Today Tristra talks with David Lai and Ross Michaels of Park Avenue Artists. They talk about the evolving landscape of artist management – which requires a comprehensive strategy, far beyond simply securing record deals. Management today can be called upon to guide an artist through project development, and social media engagement – as well as encompass roles traditionally held by record labels, such as assisting artists with recording, distributing, and promoting their music – expanding the very definition of artist management.
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Episode Transcript
Machine transcribed
0:00:12 - Tristra
The Colossal Future. Hi everyone and welcome to Music Tectonics, the podcast that goes beneath the surface of music and tech. I'm your host for this episode, Tristra Newyear-Yeager Chief Strategy Officer at Rock Paper Scissors, the music innovation PR firm. Today I'm speaking with two powerhouses behind Park Avenue Artists, ross Michaels and David Lai. Ross Michaels and David Lai Park Avenue Artists manages artists like Joshua Bell and does the usual management and booking agency stuff, but they have also gone in some really tech-savvy, really exciting new directions that span the performing arts world and music technology and business, and this includes projects that have produced virtual instruments, mixed reality experiences and orchestral concerts drawing on the recorded archives of late greats like Whitney Houston. I've invited them here today to talk a bit about the future of management, where they see the roles of agency and manager heading and all that other fun stuff, and we'll also get into some of their creative projects, which are really really cool and inspiring. I hope so. Thanks so much for joining me, gentlemen. We're glad to be here, thanks for having us.
So first can you give me a quick intro into your creative and professional backgrounds? How did you get into this nutty business?
0:01:35 - David
Well, yeah, it's. You know, I think one of the dreams I always had was to be able to work in the music industry, because I love music so much. And I started out, I mean, when I was in college. I was playing lots of music with friends, doing chamber music and doing jazz fusion bands. But when I graduated I thought I had to get serious and I started down the business school track. But fortunately, when I was in New York I met people who were doing music. I met musicians and they asked me if I'd like to come and watch and be part of it.
And, long story short, I ended up becoming a musician, and especially in the Broadway world.
I was playing with lots of different playing keyboards for lots of different shows and ultimately conducting. But you know, I always have enjoyed the business side and so I was fortunate enough to be introduced to folks at sony music and I always wanted to work in the record division. I always wanted to work with great artists and I always knew I would be, I'd be, a decent musician. But I knew I'd never be like one of the very best and selfishly I wanted to work with the very best and I thought, well, what greater way is there to do that than one venue would be to work at a record label and hopefully get to A&R projects and produce, and that's ultimately how all that came into being. So I have sort of been working both fronts for a long time. I conducted with Anthony Opera for many, many years and was producing records for Sony at the same time and working in business fairs. So I sort of have combined it all into one thing that involves music all the time.
0:03:07 - Tristra
Amazing Ross, give us your elevator pitch.
0:03:11 - Ross
Sure yeah.
0:03:12 - Tristra
How'd you get into this?
0:03:14 - Ross
I also just want to point out that David is probably one of the few people who went from business affairs to A&R in the industry. There's very few people who have that, who encompass all those kind of abilities, which is like having both the left and right brain. So I feel very honored that I get to work with this man every day.
0:03:34 - David
My career is much shorter but that's because I'm much older. That's why he's done much more in his time than I did in my time older. That's why he's done much more in his time than I did in my time.
0:03:47 - Ross
I was hoping you'd finish that sentence. Thank you, um the but, but uh, it's very um, similar to david and I think that's why, you know, park avenue artists and our company kind of has this core value in terms of appreciating musicianship and artists. It's because we both, you know, I grew up as a musician and was always around music there's a lot of music in my family, kind of way way back, and I always knew I wanted to do something and I wasn't quite sure. And so when I moved to New York, I started producing, kind of like learning on the engineering producing front, and I was like a C minus producer at best, but got to work with some amazing artists and labels and other producers and songwriters and more on the pop, r&b side, and there's kind of a range of projects from, you know like. Back then it was like demo, demo deals, which I feel like don't exist anymore, but I'd help these kind of exercise DVDs, which was like such a new process for me as well, but it led to me wanting to understand a little bit more about how the business works, because we'd be making all this music with these artists and they'd never get released.
And so in 2011, david and I kind of came across through a colleague of ours.
This group called Two Cellos and we said, you know, let's step into this world a little bit, let's help them, let's make things with them and help manage their careers.
