Rick Barker: Music Industry Veteran & Taylor Swift's First Manager

Ultimately, as an artist, the most important number in your world is 31. It's not what you know, it's what you do with what you know. If you can't afford $25 for a beat, let's just do this because you love it as a hobby. You're selling emotion. What emotion are people feeling right now? Time is greater than money. I can always get more money. I can't get more time. There's no DIY anything except masturbation. Dude, I can't afford it. I said, let me ask you this. Can you afford not to do it? On today's episode, we sit down with Rick Barker. He's best known for being Taylor Swift's first manager, but this dude has been in the industry for 30 plus years. And Ray Daniels even calls him the music business oracle. Since working with Taylor, this guy's become a pioneer in the modern music business with a focus on artist development. Rick is a straight shooter with a no excuses mentality. We laid out the seven most common reasons independent artists use as excuses for why they're not seeing success. Odds are you've used one, two, maybe five of these before, and Rick called out the bullshit on every single one.

So put your emotions to the side, grab a notepad, and let's get into the episode. One more time. One more time. One more time. One more time. Spin it, rock. Spin it, boom, boom, boom. Hit me, baby. One more time, in the industry right now that pisses me off is that, and this all started with Clubhouse. It's like all these faceless voices were experts, and the hot keyword was metadata. So then everybody was selling you metadata courses. And I'm like, I don't care if your metadata is right and your music sucks. You gotta get the music right first. Absolutely. It's just nuts. We got Rick Barker on the podcast, Henry. Do you think we could ever do it? Not in my wildest dreams, man. Dude, you know why I'm here? Why? Is because Ray Daniels? No, no. It was you guys sent out probably the most thorough. Here, give us your email and we'll send you these tips.

And the way that you put it together, the professionalism in which it was done, shout out to us. Made me reach out, not realizing we had already followed each other. We already, it's like whenever something comes across my desk, my I my phone, like with most people, it's usually BS. It's usually the basic of basic. Anyone could have gone on Google and got this information. Anyone could have gone to ChatGPT and got this information, but you guys were giving resources, references, and it was so well put together. At my age, and as long as I've been doing this, my job is to find badasses and start introducing them to my audience. And for a lot of that reason is that there's nothing different that you said inside that handout that I haven't been preaching for the last 10 years. But at some point, people get tired of hearing it from me. Yeah.

And I know how important it is that they hear it. So I'm going to introduce them to other messengers. As I always share the example. I said it's like my wife. We've been married for 25 years. Yep. I could have said something to her 15 times, but then Victor, the neighbor, says it, and it's the best thing she's ever freaking heard. And I'm like, Victor's a smart guy. You know, my I put my ego away a long time ago because if you truly want to help people, you don't necessarily need to be the one getting the credit for it. It's like, let me lead you to the right people. You know, let me introduce you to the experts. It's like, I don't want to be the expert in everything, but I want to have access to the experts. Well, you know what you just signed yourself up for? Anytime I'm trying to get through to Henry and he just won't fucking hear me out. Rick, I'm gonna have you on speed dial to connect with my buddy here. We've been looking for a tiebreaker for a while.

So honestly, I'm gonna. You have a marriage counselor. There you go. God, we need couples' therapy sometimes. And couples therapy is good. It's like I always look at it like this too. It's like if you both have the same goal, now understanding your business, you both have the same goal. Disagreements are okay as long as we're going after the same goal. But if I'm going to disagree with you just to get my way, fuck me. Yeah. You know what I mean? And that's where people I think make the mistake sometimes is they want to win so bad that they lose sight of what the goal of the business is or what the goal of the project is. Yeah. And that's why I love Teron. And that's why I love Ray. And that's why I love associating with people that says, look, there's different ways to get there. Yeah. You know, and and by the way, this time, it's probably going with Henry's idea. Yeah. Even though it may take us a little bit longer, it's like, do you want to have success or do you want to be right? Yeah.

No, and that I will say that about us. I think we're pretty good at that. Exactly. That's that's usually not an issue. We usually are marching towards the same goal. Yeah. And I think we have gotten good about like, and I can't remember who it was that said this, but like, I just want Henry to be like, no, bro, like, I really believe in this, and this is what I want to do. And I'm never gonna really be like, fuck you. You know what I mean? And vice versa. So I think the other thing too is if you can make it his idea, like people get pissed at me because they'll ask me questions and I'll answer with a question. Because yeah, that's that wizardry shit. I know I just I know your type, Rick. So I just Make it seem like it's Henry's idea. I just want you to say it, so then I could say that is a brilliant idea. Uh that's called human nature. I'm gonna get you. I'm gonna get your ass. Yeah, that's just called human nature. You know, when I was dealing with Taylor and she was a teenager, you know, it's like it needed to become her idea. Yeah, because teenage girls, especially, it's like, I don't want you telling me what to do all the time.

I'm like, and I don't want to be telling you what to do all the time. Yeah, so I would answer questions with questions for sure. Well, yo, we got the music business oracle. Oracle. So Ray Daniels called him the Oracle. You seemed really confused as to what he was even saying. But I was I mean, now you're the Oracle, bro. Yeah, he said it was such conviction. I was like, Yeah, Rick is the Oracle. Ray has a way of saying things that you end up believing. That's right. I was like, Yes, Ray, he is the Oracle. Yeah, um, but no, I I think you know, the way we wanted to structure this this episode is I think you know, there's a lot of myths that I think way too many independent artists find themselves falling victim to believing. Sure. So I really want to just use this this time spent with Rick Barker the Oracle. I'm just gonna keep saying that. Okay, I can't wait to read these comments. This guy's not a fucking oracle. He's so full of shit. Yeah. Oracle my ass. Yeah, that's right. Um, but no, I I just think let's try our best to once again explain why some of these myths might be able to be debunked, right? Um, because I I do think we probably agree on a lot of the reasons why they're not necessarily true.

So I I want to start with our favorite. Okay. Okay. How do you know what my favorite is? Because we've talked about it before. Oh, okay. Well, I mean, I don't know, it might not still be your favorite, but basically, I know which one's my favorite. We'll see. All I need is the proper funding and I'll blow up. It's a good one. It's just money, bro. I just need money. Yeah. A lot of independent artists think that that's true. Sure. Why is that not necessarily the case? What are your thoughts about the money subject? So you do need money to run a business. Correct. Okay. Any business. Correct. So a lot of times artists will think that they're the they're what's the best way to say it without pissing them off? They're the exception to the rule. Okay. My music's so good that it's just gonna rise to the top and everyone's going to show up. If money were the deciding factor, then why is it that the majority of artists that get signed to labels get dropped? There's no shortage of money.

There's no shortage of people with experience, there's no shortage of connections, there's no shortage of resources. So it's not all about the money. It's knowing what to do with the money. It's knowing that at what stage are you at? It's like if your music sucks, then put your money into getting your music right and not jumping on every marketing idea that's out there. You you if you're gonna market something, make sure you're marketing the best. So it's knowing that every person who has money, if money, there's no shortage of money. There's no shortage of resources, there's a shortage of resourcefulness. So become resourceful with what it is that you have. So for example. Yeah, I'm gonna say, what does that look like? So for example, I am not in a position to afford proper production. So what I do is I structure a deal with Henry. I say, you know what? Henry is the production expert.

So instead of me paying Henry, I'll just make some math, $500 for a track, why don't I go to Henry and propose a business proposition and say, okay, Henry, listen, I can't afford the $500 a track, but I know how to market once I get the right track. So why don't we become partners in this song? Why don't you control uh you know, own half the master? Why don't make it a little bit more appealing to Henry to say, wow, I could spend five, I could get paid $500 now, or wow, Ben really knows how to market, he can go make us $20,000 and I'll get $10,000 because I'm a 50-50 partner. So that's what I mean by being resourceful. It's like if you are a great producer, and I don't care how great your songs are, if no one hears them, and Ben's an expert marketer, you're gonna reach out to Ben and saying, hey, instead of me just paying you for your service, which I'm more than happy to do, why don't we become partners in this? Why don't your percentage be what you're good at?

My percentage will come from what I'm good at. So now we have two people with different skill sets collaborating, partnering together to make this thing happen instead of just sitting down. It's like I always tell people it's like if you can't afford production, beat stars. It's there. Yeah. Just go type in what style of music you want to do. Now, the problem that I ran into with Beat Stars was that people were buying a beat. No one ever taught them how to top line. Yeah. So that's why I just went to Toronto. I said, hey, what if we could help these people that are out there? Because we know they're struggling. We know that there's people that don't have the financial means. But if you can't afford $25 for a beat, let's just do this because you love it as a hobby. Let's just start spending more time on YouTube learning how to create your own beats then. So let's stop making excuses.

Myths is another word for excuse. It's like I didn't succeed because so-and-so held me back. No, you didn't succeed because you weren't willing to do whatever it took. You thought that whatever it took was making the right relationship with the person that's going to bring you up. But it's like if I help you build one song, and I think it's the greatest song ever, I need to help you build a hundred songs. I need to help you build a thousand songs because I can't walk you into a label with one song. I can't walk you into a label with no following. I can't walk you into a label. They're going to look at me and go, dude, there's still work that needs to be done. You just wasted the opportunity. Why are you even coming here right now? You know they're not ready. Yeah. And that's the thing with Ray is that everybody thinks that because he has connections to everyone, we have to pick and choose when we bring the right person in to be able to take advantage of that opportunity. Yeah, we've always thought it was ironic how some of these artists who are like the most creative people in the world, their creativity just ends with the music. But it's like if you are if you do want to do this seriously, then you are running a business.

