Gary Spivack

Gary Spivack is the talent buyer for the Danny Wimmer Presents rock festivals. Hear how the lineup is built.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome, welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Lefts That podcast.
My guest today is Gary Spivet, who books all the
talent for the Danny Wimber Presents rock festivals. Good to
have you on the show. Gary. How many rock festivals
are there for Danny Wimmer.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
There are six right now for the calendar year. First off,
thanks for having me, longtime listener, first time caller. Appreciate
you as I am a flag waiver of rock and roll.
Having me on important to speak my mind on that.
So there's six rock festivals, all destination minimal three days.

(00:50):
Most of them are four day rock festivals.

Speaker 1 (00:53):
Four days, so that would imply Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday
most are three day. What's the thinking in four days?

Speaker 2 (01:01):
Well, first off, on business standpoint, it's an advertising of costs.
You got your stages, you got your crews, you got
your staffing, everybody's there. So from a business standpoint, it's
almost like this nice added day of revenue. Rock fans.

(01:24):
Believe me, Bob, if they were, because it is taxing
as a promoter and somebody to work a four day festival.
If they were crying about it, we wouldn't do it.
But they they eat it up. So for them it's
like instead of a Hawaii vacation or bungee jumping, this

(01:46):
is their this is their vacation, this is their getaway,
and families come to this.

Speaker 1 (01:51):
And what are the capacities of these festivals?

Speaker 2 (01:55):
Had a record breaking Welcome to Rockville Daytona Beach, which
was the single day, which was well over fifty five thousand,
So capacities vary from that number to a round forty.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
Okay, And what festivals have yet to play this year?

Speaker 2 (02:13):
We have Louder than Life in Louisville, Kentucky, after Shock
I'm not doing chronological sorry, Louder than Life Rock Oklahoma,
which is Labor Day weekend, and After Shock in Sacramento, California.

Speaker 1 (02:30):
So conventional wisdom is rock is dead. What can you
tell us about that?

Speaker 2 (02:35):
Yeah, you like saying that. I know. Look, all I
can tell you is when you put these festivals on
and you have an abundance of bands and you don't overcharge,
they come and they come in droves. To me rock
all right, So I think we the heyday when I

(02:57):
was raised in the industry, when I was starting at
record labels, this was the early nineties and grunge rock
took over Nirvana, Pearl Jem, Soundgarden, Alis, Smashing Pumpkins. They
had the mainstream MTV, buzzbin rock, and alternative radio, and
I think a lot of us have been chasing the

(03:18):
dragon's tail since then. But rock's never supposed to be
in the mainstream. It's supposed to be the other side
of the tracks. It's supposed to be like the grassy
knoll where the cool kids are at the cafeteria table
with the jocks and the kids in their polo shirts,
and it's the rockers up on the grassy knoll with
their cigarettes and exchanging rush cassettes. That's always been my

(03:39):
taking rock. It's always been the left, the rebellious, and
not the mainstream. Pop music doesn't the word pop means
popular as in popular music, and rock has never been
intended minus a couple moments in our favorite era, probably
you know, sixty four to seventy, specifically sixty seven to

(04:01):
seventy when rock kind of took it ruled everything. Rock
is not the pretty girl in school, right, It's not
the most popular kid in the class. It's the outcast.
It's the misfits. So you gather them together at a
festival or look I go to you see Greta van

(04:23):
Fleet at the Forum twelve thousand people. I don't know
how you can say Rock is dead when that happens.

Speaker 1 (04:28):
Okay, is this the same audience who goes to the
Juggalo festival? No?

Speaker 2 (04:35):
You know what I equated to, Bob all right, So
you might hear some sports analogies throughout our hang today,
Hockey specifically Los Angeles. The Kings sell out Crypto every night,
twenty thousand strong. There's probably twenty three thousand hockey fans
in Los Angeles, right, It's like, but they're dedicated, they're

(04:58):
into it. They have the jerseys, they know that, the players,
they know that, they know their competition. That's Rock. That
forty thousand that attends our festival, that's the core. And
if you treat them right and you give them great
lineups and good food and good beer, not stale bud
light and corn dogs anymore, they come back. So it is.

(05:24):
It is not the Juggalo audience, though we cater to
them too.

Speaker 1 (05:30):
Okay, you talk about good food. Coachella had very high
end offerings and stagecoach was moorn downscale when you say
good food for rock festivals, go a little deep.

Speaker 2 (05:45):
Yeah, we have. We have five stars. We have Louisville, Kentucky.
We're Bourbon and Beyond and louder than life is. We
have five star chefs backstage and front house. We have
the best barbecue in Louisville. In Dave Grohl has been
a part of that. Uh it is. We stopped with

(06:06):
with the with the corn dogs and churos long ago.
So it's a stone that it's it's oven pizza, it's
it's it's quality food. And to go step further like
it louder than life in Bourbon and Beyond. We have
Bourbon tasting villages a la Bottle Rock where every real

(06:27):
quickly quick fact about Bourbon, which I become pretty vers in.
Not like Danny wimmern of all, Bourbon is just and
Planet Earth is distilled in Louisville, Kentucky. Thought that Louisville,
Kentucky was doing a very bad job about pring. That Louisville,
Kentucky is the Napa Valley of Bourbon. So we have
Bourbon tasting villages where it's it's one fixed price and

(06:51):
every local bourbon distiller is set up so you have
these fine bourbons, You've got high end barbecue, you have
vegan it's it's all there and food trucks and vendors,
and it's it's quality. So people are we want them
for lunch and dinner.

Speaker 1 (07:10):
Okay. Coachella historically, for like the last decade, except for
maybe the last year two, has been line up independent,
i e. People will buy tickets based on the name
of Coachella with the faith that Golden Voyage will book
a lineup that they're happy with. To what degree does

(07:32):
that apply to rock festivals?

Speaker 2 (07:34):
Not as well? It is. It is definitely artist dependent.
But we do blind ticketing and we could sell about
twenty percent of give or take of of capacity without
a lineup, But it is, it is artists dependent. They
they don't like repeats, they like reunions, they like you

(07:57):
know what wins at our shows, Bob and a prop
It's very simple. It probably wins at any concert you
go to is energy, songs, attitude, and production. I put
production last because a lot of the festivals are city
festivals with hard curfews at eleven, so, especially in the spring,

(08:19):
top two bands really get lights because it doesn't get
dark till nine nine to fifteen at some of these festivals.
So songs win and energy wins. So when you put
all these bands together and you curate it right, they
return and they show up. So to answer your question,

(08:40):
the short answer your question at our festivals, it's it's
definitely talent dependent and we got it and we're swinging
with the biggest Now.