And know, after we started managing them, they had this video that kind of blew up and or I guess it was like simultaneous to the time we started managing them this video that blew up. They went on the ellen show, they went on tour with elton john, they signed to sony, went on glee and kind of began park avenue artists, which was, you know, these, this kind of space where we get to work with artists both, yes, in the management front, but also see what else we can do, how we can apply kind of our interest in musicianship and creativity and see if it can be of help. And so that's, I think, why the roster and the projects that we have kind of run the gamut in terms of like artists that are all different. We're kind of genre agnostic but kind of have this musician language at the core and what we, you know we love to be a part of those types of artists and projects and hear about what the traditional role of artist management has been in music and in the performing arts.
0:06:48 - Tristra
What did that role involve? And you know, if you say we do the artist management thing but we also do everything else, I want to make sure we home in on exactly what we're talking about when we're talking about artist management.
0:06:58 - David
Sure, I mean, I think certainly at least for myself speaking when I was at Sony working with artists, and I was fortunate to work with some really incredible people who were working with Yo-Yo Ma and Joshua Bell and Edgar Meyer all these incredible artists. At that time, we were helping them develop projects that were artistically important to them. But as the record industry was struggling, it uh became clear that artist development was moving more and more towards into the artist management sphere, um, and I had always thought back before then. You know, artist management was like you know, trying to get your artist signed to a record label and once that's done, that's a big chunk of it, um, and the art and the record label would help move things forward, which they they did very well in the past. But at that time, things were really starting to shift. The landscape was shifting for the record labels and that's why, at least for me, I moved from working at a record label to working in artist management and, as ross was saying, I moved in to work at park avenue arts with. We founded the company back in 2011.
I took a little hiatus, was also working at img artists managing, was asked to come in to manage um, josh Itzhak Perlman, time for Three and work in Rene Fleming and Emerson String Quartet's teams, and a lot of it was a lot of the same thinking at a record label back in the day when you were really helping move an artist's career forward.
So you would work on the various details of booking, where a lot of money comes in for an artist, of course.
But then you're trying to do things that ultimately one are really important to the artist artistically, that allow them to continue to grow, and that also then gives you more ammunition to work with. When you're working with, when you're talking to presenters and you're talking to reviewers, you're talking to press to talk about what is important to the artist. The more things that they're able to do that it's important to them, the more of an important story you have to tell. And so those things, I think for Ross and me, have allowed us doing those kind of projects, which I think is a little bit of our special sauce. We love doing that because we came from production. We've expanded, at least for us, what the scope is for management, which is not only keeping things going on a day-to-day basis but more importantly creating those projects that artistically are really important. That ultimately feeds everything and that, for us, has led into a lot of the things that are beyond just the typical artist management scope.
0:09:19 - Tristra
Well, that makes a lot of sense. So it's almost like you start with a project and move out and figure out how to execute, bring it out into the world, make connections with relevant partners, be they brands or venues or performing arts organizations or something like that.
0:09:36 - David
That's exactly right, because in some ways it's research and development to figure out how do we actually do this, is it worth doing, and then actually developing it and it's like, okay, how do we bring this to market? I mean, I hate to put it, to make it so mechanical, but in some ways it really is. It's once you have, once they've created this wonderful artistic project, then we have to figure out how do we get it to the audience that's going to most appreciate it and then be able to expand upon that audience.
0:09:58 - Tristra
um, yeah, but are there parts of the traditional artist manager role that you feel are falling away or becoming less relevant in this day and age?
0:10:08 - Ross
I think actually it's a little bit more of the reverse, that there's just so much more that management companies have to take on than they did before. I mean, you're seeing so many companies take on a lot of the services know a traditional label might have done in the past, whether it's social media or marketing or press or digital optimization. I actually think it's a little bit more of the past. What I would say is like not so much the k, you know the traditional model, like I remember when I entered the, when I entered the industry, it was kind of like, well, manager's there to get the artist a record deal, take their 20 or whatever, whatever the commission is, and kind of let the label run with it. But now it's just so involved from minute one to the last, like the the you know 100 city day tour or whatever it may be. So it's more involved and, uh, our managers are kind of more at the core of artist development than they've ever been.
0:11:10 - David
I'll actually add to that. You know talking about label services pretty much now. There are a lot of management companies, a lot of independent artists, you know, who are releasing their own records. But it's not as simple as just like okay, I'll upload to spotify and I'm done, if you want people to really pay attention to it. There's a lot of work involved and we are involved with our artists from, you know, figuring out what, what should we record? What should be the next project? Okay, is there a record label out there that we think would be right for this? If there isn't, then it's like or or.