Why would you not exploit that creativity that you clearly have a gift for, naturally, in your business? Well, if you need a hundred bucks, figure out how to make a hundred bucks. Well, so let's let's actually go there. So, I mean, what are the most common ways you see, you know, newer or developing, emerging artists getting funding? Like, is it just, you know, side jobs, like nine to right? Like exactly. You have to invest in yourself. Yeah. Okay. You, for example. Yeah, you're not paying your bills from this podcast. Not yet. Right. Right. Subscribe. So please like, comment, and subscribe. Absolutely. But does that mean that you stop doing this? No, you're doing something else to afford you the ability to pursue your dream of making a living off of the podcast. Yeah. A lot of times you'll hear hear artists say, like, you know, I I sell mentorship, I sell courses, I sell trainings. And they're like, Rick, when I start making enough money with my music, I'll be able to afford your stuff. And I said, the problem is you can't afford not to have my stuff because what my stuff is going to do is teach you how to make money. Come on, bro.

You sleeping over there? Give me some bombs or something. Soaking it in. Give me a second. That's the thing is it's like, okay, if I need $500, do you really need your grandma to buy you that pair of Jordans? Or would you say, Grandma, listen, I am really wanting to pursue my music career? I would love money. I I would love the money. It's like you can't achieve your dream with what you're wearing. You can't achieve your dream with things that are, it's like we were talking about golf earlier. You know, do I need a $400 driver, or should I take a hundred dollars and go learn how to hit the frickin' driver first? Yeah. But everybody just keeps buying $500 drivers thinking that's gonna fix it. You know, some bucket of range balls, my boy. Fix what the root of the problem is. So what are the first things an artist should spend money on, right? So like if I if I did have a thousand dollars, which like to a lot of artists, that's it's a lot of money. So, like, what should I be spending on? What do you need? God damn it, Rick.

He is the fucking oracle, man. The way you just answered a question with a question. What what is it that you need? What do you think most artists say they need? Because you work with a lot of them. What they say they need and what they actually need are two different things. Okay, let's break that down. What they need is competitive music first. Because even if you're just going to post on social, even if you're just gonna try to build an audience on social, we're we live in an attention economy. Yeah, you know, we're Gary Vee fans. We understand. We're we're trading attention. I mean, not as much as you. Well, start going out and yard sailing. If you need to make money as an artist, go yard sailing. But what you have to understand is that you need to figure out what it is that you need first. So in order for your music to be competitive, I'm going to need that first. So my attention should be for the next year, it's going to take me a thousand dollars to get five solid tracks. Yeah.

Now I can wait until I get the full thousand dollars, or I can go and say, okay, you know what? Here's what I'm gonna do. I'm working in this job over here. Yep. I'm going to get a credit card, and I'm going to pay $200 for each for five tracks, and now I have a thousand dollars. I've spent a thousand dollars. I only have to make the minimum payment on this credit card. It's probably 20 bucks a month for a minimum payment. If you, but that's not how people look at it. Yeah, they're like, shit, I don't have a thousand dollars. Do you have 25? Well, I don't have good enough credit to get a credit card with a thousand dollars on it. Okay. Then you need to go figure out how to get a thousand dollars cash because you fucked up your credit. And now this opportunity. It's like just because opportunities are available doesn't mean they're available to everyone. Yeah. Okay. So now, like growing up, I grew up poor. I grew up on the free lunch program. Uh, if I I got one pair of jeans for school, I learned how to do laundry so I could wash the same pair of Levi's because if I wore the Kmart pants, I was gonna get fucked with by these kids in school.

So I was resourceful to learn how to do laundry. Yeah. So I always wanted to be a DJ. I could not afford the equipment. I could not afford buying records, I couldn't afford anything. But I found a rich kid who was business minded like me, and I used his money and my hustle, and we formed a business together. And we had one of the first mobile DJ companies in California. I've always gone out and found there's somebody out there. It's like there's somebody in your town, no matter where you live in the world, that says, you know what? I think Ben's got talent. But the problem is is Ben has never told that guy what Ben actually needs. Man, you're always complimenting me. I appreciate it. At some point, you're gonna be able to work into a conversation. Ben, what is it that you might need in order to be able to take it to the next level? Yeah, you know what? I'm glad you asked. I need to get five songs done.

Now a businessman is gonna say, what's it gonna take for you to get those five songs done? I need a thousand dollars. Great. So why don't I do this? You get the songs done, you have the person send the bill to me, and I'll pay the bill to get those five songs. And when you're in a position to be able to pay me back, I want to see you succeed. Yeah. Too often artists are keeping what they need private out of ego. Yeah. They uh they want everybody to think they've already made it. They want everybody, but it's like find that business person in your town that a thousand dollars is a drop in the bucket to them. But they would love to see you succeed. Maybe they saw heard your song and went, man, that song is great. Yeah. Ben, what could it take? Hey, Rick, just thousands. You're a big business. You're a you're a great business guy. Let me ask you a question. If you were in my position, I'm writing these songs, but I need to get these songs recorded, and I need to make I need a thousand dollars to do this. As a businessman, how would you go about getting that?

Now they're gonna be appreciative that you came to them acknowledging that they're a smart businessman. And a good chance they're gonna say, you know what? Tell me more about what you need this money for. Well, I found this producer Henry, it's $200 a song. Once I get that song, I can start building my social media following. I can start building a bigger audience, I can start posting to uh Spotify. It's like we're not gonna make a ton of money, but I can start getting my name out there. You know what? I believe in you, Ben. Tell me where I can help invest in your business. Let's go. Myth number one, debunked. Debunked. Debunked. Figure it the fuck out. Yeah. Become resourceful. Exactly. Become resourceful. It's a nicer way of saying. Yeah. Or that. All right. Myth number two. Everyone is going to like my music. Everyone. Teron said something to me yesterday that I loved, and I'd never thought of it like this. He says, Rick, there's 365 million people in the United States. No one has ever sold 365 million records.

And that's just here. That's just here. And I said, interesting, because a lot of times I'll say to an artist, who's your audience? I'll do it. everyone's my audience. No, they're not. No, they're not. So you don't need everyone to be successful. You need to find your people. The problem is that they all think they need millions of followers. They don't even know how to find 10 followers. So they're gonna give up because they can't get to a million. So let's go find 10 people that like what it is that you're doing. Then once we know they love what you're doing, now let's go find 10 more. Now we got 20. How do we find the first 10? The first 10 usually are going to be the way I like to do it. Yeah, is I like to go find artists that already have an audience that I feel that, hey, if I got a chance to open for that audience, or if that artist's audience heard my stuff, I think they would like it. That's where I start going in and teaching artists how to become detectives. Go in and start seeing who's leaving the comments. Not the fire emojis, not but, oh my God, Ben, that song changed my life.

And then I'll go leave a message to that person. I'm gonna pretend I'm the artist and say, oh my God, that song changed my life too. Now we have something in common. And then that person, because most of them don't have millions of followers, they're gonna go, dude, I've got a conversation going on with somebody online. It's like, hey, what about that song? Did you really like, Ben? Oh my gosh, I loved this part of the song. It's amazing because it was that part of the song that inspired me to start writing music. Boom. They now know you're a musician. They're fucking checking this shit out. You ask them, say clever. Can I ask you a question? Are you ever into discovering like new artists? Then shut up. Don't give them a link to your YouTube channel. Don't drop a SoundCloud link. Just ask them, are you into? Oh my God, I love following new artists. Awesome. Would you mind if I shared some of my music with you? Oh, dude, I would love to hear it. Now they've just given you permission. There's a difference between spamming people and getting it to become their idea. What I talked about earlier.

Now it's their idea. They're now asking you, hell yeah, I want to discover a new musician. Great. You send them your music. Hey, out of curiosity, what did you think about the music? Dude, I thought you were awesome. Great. Do you think your friends might like my music? This is so good. Oh, my friends would love it. Awesome. Would you mind sharing that with them? Yeah, yeah. So now we're just happy. They already told you your friend, their friends would love it. Yes. So why would I not send my friends something that I know they would love? Because when we like something, we share it with our friends. Exactly. When we don't like it, sometimes we share that with our friends too. Like, dude, don't go see that movie. You know, when I saw Red One, I was telling everybody, dude, you gotta go see that movie. Oh, come on, it's got the rock in it. Dude, it was awesome. You gotta check it out. And now, you know, when we find stuff that we like, the problem is that we just expect people to find us. And I always say, stop trying to start the conversation. Go to where the conversation is already happening and figure out how to get yourself into that conversation without jumping in and being the loud mouth at the party, or look at me, look at me, look at me. It's like, hey, you know what?

That was my one of my favorite concerts too. What was your favorite part of the concert? What song did you first hear that made you want to follow this band? Oh, it was that song. Yeah, that was my favorite song too. Now, because people want to be a part of community, they want to feel like they're having conversations with people. And quite honestly, people will like to discover new music. You think so? I I thoroughly believe it. Wow. People love their nostalgia too, though. They do, and that's why Jack FM will always be available. And that's why when you go to a wedding, you're going to hear nothing but the hits. There's not gonna be don't stop believing my journey. Every time. Every time. And we are family and things like that. But at some point, you're going to the wedding for that. But it's like the way I talk to the artist is I'm like, look, you're selling emotion. What emotion are people feeling right now? That's the best time to get in the conversation. So, like, for example, if you're watching TV and you see a plane just went down and people died, what feelings do you think you might be feeling if you saw that? Survivor's guilt, sadness, confusion, Shock.