Speaker 1 (08:49):
Okay, So how many of these festivals or city festivals
and how many are destination outside of the city.

Speaker 2 (08:57):
Well, they're all destination, you know, Louder than life. Using
that as example in Louisville, Kentucky. One of my favorite
things about that festival, it's literally across the road from
the airport. It is art the hotel we stay out.
You could see the main stages. Like how great is that?

Speaker 1 (09:14):
One has to ask if it's across the street from
the airport, what about the airport noise?

Speaker 2 (09:19):
We work with them. Well, and you have left, you
have curfews and they they they have. We are so
good with Louisville that they help redirect their airline their
flight takeoffs and departures where they direct it out of
the you can see planes taken off. The quick funny
story I have is Foo fighters played on a Friday.

(09:41):
I had to leave on a Saturday for a family thing.
Dave Groll wanted to see a band, and I escorted
him on stage. We're watching the band and I have
my luggage with me, and I get my runner and
I'm boarding my plane and that band's still playing. That's
how great that festival is.

Speaker 1 (09:59):
Okay, let's let's go back. How many of these festivals
are like acl or Lollapalooza in the metropolis, and how
many are more akin to Bonaru or Coachella in an
area that's not literally right by a city.

Speaker 2 (10:19):
Rock Klahoma and Prior Oklahoma is forty five minutes from Tulsa.
It is a ninety percent camping festival. We have camping
at every festival, but every festival I just mentioned is,
if not ten minutes from the airport, less than thirty.
So it's there's camping, but it's hotel. It's like Sonic

(10:44):
Temple and Columbus, Ohio. We did a zip code report. Columbus,
Ohio is responsible for twenty nine percent of ticket sales,
meaning what is that seventy one percent of all tickets
sold are outside of the city of Columbus. So what
we bring into that city, Hotel, Starbucks, gas station, sports bars.

(11:05):
We bring a lot of income into into Columbus, Ohio
for that weekend.

Speaker 1 (11:09):
How into the data are you not?

Speaker 2 (11:14):
It depends. I will not answer. If I don't know,
I'm not going to make shit up for you. My
specialty is talent booking curating. But when we started when
when Danny Wimmer, myself and Dell Williams, you'll probably hear
that named Del Williams a lot as we talk today.
Dell and I were in record label world together. We

(11:36):
wanted to start something. We felt there was a This
is two thousand and six, by the way. My last
label job was Geffen Records Head of Rock and Alternative Promotion.
I was hitting my head on the ceiling. I didn't
want to be a promotion man anymore, live concerts or
what gets the hair on my arms raised. So Del
Williams and I started what was called Right Arm Entertainment.

(11:57):
At the time, it was just a book. If you
remember the Radio Festival craze those radio stations right So
we started booking all them because these programmers didn't know
what to do, and Dell and I were verse in
it because of our label experience. And work with bands
and managers and agents. So we were booking festivals, sorry,

(12:18):
radio shows. But Bob quickly became noticeable for me that
if you're going to be kind of taken seriously in
this business, you got to write a check and you
got to be able to be an actual promoter. So
we started Rock on the Range and Carolina Rebellion and
that's Charlotte, North Carolina Rock on the Range, Columbus, Ohio,

(12:39):
Dell and I and Danny Wimmer. Danny Wimmer and I
was it was kind of an arranged marriage. Through Dell,
Danny and I flew to Saint Louis, Missouri to strike
a deal with a guy by the name of Joe
Lidvag who was the head of Midwest at AEG and
we went fifty to fifty with him because it was

(13:01):
us three. We didn't have. We didn't really have we had.
We had a lot of ignorance and a lot of arrogance,
and so AG became our partner, the nuts and bolts partner,
and we worked with Columbus Creuse Stadium in Columbus, Ohio,
which was an AEG room, a building it was. It's
on the it's on the grounds of the Columbus fair Grounds.

(13:25):
So there's camping, parking, soccer stadium, parking lots, side stage areas,
perfect and Danny and I went to Saint Louis to
sign our agreement, and little did I know that the
kid had food poisoning, but he kind of personed up
and that was a real sign for me that this

(13:45):
this this guy is serious and he was a hustler
because he had food. If I think you've probably had
food poisoning in your life, oh I've had it multiple times. Yeah,
that's a fucking knockout. That's like put me at just
kill me now. But we just started talking and this
arranged marriage became kind of this brotherhood, this partnership. So
we started these festivals. And the reason why we started

(14:06):
these festivals Bob two thousand and six, two thousand and seven.
There was Coachella, there was acl there was Bonnaroo, but
there wasn't who was serving these rock fans when and
I don't mean warped to or punk rock or oz
Fest at the time, like rock and roll. You know,
bands like Godsmack and Shine Down and Disturbed will never

(14:28):
get invited to Coachella or bonnerou Let's make this their Coachella.
And we picked Columbus, Ohio for a couple of reasons.
One because it was AG fifty to fifty two, but
also we're really big into feeder markets, meaning around Columbus,
you have Cincinnati, you have Cleveland, Detroit, you have Toledo, Akron,

(14:48):
these kind of underserved rock towns, and they all it worked.
They all came in and they all have rock radio stations.
So at the time we were very terrestrial radio heavy
because of our radio show knowledge, and we knew all
these stations, so they became friends to us and we
use them. I got on and back in the day,

(15:09):
because you asked, I said, I'm strictly mostly talent and booking.
But back then us three did everything. Bob we I booked,
I did the marketing, I got sponsors, I got on
the radio, I talked to morning shows. It was just
spreading kind of this rock nation around the area. And
that's we did it, kind of you know, soup to nuts.

(15:32):
At the time, I knew every sandwich on that subway
because that's all that's all we can afford.

Speaker 1 (15:45):
Okay, let's just go through the history a little bit. Okay,
so the three of you start. Does Del Williams continue
or does he step aside at some point? What's his role?

