh commenting on a couple of Jason's picks, right? So Jason picked, you know, manager, lawyer, uh, engineer, and graphics, you know, visual person. So let's take the graphics visual person. That's kind of what we're describing. Uh-huh. They need to be, you know, kind of creative and able to produce content, whether that's graphic or visual content. Something to make people stop scrolling and look at you and check you out. Exactly. Engineer, we agreed on that. You know, he had some good points about that. Uh, manager and lawyer, though. I did want to just kind of comment on those two picks. Yeah. Uh I feel like I know I already know you have something to say about manager. I have some for lawyer. Let's let's hear yours about the lawyer. Pop it off. Yeah, yeah. So just to add, even just from a broader perspective on this whole thing. Basically, every job that is required for you to blow up as an artist, in 2023, you can pretty much learn how to do it on YouTube. If you really wanted to, if you had the hustle of just if you were the ultimate hustler, right?

And you really wanted to go out and get it, and you wanted to learn how to make your beats, record yourself, mix it, make it sound good, um, get it out to the world, create opportunities for yourself. You can basically do everything yourself. So, really, I think the most important person is the person that's gonna do the job that you least want to do. So that'll be different for everybody. Um, some people might be might love making their own beats and they love create crafting their own sound, and that's great. And you don't need a producer, some people don't want to make a beat, they they need someone to like lock in with. So, to first of all, like whatever is bugging you the most, and you just don't want to do it and you need help, like you can't see yourself doing that or learning how to do that, find that person. That's super important. Which brings me to lawyer. That's kind of the only one that's like unless you want to go to law. Unless you want to go to law school. Because I felt that shit. You were just, I was like, oh shit. Thank you.

Thank you. I meant that. Don't do the shit you don't want to do. It's the shit you don't want to do. Like that's companies, you know, you should be hiring for the jobs that you want to do the least. That's why we have editors. But the lawyer. The lawyer is tough because no, you're not probably gonna just oh just be my own lawyer. I'm gonna go to law school. That's a big commitment. But you know what the good news is? You don't need a lawyer You might not need a lawyer. But the whole argument for lawyers is is that they are plugged up a lot of times. It's true. So that's everyone's uh caveat to like, oh, you don't just need a lawyer when you have a deal on the table. They're gonna create opportunities for you. And like I get that, but I just you know, shout out to Jason. But I really do think that's kind of it's lower on the list for me. It's a it's a follow-up. Yeah, it's it's a let's get this shit popping a little bit. Yeah. So the lawyer, even if they're super plugged up. If you are about to be like industry plant, I'm about to go. I got they're putting me on, I'm in every room all of a sudden.

Get your fucking lawyer. Give me a lawyer, man. But yeah, if you're on the independent grind and you and you don't have like crazy plugs like that, probably don't need a lawyer just yet. Just build that little thing at least, like that that that little buzz that you need to even have anyone be able to go make moves for you, right? And then maybe, you know, find yourself a lawyer that's willing to work on once again a percentage of your shit, right? Like independent artists, you know, if you don't have the bread to come out of pocket for a lot of this stuff, you are gonna have to be breaking off percentages. Yes. And that just, you know, there it is. That is what it is. Let's hear about the manager, but yeah, the manager, man. I think the way that he uh phrased it was, I think, very perfect, right? Someone that believes in you, someone that believes in you. Everyone, uh all these artists, you know, we've talked to super managers, Grammy nominated Grammy winning, platinum managers, whatever accolades you can think of. We're not just two white guys talking out of our asses. No, like this is all We've interviewed so many people that know what the fuck they're talking about. Yes.

Instagram commenters. We're just regurgitating shit at this point. Jesus. Um, and so I think that uh those super managers get approached all the time. Hey, will you manage me? Hey, will you manage me? Hey, will you manage me? Whatever. Um, and I think that that's the wrong way to go about it. Because even if they took you on as a client, which they won't, they won't even open your fucking DM, most likely. Uh, let's say they did, though. Um you're not their priority. They're not gonna work hard for you, right? They've got bigger fish to fry, they've got their own shit that they already have going on, which is why you approached them in the first place. Yes, they didn't come to you. You went to them because you saw what they had going on, right? So I think that it's key that if you do want to bring a manager on, and manager is such a nebulous term at this point, especially when we're talking about there's no qualifications required. There's that, and then also if you don't actually have something to manage in the early stages, that manager is really just like your right hand man or woman, right? There's 20% of nothing is nothing, yeah.

But they're gonna be the ones that are trying to figure this shit out, man. I think that was the point he was trying to make is find someone who's willing to figure this shit out with you. And then I want to even flip that instead of find someone who believes in you. A wise man once said, your manager should find you. Who said that? Someone on Instagram, probably a long time ago. I read it somewhere, but shout out to them. But it no, but it's real. Like, yeah, the right person will approach you and say, Oh my god, I'm obsessed with what you're doing. Your look, your sound is so dope. I think you could be huge, and I'm willing to work my ass off for 20% of the money that you make. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, until next week, Henry, what are we doing? Drinking Jack. Tennessee honey whiskey. Until next week. And also getting out of here. Getting the fuck out of here. Bye bye. Please like, comment, and subscribe. It means the world to us. We love y'all. Peace.