In some cases the artist says you know, I want to own the master now, I don't want to give up ownership of the masters anymore to a record label. So it's like okay, well, then we have to figure out funding. How will we do that? Then we figure out how do we actually record this? What studios should we use? It's all the recording project, you know. What producer should we use? Or do we produce it ourselves? Ross and I sometimes produce things ourselves for our artists. If we feel artistically and the artist feels that we're right for it, then we have it. Then it's like okay, we need to edit it, master it. Okay, now what label or what distributor should put it out there? And how do we educate people? And ross and I are always meeting with the dsps, the spotify's, the amazon's, the apples of the world telling them about what we're working on so that they have an idea of what's the artist is thinking, because, for for dsp, it becomes more interesting to them if they know the artist is really invested and the artist wants to promote it. So that's an example of how our scope and management has really drastically changed, where we are essentially working as a label.
Time for Three's Grammy-winning album last year was completely done by all of us and I'm going to be immodest for one second but we all, we basically did it ourselves. We were able to get help with with some funding help, but we basically put the team together. We worked with the philadelphia orchestra. This was during the pandemic, where nothing was happening, and we reached out to philadelphia orchestra said you have all these sessions on your, on your books, but you have no concert dates right now. Let's do something where we record this great piece, because time for three is from philadelphia and they played in your orchestra and, long story short. We worked out a deal where we went down there there was nobody in the audience, but we recorded with the Philadelphia Orchestra and that became their Grammy winning album, and so that's a small example of the kinds of thinking, the innovative thinking, that one has to do in management these days, because you don't necessarily have the same infrastructure of third-party labels like you had, you know, 15 years ago.
Yeah, this is, I mean the ross especially. I want to shout out ross because there was a we, we were fortunate to work with this, this incredible artist named yeva, and we signed her back in 2016 and she ultimately, with with ross's guidance, made this incredible album and, yes, we hadcee as a partner to help, but basically, ross oversaw the whole thing and he will be immodest about it, but he did everything to make it happen observation that you may have an artist who is independent or signed, but there's still this big role for an entire team that supports the artist if they want to reach a certain level of professionalization.
0:14:14 - Tristra
and you know quote unquote success in the traditional, according to traditional metrics. So this is I think this is a really, really important thing to shine a light on. Well, we're going to talk more about the role of a manager today, in just a second, but first we're going to take a little break.
0:14:29 - Ad
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0:15:12 - Tristra
Okay, so we're back with David Lai and Ross Michaels of Park Avenue Artists and we are talking today about the future of artist management, which is way more exciting. Which is way more exciting, detailed, complicated and in some ways entrepreneurial even than it was in the past. I mean not to say that artist managers in the past didn't have to get out and hustle, but it seems like they had to hustle in very specific directions, and now you have this huge, open, almost like green field of possibilities and you have to figure out which direction to run. So I'm curious what are some of the newer opportunities you're seeing? Just in a general sense, you don't have to give away all your trade secrets, and if there are artist managers out there working with folks, what are some ways you could encourage them to expand their thinking? What are some questions they may not be asking that you think they might want to ask if they want to embrace these new opportunities?
0:16:09 - Ross
Sure, actually, I think the best way to illustrate that for us is an example that we've had with one of our artists, joshua Bell, who's kind of revered as one of the greatest violinists out there. He tours well over 100 dates a year for everywhere, from carnegie hall to hollywood bowl and everywhere in between, but one, I mean, he is a master of his craft. He is a master of his uh stradivarius violin, which is kind of very well-renowned violin, and we're like there's there's got to be more to this that we need to tap into. And since David and I come from the producer background familiarity with all the digital audio workstations like Pro Tools and Logic and so forth, we're like we know what would be great, as if there was the ability to play Joshua Bell's instrument in your own compositions, in your own productions. And so that's exactly what we did is we partnered with a company called Emberto and they're a great developer.
They have great instruments, virtual instruments, and we recorded Josh and his Stradivarius violin and we recorded it every which way possible where you could, essentially, or it's a premium product in which you can go and purchase online and it's done very well and we're very excited about the future of this tool because it's I mean, through the pandemic sold very well, but it was also became a tool for Josh in terms of his awareness. And the example I use is that I was at lincoln center at one of joshua's concerts and there's kind of like a group of younger people who may not necessarily attend a classical concert and I was like, yeah, I just went up there and I tapped him on those shoulders. I said, just out of curiosity, how do you know about josh? Was it social media? Have you heard his music on bsp's or whatever? No, no, no, no. We downloaded the joshua bell virtual instrument. It is the best thing and we became huge fans.