Speaker 2 (15:56):
Yeah? It was it was Gary, Dell and Danny. I
think we had one assistant maybe, so over the years
we did a fifth year anniversary I think of Rock
on the Range and Dell kind of stepped aside. Danny
got into some capital and kind of bought Dell out

(16:20):
and rolled me in to Danny Wermer Presents, and I
became the head of talent and Dell stayed on as
a consultant. Is I think we're at twenty thirteen now
after a run of two thousand and seven to twenty twelve.
So Dell, Danny and I have always been communicating, always
been talking. So from twenty thirteen to about twenty one,

(16:45):
I was the head of talent at DWP Booking, curating
programming all the rock festivals. Dell at the time was
doing bourbon beyond helping where he could and for me,
if I could talk about me, a couple of things happened.
Two in particular, we got the Woodstock account, which was

(17:05):
a very big deal for me. As I follow you,
I know you're extremely versed. You were living it in
real time, but I'm a total student of sixty seven
to seventy specifically and Woodstock, I'm kind of a complete
Woodstock nerd. And we became friend. We cold called Michael
Lang and became very friendly with him. He would come

(17:28):
to our festivals, He came to Louder than Life, he
came to Columbus, Ohio, and he said, I'm going to
be doing Woodstock fifty, and we said we want to
be part of it in any shape or form. He
ended up hiring me DWP for booking. He ended up
hiring Superfly for production, and he got this company called

(17:49):
Densu Japanese conglomber and advertising agency to fund it. And
it was one of the greatest couple months of my
life booking that festival until it was the whole thing imploded.
Michael may he rest in peace. Uh is the ultimate
was the ultimate Hippi hustler, you know, like, well, he

(18:11):
was an elephant who would just kind of leave a
bunch of shit behind and it was for us to
clean up. So Woodstock took a lot out of me.
And if you yeah.

Speaker 1 (18:23):
I mean I shouldn't remember den Sue pulling the plug,
et cetera. But if you had to specifically state why
that failed? Why did it fail?

Speaker 2 (18:34):
Michael did not have his stuff together. He didn't. He
didn't have a venue deal Superfly rightfully, so was holding strong.
He wanted one hundred thousand. It was Watkins Glen was
the venue. Uh, and I think in what was that?
You remember? I was at seventy three, the Almond Brothers,

(18:55):
Greg was there. You were there? Awesome? Uh, biggest one
day rock festival in America. I believe for a long
period of time he chose Walkins Glen. Fish was supposed
to have a Walkins Glen Weekend in like October of eighteen.
This is Woodstock fifty supposed to be August twenty nineteen,

(19:16):
and we were getting ramped up and started booking Woodstock
and Fish. If you remember, there was all these water
and plumbing issues at Walkins Glen and they had to
pull the plug the day before that Fish Weekend, which
caused a lot of red flags for everybody, but not
for Michael, and capacity was lowered. He didn't have permits,
he didn't have dB permits. But we proceeded and booked

(19:41):
a hell of a three day festival of four main
stages and a couple side stages. Anybody. You can google
Woodstock fifty. You could see the lineup because it was announced.
I had never in my life seen a show. This
was announced in March of twenty nineteen with no on sale,
and Michael had the idea of this is March, like,

(20:03):
let's put it on sale Earth Day, you know, April twenty.
So it was supposed to be on sale. April twenty
came and went, and I was getting a lot of
heat from every agent. You know, these are big bands
I had. The Killer is Maty Cyrus, The Racking Tour's
Dead and Company, Chance the Rapper, I'm on top of

(20:24):
my head, Jay Z Imagine, Dragons, Brandy Carlisle, Halsey, it
was Black Keys and they were like, what's up, what's
going on with the show? And I and nobody can
get a straight answer. Finally the plug was pulled and
it took a lot out of me. So now we're
in twenty nineteen. Second thing that happened was COVID March

(20:47):
twenty twenty. I'm on a trip with my wife to
see my daughter who's studying abroad in London and crushing
it as a young woman. We fly back on I
think it's March ninth, I think was March ten. We're
trying to fall asleep and we turn on CNN and
Rita Wilson and Tom Hanks got COVID and the NBA

(21:08):
season was canceled, and I think I'm texting with Wimmer, like,
you know, oh, this is this is real. And I
just was one of those guys, Bob who kind of
had an epiphany, you know, like I'm I'm a little
burnt right now. I pushed through twenty twenty with DWP.
We do what everybody else does, you know, get into streaming,

(21:32):
do what we can to survive. We all take big
pay cuts and just as a company, and that took
a lot out of me. Twenty twenty one rolls around.
We put shows together thanks to guys like Cliff Bernstein
and Q Prime. We were the first to have Metallica.
We were the first to have Metallica played twice. They

(21:54):
played a Friday and a Sunday, different sets. And so
by then I was watching Metallica at Aftershock, which is
October twenty twenty one, and I just had this moment
where I think I'm good. I think I'm good, and
I talked to Wimmer and we worked out. I left

(22:14):
as an executive just to become a consultant, just a
book and during that time, during COVID, I myself became
a lot closer with one of my than I have met, Bob.
I have mentors. I thought i'd have a shitload of
mentors in this industry. I have less than a handful.
And one of them is Mark Geiger, who's appearing a

(22:36):
mentor and a tennis buddy. And I know I could
take him skiing too, but that's a different story. I
want to get with you one day on skiing too,
because I went to the University Colorado for the sole
reason because I was a ski rat.

Speaker 1 (22:50):
That's such a long conversation. I'm gonna let it go. Sorry,
continue with the getting together with Geiger.

Speaker 2 (22:57):
As my wife would say, here's my ADHD kicking. Geiger
was leaving WM and we're playing tennis, and he's like,
I'm starting something. I'm kind of going back to my roots,
and I want to what I love and when I've
always loved to booking Metallica and Guns n' Rows and
Foo Fighters is great, but Bob, I'm all about music discovery.

(23:20):
To this day, I eat it up and I love
when I find a band that I actually love, because
a lot of these and everybody knows this about me,
there's a good amount of these bands because I'm a
businessman that I book that I don't really like personally,
but I get it and I appreciate it and I
respect it. But when there's a band that I like

(23:40):
that I appreciate and respect it and I get to
go watch, that's that's the good stuff. So with Mark,
you know, here's a guy who started Lollapalooza. Here's a
guy who's his resume is we all know it, but
he loves going to see an unsigned band at a
three hundred club room, as do I. So he said,

(24:02):
I'm starting this company. And at the time I was like,
you know what, you know, if you were selling strawberries
off the four or five, I think I would go
with you. Let's let's let's do this. So I called Wimmer.
This is I think January twenty two now, and I said,
look something. He loves Mark like I do. And he
said something something on opportunities arisen and I want to

(24:26):
try this with Mark. And Danny said, is Mark interested
in festivals? And mark S answer was fuck no, because
Mark's been there, done that, and he just he wants
to do his venues and Dany's like, all right, you know,
have at it man. So twenty twenty two to twenty four,

(24:46):
I was kind of rolling double duty working as an
executive in Marks Companies, Saved Live and consulting with DWP.
Dell Williams came back and took the role of of
talent at DWB was so it's been this kind of
constant flow between Gary, Danny and Dell to this day.

Speaker 1 (25:09):
So you've recently left Save Live. What was going on there?