Yeah. Okay, you know what? I have a song that I wrote after my grandfather died because I was confused. You know, I didn't know how I was feeling. And I wrote this song to help me get through that. I hope it helps you the way that it helped me. So once we know the type of person that might like our music, because I think hopefully everyone understands that you don't need everyone to like your music. It's impossible. You're not going to get everyone to like it. In fact, the more people you try to please, yeah, the probably the less successful you'll be. Exactly. For sure. Exactly. so once we maybe have that idea of who our target market is, like who the typical listener might be, what can we do with that information? I'm going straight to Meta, dude. I am going to now create a video with that song with the hook of the song, and I'm going to target everyone who likes Journey. If they've shown an interest in journey, so then what I'm going to do is I'm going to do, I want to, like I said, I want to capture people where they're at right now. So if I've got a song about first love, yeah.

Do you remember the first time you felt like you were in love? Oh my gosh, I know exactly how you feel, and that's what I wrote this song about. So now that's a hook. So now it's like, wait, push play. Now, the reason that I like Meta is because I can go and I can put a 60-second to 90-second video with the music and only get charged when people actually watch it for 15 seconds. What most people are doing is they're trying to get people on the first date to Spotify. They're trying to get people on the first date to go to their YouTube channel. And it's like I never go to Instagram to leave Instagram. I don't go to Facebook. So I have to say, I'm going to meet you where you are. Not to mention the platforms don't like when you leave that either. Or that's why they would, you know, make you run ads, because they're like, hey, if you're gonna put a link to your YouTube video, we're going to charge you 50,000 followers. I'm gonna let 300 people see it. Yeah. And it might not be the 300 people that would leave, and then I'm gonna say, Oh, they didn't like your shit, so I'm not gonna show it to anybody else. Yeah.

So if you want, you have to pay. That's business. Yeah. So it's like if I want to get in front of that market, so I'm gonna run a 60 to 90 second video. Now, the reason that I do that on discovery and awareness is because I can get people to watch this video for one cent, two cents, three cents. Now, here's the magic. Everything that comes across your feet, when they push play, they chose you. I call that chosen marketing. They chose to listen to this video. Now, the reason that I go longer than most people are saying, dude, just run five-second videos, six seconds, 15 seconds, 20 seconds. It's like ultimately, as an artist, the most important number in your world is 31. Do you know why 31? Because that's how much you need to get paid for a stream. A stream. From beginning I was like, wait. No. You're right. From beginning to 31.

Yeah. So if I'm going to pay, because remember, money is an issue. You guys have already just acknowledged that. Why am I going to spend my money on people that will only watch five or six seconds of a video, knowing that they will never be able to assist me down the road? So what I'm doing is building an audience at the lowest price point possible of people that have said, I watched 75% of your video. So one, I already know that they liked me enough to watch more than 30 seconds. And now I'm going to show them an even longer video the next time at that lower price point. So I'm going to start building up a thousand viewers, 10,000 viewers, 15,000 viewers, 20,000 viewers. And then I may run a retargeting ad to people that have watched 75% of this video and say, now I'm going to try to get them off platform. Now I'm going to experiment and I'm going to say, can I get them off platform? Let's go, bro.

And platform to me is can I get them to my Instagram page? Can I get them to watch something? Can I get them over to Spotify? It's not until third date or fourth date that I'm going to try to get their email address because I'm not going to go in and try too early because no one. I never went on Facebook and said, I'm gonna get my email to as many people as I possibly can today. But that's what people are out there asking folks to do. They're asking people to do things that they would normally not do. And you're that's going to become frustrating. And that's going to be like, oh, meta ads don't work. Well, there was billions of dollars spent on ads. I spent a lot of money on ads. Things that I saw on Instagram that I thought my wife would love for Christmas, or I thought my son would like, or my daughter would like. So we spend money every single day on the right things. But sometimes we need to see it more than one time. I think it's hard for a lot of people to grasp the concept of spending money for people to just see your name, see your face, and not have a tangible result, even though that is part of the process. But that's the thing.

It's like when you drive down the highway, I was driving here and I saw IHOP. You know, I didn't stop at IHOP, but I know next time I want pancakes with strawberries on them. I remember IHop has pancakes with strawberries on them. There it is. But I did want to stop at Starbucks, and that sign reminded me that there was a Starbucks at the next exit. So I stopped at the Starbucks and I went to that exit. Did I need to be told who Starbucks is? No, I was just being reminded. It's like if the biggest brands in the world are constantly reminding us who they are and we know them very well, why wouldn't an artist who no one knows not learn from that strategy? So there's a secret that I'm gonna share with you guys. Oh. Okay. Okay. For those of you that run ads, for those of you that don't run ads, well, there's plenty of ways to learn how to run ads. Audience network. Okay. You familiar with audience network? I thought that was more about like associated sites, but I think I'm wrong.

No, you're correct. Okay, I'm correct. So it's a it's a face. It's a Facebook ad that isn't on Facebook. Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay. Okay, yeah. So where these ads are running are on like if you're playing Sneaker websites or- if you're playing Candy Crush, okay. If you're playing a game, yeah, they're gonna say, Ben, I'll give you five more tokens. You just need to watch this video and I'll give you five more tokens. I'm getting those plays for like 0.001, 0.002. So I'm like, shit, at some point, if the girl on the plane, who every time I'm on a plane, I'm seeing them playing Solitaire, Candy Crush, whatever the latest game is, after about seven times, if they go, you know what? I like this song. Who is this artist? I just use it strictly for a branding play. I know I can't retarget them. That wasn't the point. Yeah. The goal was to get people to hear my music. And if they have to watch the whole entire ad to get their frickin' tokens, why not spend a percentage of a penny to do that?

Oh, the things people will do for an extra five gems in Candy Crush. I mean how many times do you think someone needs to see you on average or experience you till they really it depends on the quality? It's like it's it depends on if you've got the good hook. That's why I'm like, let's use our best stuff. You know, because it's there, there's in marketing, they'll say seven times, seven impressions, 10 impressions. It's however many it is, because you don't know where their headspace is at that particular time. We know they weren't out searching for you. But when you set up your targeting, it's not going to show it to everyone who's playing Candy Crush, it's gonna show it to everyone who's playing Candy Crush that likes Journey that might be over but between 20 and 50 years old. They still use the targeting. Yeah. It just happens to say, I'm gonna go meet people where they are. Yeah, it's just not on platform. Exactly. Okay. Hey, Henry here. Sorry to interrupt this podcast, but there is something I have to address. As many of you know here at one more time, we love doing live music reviews.

We love hearing the music from our community and providing helpful feedback that is hopefully helping you further your career. But if there's one piece of advice that we are tired of giving, it's that your master is too quiet. We shouldn't have to turn up the volume for your song, just to have to turn it back down for the next song. That's not good. But Henry, good mastering engineers are so hard to find and so expensive. Enter DistroKid's newest tool called Mixia. I master music myself, and while I don't think AI mastering will ever replace the quality you get from an experienced human mastering engineer, it's pretty damn good. And if you already distribute through DistroKid, you can now master unlimited tracks using Mixia. And if you don't, we have a link right here. You can sign up for DistroKid with 30% off. Upload unlimited music yearly for an insanely cheap price. Humans perceive louder as better. It's dumb, but it's true. Use Mixia for a clean master, and you won't sound weak on that playlist. Let's get back to the episode. Myth number two, debunked. Debunked. Let's go. Myth number three. All I need is someone in the industry to put me on, and I'm gonna be out of here. Pick me.

bro. I just need those industry connects, Rick. I wish. I need the right manager, Yep. the right fucking producer, AR, just they're gonna put me on. And if that were the case, then why isn't every single person that Roc Nation put out a household name? Yeah. They got the connects. Jay-Z got the money. He does He's got the money. With a B. Yeah. Yeah, he's got why is it that he's got the best producers, the best writers, the best staff, best team. For whatever reason, most people, when you get to a label think that it's now the label's job to do everything. A label will throw gasoline on your fire. They are no longer in a position or want to because they're not selling $20 CDs anymore. We're all sharing on that same percentage of a penny. So what they're gonna do is as I tell artists, it's like one is that you do not want to be signed to a label if you have nothing going on. Yeah.

Because there's no urgency to get your stuff out. When you go to the label and the label says yes, you're an employee. When the label comes to you because you're popping off, now you become a partner. Jelly Roll was making millions and millions of dollars a year before he ever got his record deal. He built his own audience. He loved on his own audience. He trained his own audience, but he's not gonna win ACM male vocalist of the year or new artist without the record company. Okay, so there's certain things that the record company brings to the table, but make it to the point, I would say you've got to get from like zero to 70, 0 to 80. They could take you from 80 to 100, but they're looking to acquire small businesses that are working. They're not in the startup mode anymore. And that's to the advantage of the creative, because like one of my artists that I work with, we just recently did a deal with Empire. We started with a distribution deal at Empire, and then they saw her work ethic.

They saw what she was doing, and they're like, okay, now we want more. Now we want to be involved more. And now we have a much more favorable deal because of that. But what they did, which most labels won't, is that they're allowing her to stay on her delivery schedule. They're giving her the creative freedom that she wants. You know, you hear people bitching about oh, the labels are trying to change me. They don't go to a label. Yeah. You know, the lay I oh, the labels gave me a bad deal. Well, then bitch at your attorney for allowing you to sign a bad deal. Right. You know, the bank's always going to protect the bank. Yeah. Like the bank owns my house. You know, I live in it and I can do whatever I want in it, but ultimately the bank owns the house because the bank put up the money for the house. Yeah. It's the same way with a record deal. It's no different. They're the bank. So they're always going to write the most favorable deal for the bank. So when you bring something to the table, you already bring an income stream. You already bring a fan base. You you're not putting as much of the risk on them, you'll get a more favorable deal. But if they're going to put up all the money, take all the risk because you thought that, man, I just need to be put on.