So through that uh, opportunity, which you know has been become, you know, a very renumerative opportunity for josh, he was also able to kind of like, market and create fandom, and it was through an instrument, through this kind of creator marketplace, and it just shows that, like you know there's, you definitely have to have an awareness of, like, what's going on on socials, tiktok, and how you optimize that, as well as these conversations around marketing finding moments. But traditionally there or not traditionally, but often there's an opportunity where your value as a musician might be more valued in a category left of center, something that's not right there, and I think, with the explosion of the creator community, it just shows you that something like the Joshua Bell violin virtual violin is something, is an opportunity for a lot of people to go and try different things where they might find new fans as well as find an opportunity to create new businesses I mean that's a very good example.
0:19:18 - David
I just want to add that I mean we're fortunate with an artist like joshua bell, who obviously has accomplished so much in his career. He's always curious about new things and tech has always been something that's been high on his list of of you know what? How can tech help get music out there? And the emerton software was one. I think early on, when we started working with josh, he was very into vr and he said you know well, you know sony playstation, you're with sony classical. Let's talk to talk to Sony PlayStation and see if there might be something interesting.
We hear, you know, we read a lot of things talking about what's happening in the industry and we'd read about VR and of course, we all know VR has now been pretty established, but back then, in 2016, it was still relatively, relatively new, especially in the music space.
So we called up contacts that we had at Sony PlayStation and we were fortunate that they were looking for something that was different than just gaming and they thought this would be really interesting to do something where we record Josh at Air Studios in London and we do positional tracking, which was new at that time so that wherever Josh, wherever you are walking in the room, walking around Josh, the sound would change based on your position and and Josh thought that was really really exciting to do and that little VR project at the time, a year afterwards, it won a Lumiere Award and it had like 200,000 downloads, which is a download of this six-minute, seven-minute work, where you really get to be engaged with the artist and it feels like you are walking in the same room and so those kinds of things take.
We are very artist focused. We really believe that artists generally from an artistic side, know what's most interesting to them and what they'd like to pursue and where their energies are going to be focused. So for josh, we've been looking at technical things like that. But all our artists in general we try to really understand what they are interested in and then we try to figure out something. At one point Josh mentioned he had gone to Cuba with President Obama and he was asked, with Smokey Robinson and Dave Matthews Usher to go down there, sort of as opening the culture, dialogue.
0:21:19 - Tristra
There would be a band I'd want to hear. I know exactly.
0:21:25 - David
But Josh came back and he said these musicians in Cuba are really exciting. They're so passionate about their music, they have a very different approach to music making and we said, well, maybe what we should do is try to bring them here to the US so we can all experience it. And long story short, we were able to work with the musicians there and government folks and were able to get them to do a live from lincoln center special that ultimately, uh was uh received an emmy nomination for a live from lincoln center thing. And where we brought I think it was 20 musicians from cuba who had never been here to the us before to perform with josh. And again he sort of gave us the impetus, the impetus saying that this would be a really cool thing. This was such a great experience I got so much out of it and he has done so much in his life already For him to say it was that moving experience motivated Ross and me to say, okay, we're going to figure out how to actually take this to another level.
0:22:18 - Tristra
I love that. I love that you sort of identified the seed and then you figure out how to plant it and nurture it into a full-blown project. And it sounds like both. You know you're balancing this sort of you know, irl, real-life experiences, with these mediated ones or highly tech-driven ones, but the seed is kind of the important thing. Some of the things you're talking about are quite, you know, tech-intensive, like VR, even today. It's getting easier, but it's still pretty complicated. What are you seeing on the horizon? What used to be really, really difficult and it's now becoming a lot easier and you're more excited to explore with more of your artists what's changed technologically that's made some of these cool, crazy ideas feel a lot more doable from your perspective.
0:23:06 - David
I mean. First of all, I think the industry is such now that for musicians, it's much more democratized. You don't have to have the gatekeeper of a label to be able to get your music out there. Because of technology, not only can you get your music up there, you can also create so many things that in the past, you would have 20 different departments at a label doing so.
You know, we have one artist that we're working right now with, natalie tenenbaum, who is a force in terms of not only the music creation, um, and being a great artist, but also figuring out how to get the music out there in different formats, cutting it up, adding video components, creating different things to make it all happen, and that's part of her artistic thing. It's, it is business in terms of its social media, but, on the other hand, for her, she views it as an artistic expression, and so all this technology has really given artists the ability to do so many different things and, fortunate, as management, we see those different venues and those different outlets and we are able to talk with our artists or with projects that we're working on, to use some of those things. Ross ross is really into a lot of these things and, and has probably even more, he has more insight than I do.