Speaker 2 (25:16):
Sports analogy if I can. I was a player at
a position and I knew it and Mark knew it.
It right, people wrong fit it was. It's a volume
based booking job. I love creating and curating and putting
together who could I put under Metallica with with Danny

(25:39):
and Dell and what can we put on the side
stages Save Live. I wish him the best, love them,
just it wasn't right for me, and I'm at the
point in my life, you know, I'm a squirrel Who've
collected a good amount of nuts where I just want
to work with people or do something that inspires me
and excites me so completely amical parting Mark got it.

(26:04):
I hope he I hope he rules the world, and
I hope woman rules the world too.

Speaker 1 (26:08):
Okay, so where does this leave you?

Speaker 2 (26:12):
I am consulting with DWP. I also kept a couple
of venues Mark greenlit which is the Rave and Eagles
ball Room in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Fantastic historic venues. I'm working
on an international deal with a German promoter, and I'm
just kind of you know, I'm leaning, Bob. I'm in

(26:36):
a really unique place in my life. I'm leaning hard
on my relationships because that's all I got. You know,
somebody said, you work till you're forty five. Let's say
you work to your fifty to build your relationships, and
then why don't you take fifty to whenever to use them?

Speaker 1 (27:00):
Dot and I here, what's this? What's going on with you?
I think you said in Wisconsin?

Speaker 2 (27:07):
Yeah, I am consulting Eagles Ballroom and the Rave Eagles
at there. It's this fantastic historic venue that is all
in one. There's four venues in this building. It's across
the street from Marquette University. An a rock band worth anything.
In the last thirty years has heard of Eagles Ballroom Independent?
You know again, I've always been kind of an independent spirit,

(27:29):
even at the at my record label days. I worked
for one Monster Major. That's where I met Jason Vlohm
at Atlantic Records. Besides that, I was I was an Electra.
Geffen at the time was kind of a sister label
of Innerscope I worked for. Before Atlantic, I worked for
Tag Records, which was the Atlantic Group, a startup label

(27:51):
started by Craig Callman. That folded. I kept on with Atlantic.
So I always love the independent spirit and that was
Saved Live. Save Live is independent run venues that go
up against cocin PEPSI.

Speaker 1 (28:06):
Okay, let's go back. You do the initial festival in
partnership with AG. Are the rest of these festivals fully
independent or are they in partnership with AG or anybody else?

Speaker 2 (28:19):
Yeah, they're fully independent, fully independent. The AEG partnership, as
things do in life, ran its course.

Speaker 1 (28:29):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (28:29):
There was a there was a divorce. I'm the child
of the divorce, you know. And when those festivals kind
of as things do, as festivals come and go, those
festivals had a great run, and that partnership had a
great run, and it dissolved. It was time to it
was time to separate, and I stayed on as the

(28:53):
head of Talent with DWP. So all the festivals that
I've mentioned to you, Welcome to Rockville, Louder than Life,
Bourbon and Beyond on Rock, Oklahoma, Sonic Temple, After Shock
are completely owned and operated by by DWP.

Speaker 1 (29:06):
And where does the financing come for these festivals DWP?
So it's self financed.

Speaker 2 (29:14):
Yeah, there's you know, there's there's investors, and not right
of me to talk about that right now.

Speaker 1 (29:20):
Okay, So let's say you have these festivals. How far
in advanced you start planning for a festival.

Speaker 2 (29:29):
That's a great question, because it's getting more the window,
the windows getting more and more. When we started, I
remember we used to announce like on Martin Luther King
Day in January for a May festival. And now we're
definitely in the in the back end of the year
before when we announce usually November December. So it's a
it's a three hundred and sixty five day siege we have.

(29:55):
You know, again, when you say Rock is dead, I'll
just tell you man two thousand in twenty five, because
twenty twenty four we're as we're so talent dependent. Kind
of a down you know, the thesis come in cycles.
It's kind of a down year for headliners. We actually
had to freaking reunite a metal band, Slayer. They're doing

(30:16):
three shows this year. Two of them are with us,
the other one's riot Fest in Chicago. So we like
helped put together Slayer again. So it's been kind of
a down year. And that happens. I mean you see
it at God if you remember last summer with Beyonce
and Taylor and Metallica, gn R and Green Day. How
many stadium tours are this year? So kind of a

(30:38):
down year. Twenty five feels great. We're in twenty five,
we're booking twenty five.

Speaker 1 (30:52):
Let me go sideways for one second. You had the
Black Keys and Arenas that shut down, and you had
j Loo that shut down. Do we learn anything there?

Speaker 2 (31:04):
Yeah, no, it's and I was talking to I still
like to talk to venues for my especially for festival research,
and it's kind of down this year, and especially Look,
I think rock and hip hop. I like to think
inflation has a lot to do with this, Bob. I
think we deal with paycheck to paycheck people that's the

(31:26):
core audience, you know, for for us at a at
a single GA ticket, I'm being really general. Say it's
one hundred and seventy five dollars, which to me is
great value because you say you have forty bands a day.
Do the math, it's like five it's less than five
five dollars a band. But these people have to decide,

(31:47):
like am I gonna buy Welcome to Rockville or fix
my carbureator. It's being very general. I have to you know,
I have to paint paint part of my house or
get that concert ticket. And I think people, I think
inflation is catching up, and I think you're seeing that around,

(32:09):
especially in rock and hip hop. That's what that's what
I'm getting for this year. So the strongest will survive.
The branded festivals I think are doing great. Dvp's having
a really good year. I'm not hyping you. It's it's
the record breaking year actually, because I think, Okay, I

(32:29):
think if you are a festival and you're starting and
you start with say you launch a new festival and
it's Siza and Noah Khan and Blink one ey two
and Gwen Stefani and Janelle Monet, like who are you
appealing to? But if you're at if you don't have
a these festivals, the root of the tree, the core

(32:52):
are rock festivals. You can go kind of left, you
know with Foo Fighters, Queens of the Stone Age. You
can go right with Mega Death and Lamba God and Slipknot.
You go center with Papa Roach and Shine Down Godsmack.
We're allowed to do that, but we're not. We don't
go for Megan Thee, Stallion and Sisa. We are rock

(33:13):
festivals and I think those are those are thriving because
they have their base. That's my take.

Speaker 1 (33:19):
Okay, let's go back to the timeline. Let's say a
festival is going to play in May. How far in
advance will you start working on that festival?

Speaker 2 (33:36):
May May twenty five? We were doing calls in January
twenty four.

Speaker 1 (33:42):
Okay, on that What is the first step? Where does
talent come in putting on a festival?