Okay. Now you're at the mercy of them determining whether you're a priority or not. And all of us want to be the priority in any relationship that we're in. So you don't need that. You can look at Nipsey, you can look at Russ, you can look at Jelly Roll, you can look at these artists that have popped off in the last couple years. A lot of them were already successful as what we would consider success. We're paying their bills, making money, had an income stream coming in. The label came in to do what it is that the labels do. They they now can fund things bigger. They can now give you tour advance, you know, to help you get out on tour and make their money back. But when they're starting something from zero, it's really, really hard. And that's why when most of these artists walk into a label, get handed the producers, now we're at the mercy of trying to build an audience. And that it's not that the songs weren't great. It's not that maybe you weren't great.

It's not that the label didn't know what they were doing. It's just how many hundreds of thousands of songs are getting released every day, and you're trying to stand out in a very noisy world right now. Let's just go find like what was great with Jelly Roll, and he's a great friend, is that he was he had a million monthly listeners, but he was averaging six plays a month from every one of those monthly listeners. Cold fans. So what he did was is he said, Listen, I know that you maybe can't afford to come to my shows. I know that maybe you can't afford merchandise. But here's what I would love for you to be able to do for me is if you could just play my record every day, driving in the car, you're out at work. He told them what he needed them to do. Instead of them figuring out how can I support you during COVID, I shot this video and I said, Listen, as a music fan, let me tell you how you can help support your favorite artist. A lot of them aren't able to tour right now.

If you can, if you were going to go to that show and buy a t-shirt, go to their website and buy a t-shirt. If you stream their record, share their music with your friends. Those are ways, but no artist wants to come out and say, guys, I need your help. Taylor always told her audience what she needed. I need you to vote for me. When my CD comes out, I want to have a gold record. I need 500,000 of you to go out and buy it. When we were on stage, I've my manager made me sign all these CDs. If you go to the merch booth and buy one, you'll be my new best friend. When she said that, she'd sell 300 CDs at 20 bucks a pop. When she forgot to say it, she'd sell 20. I feel like a lot of artists feel like that's too salesy or annoying or something. Like, how do you respond to that type of perception? Get over it. Yeah. Get over it. You know, it's like if you so good. It's the ego thing, it comes back to me. Well, but think about this.

You have your own problems that you're dealing with in your life. Okay. So we're friends. I come up to you and I say, dude, I need your help. When I tell you what it is that I need help with, and you were able to help me a month ago, and you're the friend that I think you are, you're gonna go, you dumb son of a bitch, why didn't you come to me a month ago? I would have been more than happy to help you. But Henry doesn't wake up every day going, okay, here's my five closest friends. I wonder what they need today. I wonder what I have that could help them with what they got going on in their life. And Henry, even though he's got those cool shades, he's not a mind reader. It's true. You know, but he's also a caring enough friend to say, dude, why didn't you come to me? Yeah. You know, I personally can't help you, but I know someone who can help you. So it's like, let's get over ourselves. Now, not everyone's going to say yes, but we don't need everyone to say yes. We need one.

Especially if this is your dream. Yes. Like, if This is what you really want with your life. That's my dream, though. It's not your dream, but if you could participate in it, let Henry know what it is that you need. Don't go, oh fuck, Henry's gonna make fun of me, he's gonna call me a loser. He might as he's helping you. As he's helping you, if he's that type of person. And it's like I had a a couple artists that were struggling with certain things. I said, Have you gone to your fans and said, Hey, I could use help in building my website? All of a sudden, three website developers were fans of this guy and said, Dude, I'll get you hooked up tomorrow. What do you need? It's like tell people what you need, but don't do it in a woe is me feeling needy. There's a difference between sounding needy and sounding salesy. Yeah. When people come to me all needy, I'm like, get up. Get up. You know, no, we're not gonna let you go there. Get up, tell me what it is that you need. Okay.

What is it that I can do to help you? I may physically not give you the money, but let me help you find the money. I can't help you record your songs. I don't do that. But tell me what it is you need. Tell me what it is that you have. And let's go out and be resourceful. Let's go out and find the people that can help us. You tell me you're a great songwriter. Yes, Rick, I'm the best songwriter ever. Awesome. Vocally, I suck. Great. Who do you who do you write songs like? I write songs like Drake. Great. Go to YouTube, type in Drake covers. You're gonna find a kid who sounds like fucking Drake, who can't write songs. So all he's doing is Drake covers, and you reach out to him and say, you know what? Would you ever be looking for original material? Dude, I want to be an artist. Of course I would. Great. I can write the songs. You sing the songs. Who produced your songs? I produced my own songs. Great. You're gonna produce our demos. You're gonna put them out into the world. And now we both have songs out in the world that we can be proud of. That's being resourceful.

Or it's just whining, I'm over here. I can't do anything. You're right, you can't. Let me go find somebody who feels they can, because those are the people I can help. I can't help people that aren't willing to help themselves. I'm not that good. I I'm just not. Because I can't get up and make you want it. I know the work I'm gonna put in. So do we want to work with needy people or do we want to work with hungry people? You know what I'm saying? That's that's just me. Yeah. Henry, myth number three, debunked. You don't need industry connects. You don't. You don't. You can do this if you just are resourceful enough. It comes back to the resourcefulness. It really does. I think it really does. And I mean, I'll be honest. I mean, we have a ton of artists in our community and just friend groups, honestly. And I mean, the ones that are winning are the ones that are figuring out how to get the things that they need done. Right.

Right. It's just like Barter. Yeah, like you really are, as cliche as it is, like you really are the CEO of your own business, right? So you're exactly right. And for example, so I live in a little community called Nolensville. So we have a Facebook page called Nolensville 411. Every single day, someone's posting, I need someone to come remove trash from my yard. I'll pay cash. Yeah. Go find things like that. You know what I mean? All of a sudden, five people need their trash removed. You just made $500. You just got two songs recorded based off the math. There it is. That we were doing earlier, and you have $100 left to market them. Yeah. So I think, $500. Yes, I think this is actually a perfect segue. I didn't even know I was teeing myself up here with the whole CEO of your own business thing. But myth number, myth number uh four is basically I expect business results when I'm treating my music more like a hobby. Sure.

Okay. So I think how how should someone showcase that they're treating this like a real business, right? Like, you know, what are the key indicators that like they're not a hobbyist and they're serious about this and treating it like the business that it is? So, first and foremost, there is nothing wrong with just doing music because you love doing music. Amen. And we we say that. a lot too. I think more people need to admit that probably to themselves. Because you're right. Because our platform does gear towards, of course, like the people who are treating it like a business. The more entrepreneurial minded. Exactly. But I think that there's still a place for because maybe it can turn into that, right? Because maybe you're a hobbyist for a while. Sure. And then you realize that maybe you're ready to like treat it like a business. Right. But also when you decide to treat it like a business, you have to also understand what does it take to run a successful business. Sure. So what should artists know they're signing up for? Work. Yeah, work. You know, it's like if you and I are gonna go start a restaurant, we've never started a restaurant before, but we can cook like motherfuckers.

Oh people always tell us how great our food is. Okay. If we're smart business people, we're going to reach out to someone who's already built a successful restaurant. We we don't have to try to figure it out on our own. So we're gonna start reaching out. We're gonna start watching YouTube videos. We're gonna start, where can I get the knowledge and the information that I need? Now, key, it's not what you know, it's what you do with what you know. More people have way too much shit in their head that they've never put into practice. Yeah. So if you're an artist, the first thing you need to understand is one, you got to get your music right. Number two is you need to understand if you do not register your music properly, the services will not know who to pay. Yeah. So go down. That's like the number that's like that's the first step into if I know you're serious as like treating this like a music business. That would be like setting up shop and not having a way to accept payments. Right.

Then people would literally just be able to take your product for free, and you'd never see the money for it. I made a massive mistake early on in my teaching of the business. Yeah. I went straight for marketing. Because I'm always you assumed everyone I just assumed everyone had it. Of course, you're signed up for your PRO and publishing admin. Oh, it gets even better. And mechanicals and I saw one of my clients, I call everyone a client. It's like I have people, thousands of people all over the world that have bought my courses, and we're on a coaching call, and he's like, dude, I just got my song on Sirius XM radio. So about six months later, I said, Hey, out of curiosity, what was that first sound exchange check like? He's like, What's sound exchange? Oh no. And I'm like, sound. he goes, You mean my PRO? I said, No. I said, Sound Exchange takes care of Sirius XM, Internet Radio, and things like that. I said, but here's the good news you got three years, go in, register your song.

So he went in, he registered his song, and he sends me an email. He goes, dude, I just got a check for $16,000. Oh, let's go, Sound Exchange. Let's go. Friends of the podcast. Indeed. We love Sound Exchange. But had he not known it's like 16,000 in the 16,000, that would have ended up in the black box. Yes. Three years from now it would have ended up in the black box. So I'm like, Taylor would have got some of that. Holy shit. Yeah. I said, holy shit. I said, I need to make sure that they're set up properly like a business first. So I went back to basics. I said, okay, go to Songtrust.com, download their free publishing guide. They simplify what I've read that so many times. One of the most complicated parts of the business. I said, unfortunately, here's the part about the music business that sucks. Your rewards are not in direct proportion to the work that you put in. You can't put money, resources, and manpower to fix it like they do in most businesses.