0:24:13 - Ross
Uh, I would just say that, um, there are so many, there are, there are tools out there that are making it far more accessible to create music and kind of twist music and create content in ways that we never thought were imaginable. I mean, I shout out to uh, uh, jessica powell at audio shake, who were big fans of and what they've done, which is create, you know, stem isolation through all this ai stuff, which I know there's such a flurry of conversation around ai, in some ways I can think you can see it as a opportunity to create something that didn't exist before. And, um, you know, I I one of the projects that we're doing now and maybe you're gonna get into it or we're gonna get into, is this windy symphonic concert. But that project, uh, where we're using her actual vocals and we have a partnership with uh sony and the primary wave folks to essentially isolate her vocal that can perform live at these kind of music documentary type symphonic concerts with all the major orchestras throughout the country.
We just debuted the first one in Chicago. We have another one with the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center in DC. That wouldn't have been able to exist, I think, in the same way maybe two or three years ago, and thanks to kind of like these STEM isolation opportunity or tools, we're now able to hear Whitney accompanied by a symphony orchestra, and that's been kind of one of our more thrilling projects yet, because we're creating these original shows that I don't think, in this manner, could have been created two or three years ago.
0:26:03 - David
That's so cool, it wouldn't have been much harder. I think, tricia, you were talking about how you know, sometimes we are planting seeds and helping develop them. I think we the Whitney example is a good example of projects that are not specifically artists based on our roster but are very much things that tie into our general love of music and our background as producers and developers for our artists. Um, that whole project actually came about because a couple years ago we were approached by zed's team uh, the great edm artist, um, who wanted to figure out an interesting way to celebrate the 10th anniversary of his clarity album, the new job that he had back then, and he also had the very unusual skill of being a very, very good pianistist. I mean very good pianist. He studied classically growing up, and so we talked about the idea of creating an orchestral version of the Clarity Owl, which that's part of just the brainstorming, like what would be an interesting thing to do, and I don't remember exactly how we came up with that idea, but ultimately that's what we thought would be great, given his skill set, and we were able to create this concert that was at the Dolby Theater. It sold out in, I think, like three minutes or something like that.
Um, and a lot of people came not knowing exactly what to expect. You know, he was not DJing, there weren't guest artists, it was just him and an orchestra that we had put together and orchestrations that we had looked at his music to figure out what, what would make sense artistically. Um, you know, you know what, we're not going to make this with drums and bass and guitar and stuff like that. We're going to make a symphonic version of Clarity, almost an orchestral remix, if you will. And that turned out to be really exciting to the artist.
We're, again, really driven by what the artist is interested in. And when he said he did a lot of classical piano growing up and we talked about the. And when he said, you know, he did a lot of classical piano growing up and we talked about the idea, he said that sounds really interesting to me. So that sort of led us to the Whitney project, where you know one of the most iconic voices of all time, and looking at how to celebrate something and everyone knows those songs so well or those recordings so well. How can we do it in a way that will be really exciting? And we said let's do an orchestral remix of her greatest hits and fortunately the Houston estate loved that idea. Primary Wave has been a great part of it. They love the idea and so everything sort of builds upon itself, and so we're excited about this Whitney project definitely.
0:28:17 - Tristra
I love the Zed example, david, in part because you know, by making this choice and helping him implement this project, you pushed him artistically in a new way right and in a way that didn't feel super like all right. Now you're going to do this whole other thing, I'm sure. For Zedd it was really refreshing to get back to piano for a while and maybe to focus his creative energy in that particular way instead of all the other stuff as a touring EDM artist that you can be distracted by or maybe worn out by. There's a lot of sort of showmanship involved in DJing and or performing electronic music live, and it must have been a whole other feeling for him to be able to approach the piano again and, through that instrument, re-experience his own creative work.
0:29:06 - David
Yeah, I definitely felt. I think we all felt that very much in the process. I mean, he is a very busy man. I mean he is in demand everywhere and he spent a lot of time with us, with the orchestrators, talking about what he, how he envisioned this might work and this is not. He does not do this very often and he had not worked as hard playing classical piano a long time. He worked so hard and I was, so I admire him so much for, you know, with all the success he had that he was able to as an artist. You know, this is what I want to do and he invests himself fully and he he killed it. He was incredible and I think there's no question. He said he was very nervous about it, um, but felt, you know, you know, when you're nervous and it goes well, you feel very fulfilled and and he could not have done better and and it was definitely for us a really, it's really exciting for us. I think ross and I thrive on helping artists achieve their ambitions and their and their dreams.