Speaker 2 (33:49):
Yeah? I love that question because for me, I'm a
big proponent of top down because for a couple of reasons,
if you have Metallica or you have the Food Fighters
and Metallica Metallica is their own genre, that's bad example,
because Metallica could play with anybody. If you have Pantera,

(34:12):
you have to curate and program a proper way. You know,
you can't get too cute and put Royal Blood with
with Pantera. If you have the food Fighters rightfully, so
they they come with a couple proper demands. Dave loves females,
so a band like the Pretty Reckless or Hailstorm is

(34:35):
great to get and represent on that day. They don't
like the fist clenching metal, although Dave is a big
fan of that, but food Fighter of the brand. So
you go Queen's of the Stone Age, you go Greta
van Fleet, you go Royal Blood. So you have to
so you have to stop the start at the top,
at the top and work your way down. I think

(34:57):
if not, you're going to be left with all all
these mid level bands and a very bloated budget, and
you got to be careful.

Speaker 1 (35:04):
Let's start with the budget. Do you have a hard
budget before you start calling anybody?

Speaker 2 (35:11):
Yes, but it's it's it's a moving target depending on
you know what this band. Like with Slayer, you want
to have security, I guess using that word. So if
you look at Aftershock, we got Slayer and Judas, we
got Slayer and Pantera. We got Iron Maiden, a band

(35:32):
that I've coveted, Danny and I and Delve coveted since
we started. There's two bands, by the way, that we
coveted and were down to one, and that that one
is raged against the machine and just cry and shame.
They're not an actual band right now. So normally you
would say, you know you got you got your headliner,
Slayer or Maiden, We're good, let's let's but we wanted

(35:56):
to really kind of hit them over the head with
a hammer. So we increase the top line budget and
with that, you're gonna probably have to increase your ticket price.
So that's the great catch twenty two, and that is
the great moment where festivals can outprice themselves because at
the end of the day, our boss is the fan.

(36:19):
Capital f capital, a capital end period, the fan will
speak and we'll know if we've outpriced. And I think
some festivals out there have like they look at the
ticket price and I'm taking a pass because this isn't
my festival. So yes, there's a budget, Yes we stick

(36:40):
to it religiously, and yes it's a moving target.

Speaker 1 (36:44):
Okay, So let's say it's January of twenty four. You're
booking for May of twenty five before you call anybody,
do you plot out all four days?

Speaker 2 (36:59):
You plot out your your your headliners. I do, we do.
And if it was like if it was pay for,
you know, you would go through a fucking notebook because
what you start with and what you end with are
two very different things. Those those grids that we live
by a change and they were we're booking. I'm telling you,

(37:22):
I don't. I can't speak for all festivals. We're booking
the usually the week the week before we announced too.
You're still in it. It is, it's it's wild because
festivals are different. You know. You you ask for more rightfully,
so you pay from You pay more money for two
main reasons. Bob, is you pay for the specialty of

(37:43):
the performance. We like to make it special. And you
pay for radius claus you know, like I said, those
feeder markets. We like to If you're playing Columbus Sonic Temple,
that's your play in the region.

Speaker 1 (37:58):
Do all acts have the sea radius clause?

Speaker 2 (38:02):
We like to kind of keep it case by case,
but it is a Pandora's box. We're really strict on radius.
Can't speak for other promoters, but it is case by case.

Speaker 1 (38:14):
And how long a period of time and how many
miles will be the typical headliner or radius clause.

Speaker 2 (38:20):
I'm more into state like, for example, sonic temples radius
states as in Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia. That kind of
covers it. If you want to play outside of those,
we're probably cool. There's a couple markets that kind of

(38:41):
go into that two fifty to three hundred mile radius,
which is kind of the the industry standard.

Speaker 1 (38:49):
And how long a.

Speaker 2 (38:50):
Window you could announce you could play that show the
next day, as long as you announce the day you
can announce from our festival stage.

Speaker 1 (39:01):
No, no, let me let me be clear. Okay, I'm
a band, I'm playing in Kentucky. How long until i
can play in Kentucky again?

Speaker 2 (39:14):
Sixty to ninety ninety? It's kid's case by case, it's
sixty to ninety.

Speaker 1 (39:22):
Okay, So let's go back to booking. Do you call
agents and see who's available for headliners? Or do you
make a list to who you want and then call
the agents.

Speaker 2 (39:34):
Both were you know, we we've become that I there
isn't another company that does this amount of rock festivals
in North America of what our core is. So there
used to be a time when we started, when we
were getting on our knees to agents and managers like

(39:56):
what are you doing? What is this? And thanks to people,
I would say, people like Bill McGaffey and Ken from
Me Gush and Rick Roskin, early believers, Corey Brennan that
that got it, that got what we were doing. But
now we're we're in lockstep. We we have bands that
will literally create their their cycle around the festival. We

(40:21):
want to launch a single when you announce, we want
to put the street date on the festival date, do
and doing a meet and greet, a pop up in store.
So these rock bands have it's great. There's a great partnership.
I mean, I have so many examples, Bob, and I'll
use and I think you've you've talked to her, which

(40:41):
I love that you did. I think a couple of
years ago you reached out to Lizzie Hale of Hailstorm.

Speaker 1 (40:46):
Actually I have not done a podcast with Lizzy Hale.
I'm certainly familiar with Hailstorm, but the pretty reckless Yes,
I've done that.

Speaker 2 (40:53):
Yeah, I'll use Hailstorm. Example that was Bill mcgafey. He
stepped up for us. He called me and said, hey,
I want you to, you know, put a brand new
band that I just signed Kenya and am Mike. Who
is Bill? He's said the lead singers, A lead singer
is a girl, and the younger brothers the drummer, and
I hadn't heard a lick. I'm like, you know what, yes,

(41:16):
but in the band was Hailstorm. We put them on
at twelve thirty on the little stage and we loved him.
Two years later they headlined that stage. Two years later,
they're opening the main stage. Two years three years later
they're in the middle and they're one of our core bands.
We build this relationship, we have this. I've got Greta
van Fleet. Greta van Fleet. I got a demo tape

(41:39):
from an unsigned from Mark Giger and Ron Opeleski, and
it was two songs. It was the Flower Song in
Highway tune. I mean yes, its completely sounded like led Zeppelin,
and I'm like, let's go Yes, booked him for five
hundred dollars. I have the contract on my wall. You
got add a couple of zeros now to to get

(42:01):
credit of Anfleet, but they're worth it. I've got countless
stories of that and how we build these bands together
and they've become family, and how they've risen with us.

Speaker 1 (42:13):
Let's go back to the top end. So what you're
saying is the agents are where that your festival is
going to play, and they're pitching you a little bit.
Do you also have dream talent that you just call
the manager of the agent and say this is our.