Yeah. And the consumer doesn't have to pay. Yeah. To consume the product. Most businesses would go broke. So if you're only making percentages of pennies, you need to make sure that you're getting every percentage of that penny that you can because other people have, and they will get end up getting your pennies. So those are some of the questions that I ask people. Are you registered with a PRO? No. But I also remember this. They don't know what they don't know. They're just kids that can make music. They're just people that love, they're just hobbyists that want to take it to a business. So when they come to me, I don't look down on them and say, Oh, you should have known this. No, you only know what you know. So make sure that your songs are registered. Make sure that people have a way to pay you. Make sure that you are doing everything you can to get the right product in front of the right person. Too often I feel people are trying to sell hamburgers to vegetarians. It's like they got the best hamburger in the world.

But if you open up your hamburger stand in a town of vegetarians, you just screwed yourself. So trying to get everybody to like it. So knowing who your audience is, it's like I have this questionnaire that I send out, and it's like, can you describe who you are in a couple sentences? No. Okay, let's figure that out. Okay. If we do get someone's attention, because everyone's trying to get their attention, do we have something that they look at and go, okay, this is something I want to explore more? If not, let's get it right first before we waste money putting it in front of them. A lot of people I was talking with Taron yesterday, and it's like, how many hobbyists don't rewrite their songs? How many hobbyists just want to be the producer, want to be the engineer, want to be the master, want to be the mixer, want to be everything, and then they put out garbage. It's like I love the hustle that you were getting it out, but you were you're gonna get people you were you're putting your chicken out before it's cooked. You know, people are gonna end up with salmonella. So when you treat it like a business, you're patient.

Smart business owners are patient. The biggest people in the world, Elon Musk is patient, Steve Jobs was patient. Oh, I mean, Michael Jordan was patient. Yeah, yeah, Chapel Roan just did some interview about her saying of like, this shit takes 10 years. Yes. Like it really, like, of course, there's I'm sure handfuls, but barely exceptions to the rule of career artists who did, you know, break and sustain long careers in less than 10 years. But like on average, I mean, you look at all these people who are at the top of the game, they've been doing this shit for so fucking long. Taylor Swift's 23 years in right now. Yeah, that's insane. And I worked with her when she was 15, 16, 17, 18 years old. She's 23 years in. She moved to Nashville when she was 12. Yeah, she started writing songs before that. But what she did, which most people don't remember, is from 12 to 16, all she did was get the music right. All she did was figure out who her audience was so that she could write to her audience. And now that audience has grown up with her, and now their kids are showing up to the shows, and now everyone's showing up to the shows.

You don't have a 2.2 billion dollar tour because you were lucky. That was good. You don't have a 2.2 billion dollar tour because your daddy had money. You know, there's no shortage of parents with money with talented kids. So why isn't there a thousand Taylor Swifts? Yeah. You know, and that that we used to get all the time. But it's like once you understand that it's going to take time, yeah. Once you understand, it's like just because you decide to go to college to be a doctor after the first semester, you're not practicing surgery. You're not even there yet. The music business is no different. Why everyone thinks it's different? It's like you're trying to go from being the best high school player to the NBA. That's happened for about a handful of people. Yeah. And everyone goes, everyone in your little town goes, they're gonna be in the NFL one day. Probably not. Everyone that plays every Saturday in college football, five of them. Yeah.

If they're lucky. Yeah. And they may not sustain it for a long time. But if you look at our superstars, what they had, which a lot of artists don't have right now, is they had proper AR. They had time to become Beyonce had time to become Beyonce. Yeah. Drake had time to become Drake. The Weeknd had time. Bruno Mars had to shift. You know what? They don't think I'm good enough to be the artist yet. So I'm gonna go over here and I'm gonna do that. Pharrell did that. They did whatever they felt, and then they got their opportunity. But you can't take those five years, six years, seven years. Look at Kanye. You can't take that away from them. They were doing what they needed to do to continue to hone their craft. They've always been badasses. It's just it wasn't their turn yet. But once they got their turn, watch out. Myth number four, debunked. Debunked.

Debunked. Um, I feel like you already kind of covered this one, like weaving in and out of another one, but just another one with that. Yeah, exactly. It's it's totally fine. It's totally fine. But you know, myth number five that we wanted to talk about was the fact that um labels still develop artists. So you were definitely hinting at some of this stuff, but just kind of to sum it up: what is the role of the record label in today's music business? It's still to throw gasoline on your fire. Okay, and there are still labels that will develop. Okay. You know, it used to be I would find Henry living out in the wilderness, and I would say, you know, I love this guy on the street. I love great voice. I love what it is that he does. He's gonna be a star. And we don't need Henry to make money right now in order to keep the lights on. Yeah. At the label. We have all these others that are doing that. So we're gonna take the time to get Henry with the right songwriters, the right producers, figure out who he is, figure out what he wants to portray, what he wants to look like.

Yeah. So that's what good AR was. They were able to just develop you along the way. Now, Henry's got a song that just popped off TikTok. We're gonna grab Henry and we're gonna try to get Henry out as fast as possible to take advantage of this. Unfortunately, people only like the 45 seconds that was on TikTok. They didn't like Henry's original music. So sorry, Henry, it's just not gonna work right now. Sorry, man. So there was no development. Yeah, there was no, there was no development. It was like, hey, we're just gonna try to take advantage of this opportunity. The other problem that I see with labels right now is that they're they're not in a position, and let me just say this more from the country music side, because I live in Nashville, I do a lot of consulting with labels and things like that. There is no system that's in place right now for us to take what Henry's got going, keep that momentum going, start slowly putting them into our system of let's get them over here with creative. Let's go write a record.

But what do we do to keep things going? And the analogy that I use, it's it's like, I'll give Ben some love now. So Ben's got this restaurant. Thank you. There's people are lined out the doors of this restaurant. They love the menu. Uh-huh. Ben's killing it. Yeah. And then another company comes in and says, we want to acquire Ben's restaurant. That's right. So they give Ben some money and then they shut the restaurant down. Oh, fuck. They change the menu. They change the decor. Damn it. And then a year later they try to open it back up. And people come and they're like, wait, this isn't the menu that we like. This isn't the food that we liked. It looks nothing like what we fell in love with. Yeah. And that's what's happening to a lot of independent artists, the TikTok ones right now, is that there's no system to say, okay, your audience is accustomed to getting a song every six weeks. So let's take these five songs, let's break them out. So that means that right now we've got six months to get our first major label release off of you. Okay.

Instead of just shutting it down, let this keep going the way that it's going. Okay, they've seen you as a hoodie and a jeans guy. We're gonna try to dress you up a little bit. So instead of removing the hoodie, why don't we just get a cooler looking hoodie? Yeah. It's not that cool. Why don't we get a cooler looking set? So you're not coming back dressed in a suit. Your people are accustomed to you wearing a hat. Yeah. Okay, so let's not show up not looking like you because we won't be able to capture their attention. So how can we slowly transition first album to keep you as close to what you were that everyone fell in love with, which got us excited in the first place to come sign you instead of trying to make you something different because the labels did not build your audience. You built your audience. The label didn't build the relationship with your fan base. You built the relationship with your fan base.

So now if your social media was constantly having fun with your audience, and now it's just pre-save my latest track. Here's me in the studio. Here's me looking way different than what you found, but this is all they're posting. Now people are like, my guy's changed. I'm gonna go find, oh wow, who's this artist over here? Yeah. They're kind of talking to me now. They're kind of communicating with me now. The music's very similar. So it's like we got to get better at this. So the labels now, you need to feel okay saying no to a label deal. You need to know that labels, what we needed them for were relationships, money, distribution. They had the only access to radio. You never saw bands on big tours that weren't signed to a label. So, but wait a minute. You've got your own distribution now.

You've got your own PR firm in social media. You can get a loan from a bank. You can get a loan from a bank. You can you, there's there's a lot of different things that you can do on your own. If you don't want someone to change you, I hear that a lot. I'm afraid that the label's going to change me. The smart labels and the smart label executives, and they're getting smarter every day. They, they are they are going to realize if we knew how to do it, we would have done it with the artists that we currently have. And you may be coming in. It's like I'm looking, and I will not mention the name of the artist, but there's an artist that's signed to a label that's had great opportunities, they've had great playlisting opportunities because of the record label, and their year-in wrapped was a third of what my artist who's independent, who has a team in place that we know what the frick we're doing, we killed them. Yeah.

And now people are starting to knock on our door. Go, wait, how are you whooping our ass? Well, because we don't think like you. Yeah. And here's the bigger problem is that you as an artist are hoping that the people inside the label know what it is that they're doing. And if they're still doing AR the way they used to do AR ten years ago, if they're still just focusing on radio the way they've been doing for the last 10 years, that's not the label you want to be with. Yeah. It just sucks. So if my goal is to get signed, right? Which I know I think it's a bad goal to start. But that's okay. Whatever. Everybody, that's your goal. If that's my goal, Yep. I want to get signed by a record label. Yep. Like, how do I actually do it in today's music business? They will find you. Okay. Yeah, they will, they will find you. They have systems in place to where they're looking to see what's popping off. Now the key is As long as the fire is there. Yes.