0:30:02 - Ross
It's, it's really thrilling for us's also this, and it comes back to the theme, which is you know, he's very musical and we felt that when talking to him, which you wouldn't necessarily associate with a, you know, electronic DJ or whatever, you don't think of them as kind of a highly trained classical musician or whatever, but he really had the chops and we were able to, just, from a kind of artistic standpoint, really able to connect with him.
And that comes back to this theme. It's like doesn't matter what genre you're invested in or you spend your time, and we have a lot of interest if you are musical and you have, like a spirit or an emotional connection to the music. And we'll find some kind of way, whether it's a virtual instrument, whether it's a symphonic concert, whether it's some kind of interesting virtual reality experience of some sort, where it'll still have the core of its musicality. But we want to help you translate it into these new mediums which exist outside of the traditional. Ok, putting out a record, let's go to the DSPs and all that stuff. Those are very necessary things, but there's more to it. There's more to music. Music is omnipresent in so many different ways that we should explore all of these opportunities where it can live and have its own.
0:31:19 - Tristra
I love it. So we're going to take another quick break and we'll be right back.
0:31:23 - Dmitri
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0:32:24 - Tristra
All right, we're back with David and Ross of Park Avenue Artists and now you know we had this wonderful sort of session talking about these amazing creative projects you've done, and I'm sure we'll talk about a few more. But being a manager, I'm going to throw you a little bit of a curveball here. Being a manager isn't always being a yes man, right. In fact, your job is to be a sage advisor at times, and sometimes that means saying no, right. With all these possibilities, all these ways to create content, all these potential distractions for your artists, how do you help them stay on the right path and stay focused when they really want to get you know, because a lot of artists have a lot of ideas, how do you help them home in on the ones that you think are going to really help them develop?
0:33:22 - Ross
I'll do a quick answer. And, david, we're very aware of a lot of opportunities outside of, like I was saying, outside of the kind of traditional scope that also makes it very potentially distracting because we could do this and we could do that, we could do this, like you know, kid in a candy shop. So I think for us we have to evaluate the opportunities that are actually going to help drive the most value for the artist or the thing that's going to get them to the next level. So a lot of times we will put out a menu of things, we'll advise as to what we feel is the best way, based off of what we as musicians and managers feel and sense. And it's up to the artist to have that kind of particular passion for a route that they need to go to. So if they're really into social media and so forth and they're really good and it's natural to them, that's something that they should expand upon.
We're not going to. You know, the artist really has to want it more than anyone else and we have to find a method that speaks to them the most. So we're here to lay out a lot of those cards and we'll advise, but they have to kind of make that choice as to what is the most compelling. If we disagree with it, we can voice that, and we have in the past but it's their decision and it's their career and we make a commitment, as part of managing them, to support them in whatever choices they make.
0:34:43 - David
I endorse that completely. I mean, ultimately we do believe the artist is the CEO of their company. They will make the final decision. But our jobs as CEOs, for instance, is to talk about all the different things that are out there, to make a recommendation and to also be free to dissent. If the artist we feel is making a decision that we feel is not in their best interest, it's our job to tell them, make the argument as to why that might not be the best choice. Ultimately, if they still decide to go a certain way, we will do everything we can to make that succeed. But we want to make sure that that we've we've articulated based on our experience. I mean we had. I mean I love one of our groups.
We work with time for three. They often ask us specifically, saying we want to know if you disagree. It helps us become become, it helps us make better decisions. And one of the things that we discussed right before the pandemic was you know, time for three is talented, so many different things. You know they've written score soundtracks, as ross mentioned, for robin red film.
They are recognized very much in the core classical world and they also do their own singer, songwriting and various things, and we were trying to figure out what direction to take, um, because they just had like 40 different things. And we were trying to figure out what direction to take, um, because they just had like 40 different things, that they were trying to decide what. What should we do next? And ross and I said you know, we've been talking about this a lot and we feel that it's hard to be good at everything. You guys are extraordinary classical musicians. That's how you're brought up. Let's spend a little bit of time just really focusing on core classical. Let's find a great work to record. Let's find, let's build that, you know, put all our creative energies and business energies into that and let's see what we can accomplish.
And ultimately that's when the pandemic happened. But we were able to use that opportunity as a time to really create and that's how they ended up recording this piece by Pulitzer Prize winning composer Kevin Blitz. That became the Philadelphia Orchestra recording. That ultimately won them their first Grammy. And there was a lot of discussion at the time trying to decide what should we do, but ultimately they said we want to hear everything you guys have to say. They're going to make the decision and we're happy with them to make the decision, but we want to always feel free with our arms to express certain thoughts and then, ultimately, they make the decision and we move forward.