Speaker 2 (42:31):
Vision totally Yes, yes, and we'll and we'll design a pitch.
I'll use I'll use our friend Cliff Bernstein. We weren't
ready for Metallica for many years. We had to we
had to build that trust, we had to build our brand.
So what we did there was other bands that Q

(42:54):
Prime has, three Days, Grace, Disturbed, put them on They're
they're they're down the middle, core bands for these festivals,
and he'd get word back like great crowd, great merch numbers.
These guys take care of us. That's one thing that
we knew from day one. If we're an independent, we

(43:16):
better go the extra mile backstage and front of house,
and we do like our We work our stage managers
and that crew to the core and there by Sunday
at eleven PM. These guys are so fried because we
go the extra mile and I go to a lot
of festivals, and yes, Coachella completely does it right for
the fan and for the band and for everybody. We

(43:40):
take notes of that. We've gone to Hellfest, We've taken
trips to download and rock and ring and walkin park
and see what some of these do and somewhat of
these festivals don't do. So we take care of these bands.
And Q Prime got wint to that. So tried for Metallica. No,
not this year, not this year. We almost had them
one year, but we ended up getting the Red Hot

(44:00):
Chili Peppers when they are Q Prime monumental booking for
us because that type of booking made sure that we
weren't just the slipknot of ND Sevenfold, who we love
hard rock metal festivals. We can go left and we
can go right. Red Hot Chili Peppers had an amazing

(44:21):
experience and Metallica was ready for us. So that's the
story of that dream scenario. We had to be ready
for them.

Speaker 1 (44:31):
Okay, if these are four night festivals, how many a
list headliners does each festival need?

Speaker 2 (44:38):
Well, we're four now, and that's the thing which it
makes it very hard, Bob, because if like for example,
in twenty one, we had the Foo Fighters done at
three of them up and announced, and one of the
saddest things in rock in the last couple decades was
Taylor Hawkins past and we couldn't I think they were

(45:02):
playing Lopaluza and a couple other festivals. We couldn't uh
replace them with Meghan the Stallion, you know, or Chance
the Rapper. We we we are rock festivals. So the
you are limited, it does it does make it harder.
Like I said, this has been a kind of a
down year for headliners. We got the foods for Rockville,

(45:24):
we got iron made in an aftershock, but we we
we had to kind of go back to the well
on some of some others. But yes, the headliner is key,
But I'm telling you these fans love Bulk.

Speaker 1 (45:39):
Okay, But just to ask the question again, if there
are four nights, you have iron made in one night,
what caliber of status, economic status, and draw do the
other three nights need to have to make it work? Well?

Speaker 2 (45:57):
Similar to to to the story I told you of
we had made in one night and then we did
you know a Slayer and Pantera for another night, so
you do kind of a you know, two A minuses
if you will, to stack it up, look a core
bands for us that our family, Slipknot Events, Sevenfold, Corn Disturbed.

(46:21):
You know you look at Spotify numbers like Undisturbed, I
think twenty two million monthly listeners. That they have a
couple of songs that are through the moon, the sound
of silence cover bigger than might Some people might think, Okay.

Speaker 1 (46:43):
So let's just assume you have your headline level band.
You've locked those in. One question before I go down
the bill. You know, for a long time festivals had
exclusives and then just before were COVID, the same acts
seem to be headlining all the festivals. To what degree

(47:06):
do you want or not want multiple festivals for the
people you do book?

Speaker 2 (47:11):
Yeah, we were into what's called bundle offers. If you
can get food Fighters or you can get Pantera for
a couple of them. But I will tell you these
fans are smart. They start seeing, oh that looks like
Loud of Them Life looks like Welcome to Rockville or
Louder than Life and after Shock. So we can't duplicate

(47:32):
too much, So we do our best to separate, but
it's good when you can get a band for a
couple of them. It's great when you can get a
band for one of them. We had Green Day for
Louder than Life. They're exclusive kind of Ohio Valley Play,
which is Kentucky, Ohio, West Virginia fucking great. So the

(47:52):
exclusive is great. Those are those are important, Love them expensive,
but love them.

Speaker 1 (48:00):
Okay, but you've locked in your headliners? Where do you
go from there?

Speaker 2 (48:05):
Right? So if you have again, if you have kind
of slipknot closing a night, you got to program appropriately,
and you could we like to kind of stretch the
fishing net as much as we can without sorry to
use cliches jumping the shark on a slip not day.

(48:25):
So then you go down and you know, mega death.
I'm just throwing bands out, Lamma God, there are tons
of them, and I'll tell you there there is a
nice crop of bands right there on the cusp in
our world, including and again you may never have heard
of these bands that I'm about to say, and that's okay,

(48:47):
but bands like bad Omens, they're about there. An arena act,
Bring me the Horizon, a data remember falling in Reverse
and sorry to the word. If I'm missing a couple
in that immediate world, you know, a band like Eis
nine Kills, who Metallica is taking out right now? There
is movement, there is there is traction in the rock

(49:08):
hard rock world. And these are bands that you know
are melodic and very heavy and not mainstream, but the
core knows them. If I just said ban Oben's falling
in reverse to a bunch of rock fans are like that,
that's that's that they think they could headline a festival.
And again, I could look at you and I bet

(49:31):
you may have never heard of bad Omens.

Speaker 1 (49:32):
I have heard of those bands has been around for
a while.

Speaker 2 (49:37):
Yeah, yeah, let's let's go back.

Speaker 1 (49:40):
Let's talk about pricing. Can you buy a day ticket
or do you have to buy all four days?

Speaker 2 (49:47):
We go four day tickets out of the shoot four
day tickets? Single day there was uh we we will
uh priced here. Rock Oklahoma will start as a weekend
because again that's such a camping festival. So again, ninety
percent of that festival are campers, so you know predominantly

(50:08):
they're gonna want to They're gonna want the weekend pass
and the single day at that particular festivals is kind
of minimal because it's Oklahoma, so it's pretty much Oklahoma City, Tulsa,
maybe Arkansas, and a couple other cities. So out of
the gate, we will go single day, single day, VIP,
four day, four day, VIP, four day ticket plus camping,

(50:31):
four day ticket plus hotel. So there are a ton
of tiers.

Speaker 1 (50:35):
But you announce them sequentially. They don't all go on
sale the same time.

Speaker 2 (50:41):
They go on sale at the same time.

Speaker 1 (50:42):
They do go on sale at the same time.

Speaker 2 (50:44):
Yes, and it's kind of good research. You can kind
of see that.

Speaker 1 (50:48):
You know.

Speaker 2 (50:48):
Look, Saturday is a protected play. I'm in quotes right
now because yes, it's it's not hard to do research
to know that if a guy's going a single day,
he's off work, he's not going to church or a
football game on Sunday. Saturday is a good concert day.
Friday is too, So Thursday the Friday, and Saturday can

(51:13):
outperform the Thursday Sunday. It's a delight when we see
the Sunday out performing a Friday or Saturday.