They're going to hear about you. Yeah. You know, they have people now that that's all they do is go to Chartmetric and they'll see what's firing off. And they'll say, okay, let's go look at his socials. Let's go look at his monthly streaming numbers. Let's go, okay. This is something we want to take a look at. Now let's say that the label doesn't find you. Sure. So the smart label is going to ask you these questions. What are your current monthly listener streams like? Yep. Okay. So if you said two point two million. Mm-hmm. Okay. So we know that consistently he's got two million people. Then I'm gonna go, how many, how many average listens do you get per person? Four. Okay, cool. We know that his music is working for his particular audience. Then I'm gonna go look at your social. What's your engagement like? Are people commenting? Are people sharing? What is the engagement like? How many shows did you do last year? What are your merch numbers like? That's telling me this is a small business that I want to invest in.

I'm already doing a hundred shows, I'm already doing this, I'm already selling this much merch. I've already got an audience that's digging on my stuff, and then they're like, we can we can dial in on this. So that's the thing. It really has to bring something to them that they can't do for themselves. It really is. I just love the analogy of like bigger business acquiring smaller business. Like that's just the perfect, it's the perfect thing. Like no big business is out here wanting to acquire a non-profitable or non-growing business. The startup days are gone. You're the startup. You are the startup. Whatever, if you two are on the label, yeah, and Henry's popping right now, I only have so many hours in the day that my team can focus their energy and effort. We're gonna keep throwing gasoline on his fire. I don't, no offense. We loved you, we signed you, we loved your music, but you gotta wait until and I'm most artists. You think being patient as an indie sucks?

Try being patient when you just thought that you hit the lottery. Yeah. Oh man. It's really hard. They ain't ready for that type of patience, though. No, and then they're asking out of their deals. You know, and the thing that I tell independent artists right now is you should be asking yourself why the superstars that you love are counting down the days till they deliver their last record and then they can go independent. It's like Russ says, I can hire the same people that the label hires for PR for marketing. It's like he got tired of not being a priority. So he taught himself how to mix. He bought his own cameras and hired his own guys. I love his story. Yeah. Because he's like, I want to be the priority. All of you should want to be the priority. Yeah. And nobody cares more about your business than you. I will never care more about your business than you. You are your business. And I always tell artists too as I said, look, look in the mirror. The solution and the problem are looking right back at you. What are you going to do to fix it?

Do not be complacent. Do not wait for someone to come along and save you because they're not. Yeah. They just, there's so many other priorities. I mean, the label system right now works Friday to Friday. And every Friday there's a brand new release. And every Friday, the creative team's putting together creative to say, pre-save my song, coming out next week. Here's the BTS. It's the same bullshit that we see every week. They work Friday to Friday. Now most labels have four or five artists that they got to get ready. Now, I just recently did a six-month consulting agreement with a label, and I sat down with the marketing team and I said, Let me ask you a question. I said, When you guys sit down on Monday, what do you do? What is the plan that you lay out to make sure that every artist that's active on your roster is getting priority? And they looked at me like, what do you mean? Priority. I said, I said, I said, what happens? They're like, well, we'll sit down and see who's got a release on Friday. I said, so wait a minute. So the other 10 that have signed themselves to you, what's happening with them?

I hope they're posting. I hope I was like, wait, there's not a plan in place. It's like you guys have catalog now. You could be running evergreen ads, you could be doing that, and it was like this glassed overlook. So I went back to the president of the label. I said, first things first is we got to put systems in place to where the ball never stops. And if it's I can set up an ad that's going to 24 hours a day, seven days a week, keep getting that music in front of the right person. Let this person focus on. I know what they have to focus on, but there's automation that will work for us. There's things that we can do every day to get our music heard. And I'll say to an artist, I said, Let me ask you this question. It's like you're the president of your label. You have one artist. You did you do everything that you could that day to get your audience or your artist the most exposure possible? Did you post today?

No, I only post three days a week. Okay, so you took a day off from getting your artist and your music that you said could impact lives. So you took it. Oh yeah. When's the last time you released a song? Oh man, like every couple months. Okay, so you took two months. What were you doing with the music that you already have out? Well, that's not my latest single. I'm working on my latest single. Well, your latest single is brand new to somebody every single day. There's seven billion people in the world. There's three billion people on social media. So let's get this music out. Let's do this. So that's what I have devoted my expertise in doing is saying, look, you've created it. Let's make sure that it's the right stuff, and let me help you find the right audience. And then as these people come into our world, what do we have in place to start building a relationship? How can we lead them down the rabbit hole we want them to go down instead of letting Spotify tell them what they should listen to next or YouTube tell them what they should watch next? What have we put in place that when people come to your website and you've given them the opportunity to become a part of your community?

Not subscribe to your list, not get my latest news and information, which just means let me send you an email every time I want to talk about myself. No one's doing that. But once you get their email, what nurture sequence do you have them going down for the next two weeks, making sure that they're seeing your best videos, that you're they're listening to your best songs, that you've given them the opportunity to follow you on maybe a social media platform that they don't follow you on? What is it that you're doing? And no one, I don't want to say no one, the majority of people teaching artists the business aren't teaching them that. They're saying, let's build a funnel, let's run ads, let's get strangers, let's get them to do a free plus shipping, let's get them to buy a sticker pack. And I'm like, So you're trying to get strangers to buy fucking stickers. It ain't gonna work. How do we build a relationship? You know, jelly roll, let's put my logo on grinders. My audience loves to smoke weed.

He was selling a boatload of grinders. Yeah, and he's smart because he knows his audience. Yes, but see guys, it goes back to know who your consumer is. Who's listening? Yes, yeah, or who do you want to listen to? Yeah, true. You know, and if you want them to listen, how do you make sure that what it is that you're doing falls into what they're doing? Yeah, you know, it's like it's crazy. That's true. Another myth debunked. I don't even know if we're even debunking. We are We're having good conversations, I think. No, I think it's important for people to understand that like labels just aren't really in the once again. There are handfuls of them that are doing development right, but the majority are pretty risk adverse now where they don't want to outlay a bunch of cash. They shouldn't. Yeah. Well, why would they? It's not smart. It's not smart business. Why would they invest in something that hasn't already proven to be generating? customers? When the resources are available for you to show them. Exactly. Audiences will consume my music. I can get paid. I could tour. I can sell.

Yep. Pick me. Yes. Pick me. Or I just won the voice. Well, congratulations. Yeah. Yeah. Your Instagram following didn't go off. So outside of the story they heard on the voice and you singing other people's songs. And I love the voice. I love American Idol. I love it for what it is. It's a $10 million commercial. What are you going to do to put yourself in a position to take advantage of that commercial? What work are you going to do Monday to Monday before the show? That's where you're going to win. Yeah. It's like, how are you reaching out? Are you running ads to everybody that likes the voice? Are you following the people that are following you now who have proven I will support an independent artist? Yep. Why don't independent artists, I tell them, go to the voice. Go to American Idol. Those people have already said, tell your story. Remember, we see the story before we hear the music. What's your story? How can your story relate to these people? Oh man, that's a whole other episode there. Rick. Yeah, pretty much. That part right there. Pretty much. But yeah, so another myth we want to talk about was if I'm an independent artist, I think that I can be successful in this business without mentorship or coaching.

Right. And so I know obviously you spend your whole life dedicated to trying to mentor and coach artists and like help help them reach their fullest potential. Like what benefits do mentors and coaches bring, right? Like what can an artist stand stand to gain specifically from a mentor or a coach? The speed of learning. Okay, the speed of knowledge, the speed of not making mistakes, you know. Because the information is out there. It is. And I'll tell you, somebody asked me one time, they said, Rick, when it and this was not in a music setting, this was in an entrepreneurial business setting. They're like, what would you have done different? Yeah. I said, I would have got help sooner. Yeah. I thought that I had to build all my own websites. I thought that I had to learn everything. I was the guy that somebody would offer a course, and the course was $495, and it's all the information that I needed, but they would also offer a $5,000 opportunity to have someone do it with you. So it's like the done for you, do it with you, do it yourself. Yeah.

I would always take the cheapest do it myself. And I found once I learned the value of my hour, it changed everything for me. Because people will say time equals money. Yeah. No. Time is greater than money. Because I can always get more money. I can't get more time. So I had to. start figuring out, okay, I bill out at $300 an hour. I was so excited. This was back when WordPress was a thing. I built my own website. I built my own web membership site. How many hours did it take? 35. 35 hours, but it looked freaking good. So I run into this kid and he goes, dude, I love your website. I go, Oh, what is it that you do? He goes, I'm a website builder. So of course I'm like, this guy loves my thing. I said, out of curiosity, you see my website, you see my membership site. How long would it have taken you to build it?

He said, probably about eight, ten hours. I said, okay. I said, and how much would this have cost me? He said, for that, the way you built it, because it's a good website, $1,500. And I'm like, and at your rate, you spent, you lost about $10,500. I'm like, mother fucker. Sucks. Yeah. So now I always try to acquire what gets me the closest proximity of the person that can say, don't do that, don't do that, don't do that. Invest here, do that. I would have done that a long time ago. Artists seem to think that they have to figure it out on their own. Some people pride themselves in learning and knowing everything. We've talked about that plenty of times. It's it's kind of interesting, actually. You're gonna be right after potentially. This episode might be right after King of DIY. A whole episode about doing it yourself. Yeah.

there's nothing wrong with doing it yourself, but I think you didn't do it. Let's say you're gonna build a house. You used a hammer, you used a tool, you used a resource, you maybe went to YouTube to learn how to frame if you didn't know how to frame. So you're not doing it yourself. Yeah. You are doing there's no DIY anything except masturbation. There's a lot of DIYers out there. And you don't need to go get a YouTube channel to figure out how to bust a nut. You know what I'm saying? You might need a website or some help. Yeah, you know. But you could, if you if you're good, you know, you don't need that. It's old school, Rick. Yeah, you know what I'm saying? It's the fucking weirdest term. But he's not, he's not wrong. But what I'm but what I'm saying is that it's like the best in the world, LeBron James. He doesn't need a coach to teach him how to shoot a free throw, but he needs mentorship and nutrition.