0:36:56 - Tristra
Amazing. So, speaking of business energy, how are you seeing any shifts as sort of the field of possibilities opens up for artists and managers? Are you seeing any shifts in things like fee structures? How is artist management working as a business today? I mean, the traditional model is a commission or, you know, a fee once something's secured like a record deal. How are things changing? Because it sounds like there's a lot of. You have a lot of irons in the fire at once and revenue could come from a lot of places, but it could also be held up for a lot of reasons. How do you balance that?
0:37:32 - Ross
It's an interesting question you ask and very timely.
I feel like there's a lot of conversations right now and actually I was having this with a fellow lawyer friend yesterday about this that so much more responsibilities on the artist and their teams, primarily driven by the artist management, it that, uh, you know, there's perhaps a discussion to be had about like, hold on, if we're doing all these, you know, creating all these opportunities and doing a lot of the uh work that maybe traditionally other teams that you would hire or take their own commissions would do, then there's perhaps a different structure.
For the most part it's, you know, uh, I think everyone's pretty much commission based. But when there's opportunities where you're starting new entities with these artists, whether it's a soft in, you know, software instrument or it's a new festival concept, we, you know, we're working on a festival concept with a few different artists and so forth or a new production concept, something that's not just, you know, trying to do the traditional artist management ramp up, then it's talking about a partnership and I think we view ourselves because we are not just the uh cigar smoking manager although I don't know any managers who smoke cigars but like that's the that's the stereotype I have in my mind is, like you know, put your name in lights, kid.
0:38:58 - Tristra
Yeah, yeah, that's. It's like the publicist, the publicist meme of the menthols, and like, listen, I can't get you on the cover of it.
0:39:06 - Ross
Yeah, I wish it was that easy.
Like you know, sign your hair on the dotted line, but it's we're partners in a lot of cases. We're creating a lot of opportunities, we're helping them kind of realize so much more than what's kind of traditional commission based. So a lot of times we look at opportunities and say, hey, let's be a partner in here, and then we're all kind of equally incentivized. You know, management does not have any, the commission structure does not have, and I might be, you know, a bit of a. I don't think it's controversial because a lot of people talk about. But management, you know, once you're, if a lot of management relationships you know stand for a long time but sometimes they don't, and so after that management relationship is over, the work that you put into it is kind of for the most part at an end.
So if you're starting new companies, new entities beyond kind of the traditional management role of like overseeing their career, of like touring and record releasing, I think there's a, there's a there's. There's a new standard emerging about being like a partner with artists. So it's still being defined. Um, you know a lot of the things that we do out, you know, art, camera art is management. But we also have these extra entities outside of it. Sometimes it's with our artists. Sometimes it's just with other partners, like how we have with Primary Wave and the Whitney Houston estate, but there's a lot of merging in between. That is interesting. I'm curious to see how that shakes out in the next few years.
0:40:37 - Tristra
Yeah. So one example that comes to mind that I just know from from y'all's most recent news is you've co-founded a new kind of agency creative agency with a mixed reality artist named Void, so very much outside of music and yet it feels like it could be very related to a lot of the projects you've already undertaken. So do you want to talk for a second about that initiative and how did you work with Voids to decide what a good structure would be? Just in general terms, you don't have to get into the contract.
0:41:14 - Ross
Sure, sure, no, let's review the contract right now, exactly.
0:41:18 - Tristra
The two parties.
0:41:19 - Ross
Yeah, I, you know Voids we found quite literally online because and I think we were mesmerized by just his artistic expression the same way we were mesmerized by many of the other kind of sonic based artists or musical based artists that we imagined. I think initially it was like how do we have Lloyd's kind of work with our artists? From a visual standpoint, he makes this kind of mixed reality pieces, which is really fascinating. It's this new emerging art form which takes kind of a physical location or space and manipulates it with a lot of these digital techniques and it's very artistic in its uh, in terms of the expression and the energy it kind of emits from these different pieces, and he's kind of have a bunch of pieces that have gone viral. He's worked with drake and strome and uh, fkj and masego, like a bunch of really amazing artists creating kind of like collab, creating visuals with them, and, as a result, a lot of um brands from nike to to me, to sol de janeiro and so forth, have reached out to him to say hey, listen, we want to apply this essentially coolness to the opportunities, creating kind of social and viral videos online and or viral in quotes you can't air quotes, um and so we said there's an opportunity here, there's a space that we need to build here, and so we partnered with voids to create an agency that essentially handles all the incoming inquiries from brands to create these special visual assets.