Speaker 1 (51:20):
And once again I realize every festival is different. What
are the price ranges?

Speaker 2 (51:28):
Okay, so if you go onto Aftershock festival dot Com,
which if it's okay, I'd like to do because every
festival is different, because every city is different. And one
thing I love that we do when you go on
this website is well, immediately try to grab email addresses.

(51:51):
It's for research, it's for being part of the family.
It's for merch discounts, it's for early ticket discounts.

Speaker 1 (51:58):
You know. We like that.

Speaker 2 (52:00):
Again, fan is our boss. We like to ask them
what bands they want to see next year, what bands
they liked this year. Love the comments. So you're going
on aftershock dot com and well, let's.

Speaker 1 (52:14):
Go with the email. Let's say I register for the email.
How often am I going to hear from you? And
what's going to be the content?

Speaker 2 (52:23):
Uh, it's everything, It's it's Uh. You'll hear from us
on uh on a on a on a band that's performing,
that has a record coming out. You'll hear from us
on an interview that we did. We have our own
social media and video team and content. Uh, you'll hear
from us on on updates. You know, if if a
band has to drop and we replace, you'll be first

(52:45):
to know. So going back on on tickets, let's see
a a weekend, four day it's again I'm not I'm
not giving away seekers. It's right online we can four
day is around is around five hundred dollars, so it's

(53:06):
it comes out to be, you know, a little over
one hundred and change a day, okay.

Speaker 1 (53:13):
And how much is VIP and what do you get
for VIP?

Speaker 2 (53:18):
It depends. We have certain different VIPs. One standard VIP
will be a dedicated entrance will be access to the
VIP lounge, which usually is tree shaded furniture, live audio,
video streams of the main stages, water refill air conditioning
and flushable restrooms dedicated for merch, boose, private lockers, premium

(53:43):
food and drink offerings. And then there's there's this different
tiers on that.

Speaker 1 (53:49):
Okay, you were talking earlier. One hundred and seventy five
dollars and five dollars of band were you talking about
for four days or for one day?

Speaker 2 (53:59):
By the way, that's including fees. We don't hide fees.
So it's right there again on the website.

Speaker 1 (54:05):
But the example you were giving for one hundred and
seventy five dollars, is that a real price for one
of these festivals?

Speaker 2 (54:11):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (54:12):
And for one day or for four days.

Speaker 2 (54:14):
That's single day ticket, single day ticket.

Speaker 1 (54:17):
Okay. So generally speaking, you're in the same price range
as other festivals.

Speaker 2 (54:23):
I think so. But God, the value that we offer
to the rock fan.

Speaker 1 (54:28):
Okay, let's go. Let's stay as I'm looking at the aftershock.
You know on Thursday you have Slayer, well known, tell
me about Linda Man. Who's the next is built under Slayer?

Speaker 2 (54:42):
That is Till of Romstein. Yeah, so the again, the core, well,
we'll know who that is.

Speaker 1 (54:52):
Okay. If we go to the bottom of that stage
like a storm, what time will they go on? And
who are they?

Speaker 2 (54:59):
One o'clock cash? Like a storm is from down Under?
Funny enough? Fun fact? The drummer is the son of
Godsmax co manager. Fun fact.

Speaker 1 (55:13):
Okay, there are all these bands. There's like sixty to
one hundred.

Speaker 2 (55:20):
Bands of good bands. Man.

Speaker 1 (55:22):
Yeah, if I talk to you Gary and I say,
we're booking sixteen months out, okay, and we look at
the we start from day one in January of twenty
twenty four, and the show plays on May of twenty
twenty five. Will you already know? You personally? Will you

(55:44):
already know? In January twenty four? Every band that's playing
sixteen months later, or some of these new to you.

Speaker 2 (55:53):
Oh, some of these are art brand new. And looking
at this list, there's a scene that's happened that we
got into and we booked later than normal, which includes
Drain and Drug Church and gel and Military Gun. There
there's a new scene popping up and it's kind of like.

(56:13):
The leaders of that scene is a band called Turnstile,
who I adore. That's another tremendous d DWP story. I
found them on YouTube and the manager now is still
their manager. It's become a very dear friend of ours.
It's their Turnstile. At the time was like Fugazi meets

(56:34):
Green Day Ors. It was just they were doing shows
in gymnasiums and like rec centers. So there's there's a
real scene. So we grabbed onto this current scene again.
The leaders of this I don't know al core. Somebody's
gonna yell at me from probably not saying the genre right,

(56:56):
but looking looking at the poster of Aftershock, we wanted
to make sure that scene was really kind of taken
care of an account.

Speaker 1 (57:04):
For okay, broaden that what other bands were in that scene?

Speaker 2 (57:09):
All right, I'd go, let's say Drain Drug Church, flesh Water,
look out for Fleshwater Gel.

Speaker 1 (57:17):
Okay, every band, every band is incomparable. But what does
fresh water sound like?

Speaker 2 (57:23):
Fleshwater sound female lead from Los Angeles actually, which isn't
which is kind of unusual for this scene. Theyough military
guns from Los Angeles too, What do they sound like?
They sound like Green Day meets Damn It Bomb, green

(57:47):
Day meets Mastodon. There's there's punk, there's metal, and there's
alternative in this in this kind of movement.

Speaker 1 (58:01):
Okay, so in this movement, the audience that's aware of
this movement, how are they discovering this movement?

Speaker 2 (58:09):
It's it's uh a fall on word of mouth, social media,
di I y shows. I know, I know a promoter
whose name is Casey Smith who handles things like the
Catalyst in Santa Cruz and and venues in Berkeley and
up and down coastal California. This they're Santa Cruz. The

(58:33):
Santa Cruz area is eating it up. It's it's a
skate rap mentality, but there's but there's metal in it.
It's it's really unique and they and what I love
about this genre more than most is they like look
out for each other. If when Drain or Drug Church
is playing, every band of that scene is on the
side of stage watching them and rooting for them, and

(58:54):
they take each other out, which I feel rock needs
more of.

Speaker 1 (58:59):
Okay, so if flesh Water is playing your festival, that's
one thing. If they're not playing your festival, how many
tickets can they sell them? Where can they sell them?

Speaker 2 (59:10):
They're doing They're thousand plus now they're moving. One of
the last things I booked with Save Live was a
Fleshwater show in Oklahoma City. It's called beer City Music
Hall five hundred that went clean. And that's and they're
from Los Angeles, So there's a movement. There's a movement.

Speaker 1 (59:32):
Okay, let's say you're one of these bands in these movements.
Can you work every night of the week if you
want to? Is there a big enough audience across the country. Yeah?