He needs somebody to stretch him out. He needs, you know, the best athletes in the world that want to compete at the highest level. If you notice what they're spending outside, you know, they have trainers. Well, they have a different trainer. Yeah. They this person has a golfers. We were talking about golf earlier. Putting coach, driving coach, mental coach, strength coach. Yeah. Why are the best people in the world who are good? They're great. They're the top of their game. They're not doing it by themselves. Yeah. What makes me think that I can figure it out? I may figure it out, but I still need help. Yeah. And you don't have to do this alone. Rick, I can't afford it. Great. Subscribe to this podcast. Watch YouTube videos. Download free guides. There's a lot of free resources that are out there. And what I'm doing with my free resources is I'm trying to solve a problem that someone might have to say, shit, if I got this just from the handout, imagine if I spent and bought an hour of his time, how much he could help me. Yeah. Imagine.

Imagine Henry showed me how to do this beat. Imagine if I just got him to do the beat. Yeah. You know, it's like I could spend all day trying to figure everything out. All we're doing, someone said something to me one time. I went on, I do a lot of, I try to always find who already has my audience. So Indie Bible has my audience, independent artist, spending a couple bucks, trying to learn how to book gigs, do shows like that. Yeah. So we were doing Facebook Lives, just Q&As. Yeah. And we weren't making an offer at the time. And an offer means we weren't offering something for them to buy. Yeah. And we went on and we gave it our best. And I had somebody email me and he says, dude, I just want to say thank you so much for not trying to, you know, scam us independent artists and ask us for money and uh you know, just really trying to sell something. So I knew that in a day there was going to be an email coming to him with an offer. So did you warn him?

I call, I reached out, I said, Hey, what's your phone number? He sends me his phone number. I said, I call him up. I said, Listen, let me explain something. You're about to get this email. Oh, I even went better than that. I said, if my lips are moving, I'm selling. I may not be asking at that particular time, but I'm earning the right to make you an offer. Yeah. So when you see this email come tomorrow, don't panic. I said, I may not have asked you, but I showed you that I am the best resource available for the person that feels I can solve their problem. Did he buy? He did. Oh, fuck yeah, Rick, let's go. And I've I've had people before that it's like people will say something to me, they're like, dude, I can't afford it. I said, let me ask you this. Can you afford not to do it? Can you afford not to have this information. It's like what is it going to cost you not to have this information? And that's the thing.

It's like I have to make it their idea because they don't know what they need. Henry Ford said, if I would have asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses. But instead, he knew they needed a car. Technology is your friend. Technology has been designed for speed. Almost every new thing that comes in, it's like the light switch. Instead of having to go over, build a fire, get a lantern, light your house. You know, it's like everything was built for speed. Yeah. Email. Now I didn't have to just send you the letter, the pager, the cell phone, everything that was built was to speed up some type of process, the microwave oven, whatever it is. Yeah. So speed, what do you need to get you faster to your goal? Sometimes it's just knowledge. Yeah. Sometimes it's a skill. So when you can identify, I always say we live in a world of next. We did this, what's next?

Okay, we just did this, what's next? What do you need? And a simple tool I'll give you. Start at the goal and work backwards. Now, I also have a coaching background. I coach Division I college soccer for many years. And we were only allowed to be with our athletes for 20 hours a week. There was a limit on the amount of time that we could spend with them. So why would we waste our time on things that we knew weren't going to help us get to the goal of playing for a national championship? We weren't out re-teaching them how to do things that they already knew how to do. And that's what a lot of courses and a lot of things, it's like, no, when you have the coach, it could say, look, you have a toolbox. Today you need the screwdriver. And here's what you're going to do with the screwdriver. Now you have a wrench, so don't pick up the wrench and try to. You don't need the wrench right now. But by having that coach that says, today you need this tool, today you need this tool, you have all the tools. So stop trying to use all the tools on things.

Let's not waste our time on things that we don't need. So that's why having a coach and having a mentor is to help you spend the time on the things that you need to spend the time on. I always say, focus on what you're good at, outsource the rest. Yeah. Outsource the rest. If if I can't do this, I'm going to say, who can who do I have proximity? Who can I get to either show me how to do this in the quickest amount of time because my skill set will allow me to pull it off? Yeah. And I'm limited on my budget. Or who can I get to turn it around because budget isn't an issue? Because I've already learned that if I can spend $5,000 to make 10,000, how fast can I spend that $5,000? Yeah. Not, oh my God, I just spent $5,000. It's a mindset shift for a lot of artists. Exactly. It's huge. Even for us, it's a huge mindset shift. Like I can understand and empathize with those that like haven't trained themselves to think that way. But that's because they haven't been around that yet.

Exactly. And it works. If it's worked for someone else that you know and trust, I think that's when you start to, right? Because like a lot of independent artists who don't have that mentality also like congregate together and they're all just like not willing to invest in this thing. Well, and a lot of marketers, what they're gonna do is they're gonna try to complicate something so much where they're like, shit, I'll just give you the $5,000 to do it myself. And I'm not a big fan of that. Yeah. I want to give you the chance. I want to teach you to fish. Yeah. You know, I want to give you the opportunity. So I'm gonna give you options. Yeah. And I always tell people, we talked about the DIY, DFW, and the do it, you know, done for you. You know, it's like if you're gonna, if someone's gonna do it all for you, it's going to cost you more money. I like the done with you model because I figure, feel that saves me time because I'm learning from an expert while I'm doing it, but I'm also learning the skill set to do it myself. Yeah, that's probably the best. That's true. That's what I like. That's what I like as well. Uh yeah, sometimes I'm gonna do a done for you, like getting my car fixed.

Yeah, I don't need to watch you fucking screw whatever they do. under there. It's like, hey, this is what you do, you do it. You know what I mean? You do you, but this is where I can be more productive in my day, you know, teaching people how to batch record content. You know, a lot of people will say, I just don't have time. Well, I'm more concerned about what you do at the time you do have, yeah, not with the time you don't have. Because we can't fix that. You're at work, you're at school, you're a parent, you've got something. What are what are you doing with the four hours you have? Yep. And what's your goal and what needs to be done now to get to that next to where we get to the next next. Facts. Another myth debunked, Henry. All right, last one. I don't really want to spend too much time on this one, but I think it's an interesting topic. We've like somewhat covered before, but um a lot of artists think that like I'm too old to blow up or I'm too old to build a career in music. So they think it's a young man's sport.

Sure. If someone, if somebody asks me, Rick, am I too old? I say yes. Whoa. Because you already think that. They think oh, you got me. I knew where it was going. I didn't forget. You already you already think that. I was like, damn, I thought this was a myth. Now, age does matter. Okay. Okay. If you show up at 50 with no audience, no music, because now you've just retired from your job, and you say, now I have the money and time to spend to build this, I think it's too late. Okay. Okay. Uh, that's just me personally. Sure, sure. Now, not to say it can't happen, but once again, I would say, what is your goal? Yeah. My goal is to share my music with the world. Nope, it's not too late for you. Yeah. Let's you've got money you put aside. Let's get you your songs quality. Let's go run some ads, see if there's an audience for what it is that you do. Let's get your music out there because you want your music to impact the world. But Rick, I want a record label. Label's not gonna sign you.

Yeah. Unless you show up at 50 with an audience making bank. They're gonna say, hey, we'll we'll take you and your two songs and we'll make as much money as we can. We'll do a licensing deal with you. Yeah. You know, we'll we'll take it, we're good. But also, too, is if you're too young. Most young people, just because you won your local talent contest, just because your mama thinks you're the best thing that you've ever seen, and just because every one of your neighbors says you should be on the radio, the phone is everyone's radio today. So I could teach you how to get on as many phones as you possibly can. But there is a reason why most young people don't run businesses or don't go to work. Because so I tell the young people let's treat it like college for the next four years. Let's get you with the best professors, let's get you in the best courses, let's get you building it and treating it like a business. And if you're so impatient that you're not willing, I can't help you. Yeah.

And no one is willing to help you. Disney radio left. So there's not even a market for young people. Go look at the charts right now. Taylor's 35, Kendrick's 35, Doja's 35. These are the people. The millennials are fucking killing it, bro. Let's go. But the millennials have been building on this for a long time. But just as my people. But it is. But it is. It's like if this is, it's like I'm 57 years old. I love golf. I play golf every day. I cannot go on the PGA tour. Do you really play every day? Pretty much. Oh, that's how I got the fucking handicap. I'm not playing indoors or outdoors, but I try to put a golf club in my hand every single day Damn, really. Okay. So that doesn't mean that just because I want to so bad that I can go play in the PGA tour. Yeah. It's not happening. Doesn't matter. It's not going to happen.