And you know, it's a lot of the same process in terms of thinking about the creative, thinking outside the box, thinking about what direction we're trying to take here, that you would with a musical artist. So we were drawn to it just because there's a lot of kind of emotional, artistic principles were there. And you know he's collaborating with everyone and it allows us to connect with the brand world, which is, you know, a huge part of what artists are looking for when they're looking for support. So it kind of all is speaking a similar kind of language, just a little bit, like I said, left of center. There's a value in places when you're not looking directly straight on, but left of the opportunities there. So we've really enjoyed that.
0:43:44 - Tristra
Amazing. One more question before we say goodbye for now. I wanted to ask you, since you mentioned brands. You know that I feel like in performing arts mentioned brands. You know that I feel like in performing arts those kind of brand deals were not seen as very cool, maybe even 10 years ago, but now it feels like it's very much of a piece. Right, you could have sponsors, you could have patrons, but you couldn't have, like I'm doing a deal with Wendy's, right If I'm also playing orchestral works. Now it feels like that. That's also blown wide open. I wonder if we, if we just, you know, at the end here, talk a bit about about how you think, about you know, working with brands and making those decisions as a manager, or advising artists how to make a decision.
0:44:32 - David
I mean, I still think that the conversation about brands is that when you're speaking with an artist you want to make sure aesthetically it feels right. I think for the artists especially that we work with, they're not going to endorse anything that they don't use or don't believe in. And so I think and I certainly when I was back when I was working at Sony and we were dealing with our custom markets groups and things like that that would deal with brands, I think most artists generally felt that way. But I think it's funny People sometimes on the outside and artists certainly do they sometimes feel like, oh, I'd like to get a sponsorship with such and such company. Not so easy. When we talk to our friends who are working at the biggest agencies, whether it's the WMEs or the CAs, they will tell you that a very small percentage get those kind of deals.
A lot of times it just happens organically. It's not like there's a talking to a presenter and trying to get your artist to perform at Carnegie Hall. There's a very traditional way of how you make the introduction for an artist and how it happens. A lot of these brand endorsement things just happen when someone at that company says you know, I really like this artist and I think they would be cool to do something with us. So it's a lot less formulaic, there's a lot more luck, but it is important. You know, we are doing things where it's like it would be great to have a brand, because there's synergy here and also we could use funding and we could use profile. We could use profile in terms of getting the word out about a project, but I mean it's challenging. Ross is definitely more in that world and I'm sure he has some more specific ideas about it.
0:46:04 - Ross
Well, it's interesting because we have a Park Amateur has a partnership with Sony Audio and so we kind of deal with it. On the other side of it, we work with Jordy Freed and the good people at Sony Audio in terms of, like, finding opportunities where they can amplify their specific technology, their brand, through technology, and if it feels like it's a genuine use of the technology that amplifies or kind of enhances the art, and artists will 100 want to be involved. Uh and uh, you know sony is very, um, very much integrated in the kind of immersive sounder, 360 ra space which a lot of artists are finding very interesting in terms of not only the ability to mix or but to create in a kind of spherical or immersive sound. And that's an easy conversation that we can have on behalf of sony with various artists to say, hey, listen, are you interested in finding a new medium in which to hear your records, where it might not be just traditional left right mono. This might be a great partnership to have.
It's not like sony or any of these other brands are just like we're looking for a name to slap our name. We're looking for a big name to slap our name on top of get the most social media impressions or just general media impressions. They want to find organic ways in which to work with artists that reflect what they're doing with their technology or their, their products. And that partnership has been excellent because it allows us to kind of look at it from the other end, from the brand side, and say, hey, listen, here's some other artists or some concepts or ideas that we can involve sony in, because this would be really magnetic and cool. And it comes from the, from the school thought that we thought it's like well, josh is genuinely interested in virtual reality, let's find a way to get you know playstation involved. And that's they. They responded to it because they saw that his genuine interest there and they heard that, you know, they could essentially envision that the music could be heard and seen and perceived in virtual reality in a very interesting way.
0:48:18 - Tristra
So that's those types of partnerships I love that the brand partnership can also be an artistic endeavor, that's absolutely exciting.
0:48:28 - David
That's what is the best.
0:48:28 - Tristra
I think, yeah, yeah for sure, well, thank you so much, david and ross, for your time and your insights and your fantastic stories and examples. And, yeah, thanks for thanks, everybody for listening. Catch you next time.
0:48:40 - David
Thank you, thank you.
0:48:43 - Dmitri
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