Now it doesn't all it also means I can't go be on the senior tour. Why? Because I didn't play the PGA tour for the 20 years leading up to the senior tour. Oh shit. But that doesn't mean I don't spend a lot of money on golf. That doesn't mean I don't enjoy golf. I just understand that where I'm at in my golf is I can win a couple hundred bucks from my buddies on Saturdays and Sundays, and I'm okay with that. Myth number seven, debunked, Henry. God, the Oracle. By the way, you still owe me some money for a hole 12 par three. You know, we're not gonna talk about that, Henry. Yeah, you're gonna have to come to Nashville, I believe. Sorry, my headphones weren't working. Let's go to the next segment, Henry. I would love to play some golf in Nashville. No, come to Nashville. So I also have an indoor facility. It's called the Golf Sanctuary. It's open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It's private suites. So we play 300, you know. Last two Christmases ago, we played in the Dominican, we played Pebble Beach, we played all the ocean courses inside. Oh shit.

Never lose balls. Yeah, you know Love that. You could drink. You got me. I saw you guys take your shot before they have a great bar there. Yeah, but that's my one drink. Yeah. Rick thinks that I'm like lit because it's not a good thing. No, it's good. It's good. excuse for our Traditional shot. But yeah, we will go indoors. We'll have it as a marketing meeting. No, but it is 1230. It is 1230, bro. The Oracle sanctuary. The Oracle Sanctuary. Crazy. All right, Rick, we've entered a final segment of the podcast. I know you're familiar with it. Oh, I this is I've been waiting for this. Yeah, he really did talk about it. I watched 20 episodes to see what kind of questions I might get asked. I love that. I love that. He goes, and you know, Henry has to have his thing at the end. He literally put it that way, just so you know. All right. Calm down. For those who haven't tapped in before, and this is their first episode. This is the rapid fire rampage. Let's go. It's gonna be three parts. We'll start with the short answer questions. Sure. Just give me a few sentences. We'll move on to the other two. I'll explain them as we go. Let's get into it. Yes. Starting with. On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate Ben as an interviewer? Honestly.

Honestly. Honestly. He did his homework. We were texted all last night. I would give him a 10. Yeah, I would give him a 10 because he did his homework. Dude. We just got done talking about being realistic and not being the answer. You should be realistic with like the type of answers you're gonna get because you're getting flamed every time you ask this. No, I'm not. I'm just I'm just saying I love people that do their homework. I love people to do their research. Yes. When he said, hey, this number and this number were really close to be able to serve our audience the best. Can we adjust this? I don't care if he had a list. Henry doesn't know what goes on behind the scenes, bro. Yeah, he's the man. He thinks you gotta be a partner. He thinks I just walk in. Why do you think I had this question? I'm giving you flowers with this question, dummy. Yeah. Come on. Just keep that one going. Moving on. Uh Rick, what are three of the most underrated strategies for music marketing? Ads. Because people think they're expensive and they're not. Specifically Meta? For me, yes. Yeah. I don't like Spotify ads.

I'll tell you why, It's because the only people that see them were too cheap to pay premium. So are they really going to buy tickets and buy merch and buy things like that? Uh so ads is is the big one. Uh YouTube. There's so many vocal warm-ups. There's so many cool resources that are available on YouTube that I really like. That's underrated. And the other thing is the asking for help in your current network of people. You think that you need the A listers, but there could be someone in your community that could help you do something. Or know someone or know someone. I love that. Hell yeah. Rick, How can artists balance being authentic and being strategic on social media? Well, I think authentic being authentic is strategic. I was about to literally, that was in my brain. Yeah, being authentic is strategic because most people will try to chase trends that aren't right for them or chase whatever they think is currently working. So strategic for me is looking at the data, understanding when your audience is present, and doing what you can to become top of mind for them.

You know, so it's like if if they're decorating their Christmas tree, it's the day after Thanksgiving. Throw up some social media content of you decorating your Christmas tree. Or if you have a Christmas song, have it playing in the background while you're decorating your tree and ask them to say, hey, have you started building your playlist for Christmas yet? You know the song's available. You know, those are those are authentic, but also being strategic. Authentic is strategic. It is, bro. So good. An indie artist comes to you with $10,000 to promote their new album. Give us a basic rundown of how you spend it. Yeah. So first thing is I'm going to see how big their current audience is. And I've if they don't have an audience for it, what we're gonna do is we're gonna take some of that budget and go create creative content pieces on the songs that they think best serve that community. So we're gonna use money for content creation. How much do you think we should spend? Let's get like granular if we can. Yeah, it depends.

So it's like we're going to Los Angeles with Jordana and we're getting three visualizer videos done. So uh that's gonna cost us about four grand. Okay. And they're gonna be solid visualizers, they're gonna be full song visualizers that then we'll throw into CapCut and chop them up. So we're gonna take four grand and get three pieces of content for that four grand, but turn it in to about a hundred pieces of content. And then what we're gonna do is we're going to start with an ad budget, and we're going to take awareness ads first. We're gonna take one audience, let's call it your ad set your audience, but we're gonna take three different parts of the song and we're gonna do the old Andrew Southworth model on it. We're gonna drop five bucks, five bucks, five bucks, see which parts hit and what start, what parts pop, and then we'll start adding budget to that. But we'll take a couple thousand dollars uh for that, and then we're gonna hold on to the rest of the money until we go back and look at the data and see what worked, and then we're gonna throw more money on what worked. Reacting part of the correct.

Instead of just spending all 10,000 on ads and then looking to see what happened, we're going to keep so right now we've only spent five grand, and we're gonna spend five grand or six grand, and we're gonna hold on to that four grand to see what needs to happen. We may need new creative, we may need to be able to run more ads, but we're not gonna spend the whole $10,000 first. So good. What metrics should artists track to measure their digital marketing success? Engagement. How long are people watching your video? Okay, so watch time. Yeah, watch time is good. Uh if they're willing to watch, that also to me means they're willing to watch more of the right stuff. So what we may do is we may start with uh a verse and a chorus, we may start with just the hook, we may start whatever, and then we may retarget with the whole entire video at that point. How much time are they spending with you? How many times, if I'm looking at, I mentioned this earlier, the metrics of streaming. Uh are we getting a million streams a month, but only one stream per person?

Why aren't they? And you have multiple songs, so why aren't they doing so? If you got 4.5 million streams and you're averaging 5.6 per person, that's a great metric to look at. Also shares. Do people on TikTok saves? How many people are saving it? How many people are using that sound? And that's what labels are wanting more of right now is UGC, user-generated content. It's like, did this part of the song generate other people to want to use it? No, let's go try another part of the song. So I'm looking at engagement, whether it be listening, whether it be sharing, whether it be saving, whether it be watching. What is your most controversial music industry take right now? That you need editorial playlisting. Ooh. Because right now, most of it is algorithmic. And that's based on what is your audience doing, not who put you up, not who put you on. Thank you, Lord.

The ghosts like that. Yeah, bro. Yes. Wow. It's either a bull, that's either a bullshit, Daniel Ek right there. That's either a bullshit detector that just went off. Yeah, yeah. Or it's like, that's what I'm talking about. Wow. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. And for those that are just listening to the podcast, we did have a little lights are flickering here. We are solar powered here at the One More Time Studios, real energy efficient. Yeah, That's true. That's true. You know what I'm saying? A cloud just went in front of the sun. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. I love it. They weren't charging for long enough. Apparently. Last one of the short answer. What is your favorite curse word? Part one. Part one. It's good stuff. Really good stuff. The lights are going crazy right now. I know. I know. I like it. It means something. Something good. Something's happening. We're moving into uh part two. It's the this or that. I'm gonna give you two choices. Yep. You just pick one. Here we go. Starting with great beats or great lyrics. Lyrics. Slow community building or viral hits? Slow community building.

Ten Instagram reels or one music video? Ten Instagram reels. Public fan group or private community? Private community. Controversial or remain neutral? Controversial. Post consistently or post strategically? Strategically consistent. A little bit of cop out. We'll take it. Yeah, strategically. Okay. Because if you consistently post crap, you're just posting crap. That's true. Yeah, That's true. Influencer campaigns or playlist placements? Influencer campaigns. Hashtags or no hashtags? No hashtags. Inspirational quotes or memes? Inspirational quotes. Personally. Okay. Yeah, sure. Memes could work. Memes could very much work for others. Yes, but for me, it's it's motivational quotes. Okay. Kendrick or Drake. Kendrick. And finally, take a full time job at a major label or leave the music industry forever. Take a full-time job at a label. Okay. That wasn't even that.

I feel like Mr. Entrepreneur is a friend of a label. Sure, I know. Yeah, I've been tempted to leave the music industry, but I what I want my legacy to be not helping entrepreneurs. It's helping people who have dreams with their music. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so Nice. Even at a label, I could do that. But if I left the music industry completely. Nice. Yeah, it wouldn't work. Look at that. Sweet. Yeah, I was gonna say, give him the golf clap. Oh, okay. That's what that is. The last section is the word association. I'll give you one word. Oh, boy. first word you think of, yep, off the top of your head. Yep. You're not judged on the word you respond with, only on the speed at which you respond. Yeah. Starting with music. Life. Soda. Pop. Algorithm. Shit. Alien.

God. Nothing. Indie. Artist. Whale. Killer. AI. My friend. Car. Ferrari. AR. Needed. Government. Shit. Hustle. Great. Content. Short. Lil. Wayne. 150,000. Music business degree. Let's go. Oh. Go get that, by the way. And If you would like a copy of $150,000 music degree, just DM the word book. Oh, wow. At my Instagram page at Rick Barker Music. I'm doing that right now. Yeah, absolutely. So what's the first one? What's your handle? Music Business Oracle, I think it was. Yeah, yeah. That's it. As always, please like, comment, subscribe, follow us on the uh Spotify Podcast, Apple Podcasts. We are here each and every week for the most part, except for November. We love you guys. Until next time. Peace. Peace.