Speaker 2 (59:43):
Yeah, And again they play like they don't play big places,
and they're in you know, they're doing at hardcore, they're
in vans, they're sleeping at friends houses. It's a real
kind of punk diy mentality. And I know for a
factor and style was living on couches. Another when they
launch in twenty five they're playing Madison Square Garden in

(01:00:04):
the forum.

Speaker 1 (01:00:05):
Okay, So I think it used to be a joke
when people would get a festival slot, and especially in
early slot twelve for one, and think that it could
help their career other than saying they played the festival
with so many fewer avenues of exposure. To what degreed
does playing one of your festivals. I'm talking about a

(01:00:26):
starting band, to what degree might that help their career?

Speaker 2 (01:00:30):
I pull bands aside Bob at these festivals and say,
look what you do for your thirty to forty minutes
at one thirty is not why you're here. You know,
put on your best show, leave the blood on the stage.
But you get involved in our media. We have media tents,
use our press, go see other bands. I know countless

(01:00:53):
stories of young bands that have played at one thirty
that have gotten onto support slots from bigger bands because
of our festival. And that's a perception thing. You know,
you're you're on the poster, You're on the poster with Metallica,
You're on the poster with food Fighters. You know, like
when when they're when they're when an agent or managers
pitching their young band perform with food fighters.

Speaker 1 (01:01:23):
What's the headliner worth money wise?

Speaker 2 (01:01:29):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:01:29):
Come on, now, okay, has the price to what degree
have you seen price inflation since COVID or has it
stayed steady?

Speaker 2 (01:01:40):
Now it's look, it's it's it's gone up. Part of
it's justifiable because of look, the gas for their tour
buses are more. There was a problem post COVID, right
out of COVID with crews and people took different career
year pass who were you know, working as a tech

(01:02:03):
or a roadie or and they they moved on and
those are became kind of scarce, so you pay them
appropriately because man, a good a good tour manager, a
good sound person is priceless, right, So their cost have
gone up and therefore that's that's the justifiable part. The

(01:02:23):
other part is a problem, and you know the the
and and all I could say to that is who's
going to speak the loudest will be the fan and
there will there can be an implosion.

Speaker 1 (01:02:39):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:02:39):
It kind of reminds me if you remember of the
record label days when in promoting with the independence, where
they just started gouging and gouging and increasing their rates
where it just got to be enough. There was there wasn't.
That wasn't a fan element. But I think there is
a is there. There can be a breaking point, and
we're starting to see that, you know, as some of

(01:03:00):
these festivals are going away. Some of those tours like
the Black Keys and j LO are are not happening.
So I think there's a breaking point.

Speaker 1 (01:03:11):
If I'm opening on one of your stages in one
of your four days, that's still five hundred to fifteen
hundred dollars.

Speaker 2 (01:03:21):
Sure, yeah, maybe a little.

Speaker 1 (01:03:22):
More, okay? And how did the prices go up? How
close to the headliner's performance do I have to be
for it to be real money?

Speaker 2 (01:03:33):
Look, we never have an issue. If I can, I'll
give the grid event Fleet example, because it's a good one,
you know, with the first time we booked them was
for five hundred dollars and they were totally buzzing. Fun story.
The last show of the run was Aftershock, which was

(01:03:54):
which was that payday, and they had a one point
thirty slot by this time in October of that cycle,
they were bigger there. And I'm going in quotes again,
their van broke down on the way to Aftershock and
they couldn't get there till six o'clock at night, and
of course we're all, okay, that's that's a good one.

(01:04:17):
And to this day I've talked to them and their
people like all right, just cop to it. Did your
and literally their van did break down, that's a true story,
but we're like, you got to play. So we worked
it out where they headlined the side stage at like
eight thirty pm and the only lights they had were
these kind of Christmas lights from their from their van.

(01:04:37):
It was it was adorable, but they had this great show.
So obviously we started a great relationship with that band.
And the next time, next cycle, their agent was like, okay,
you know, I know what you paid. Here's the number now,
and we're like, that's really high. But you know what
we're in because we there's no such Bob, there's no

(01:04:59):
such thing as a bad band, just a bad deal.
I didn't make that one up. That is an industry
that's an industry classic. So if the band's worth it,
we'll pay it.

Speaker 1 (01:05:12):
Generally speaking, you're booking so many bands, how many times
or maybe one hundred percent of the time are you
negotiating the price. It's like going in to buy a car.
The car salesman says the car is fifty thousand dollars.
There's not a buyer in the world to say I'm
taking it. Okay, they're going to counter offer? To what

(01:05:35):
degree when you're booking this talent? Is it a matter
of kinnter offering getting to the number or to what
degree is it I'll take it.

Speaker 2 (01:05:43):
Sure, there's a negotiation, there should be. You know where
I'm not a big quote price sky what's your quote?
What do you guys? You know, cause yes, if they
if they say one hundred is their quote and you
know they're worth half that. So look, you got to
do your research. You got to you got to do

(01:06:03):
your analytics. What what's the Spotify number? What's the I'm
a I'm a big YouTube guy because it's where I
live in a visual medium. So when I see a
new band, or I get send a new band like
please send me, Please send me your best video link,
or I could just find it on YouTube anyway, which
I do so, but I want to see what they

(01:06:25):
look like. I want to see their visuals. I want
to see and I want to see how they present themselves.
I want to see what the crowd's like. And then yeah,
the analytics of everything from Spotify, TikTok, Instagram, what what's
your what's your what's your followers, what's your monthly listeners?
And then the big one for me is hard tickets.
You know what's and I know that now because of

(01:06:48):
my m B A I got with with Save Live
of of two years plus working the heart ticket venue world.
I know when I'm getting hyped h and I know
a band's worth so hard tickets a hard ticket value
combined with all the spokes in the wheel I just
mentioned and radio airplay, and who's their team? You know,

(01:07:10):
I know good agents, I know good managers, I know
good lawyers, and I want to see who they've been
out with. So all that combined kind of let's well,
we have a line like we're this band's great. I
love this band, this great song. All right, let's dive
into it. Let's look at the analytics and even if

(01:07:31):
it's really young and the numbers aren't great, and you
still love it. You know, I remember the years ago.
I can la times. Paul to let have a quote,
He's like why why? The question is why did you
book that band? Like? I booked that band because I
liked them. They're cool and that's great, and we do
that like this, SPAN's cool. I like it. That was

(01:07:52):
that was turnstile.

Speaker 1 (01:07:54):
Okay, So when you decide you want someone, you get
a hold of the agent, you make an offer.

Speaker 2 (01:08:01):
Yeah, or they're already hitting us at this at this
point in our in our in our careers. And yeah,
we take the submission lists seriously. We we know batting,
we know batting averages. You know, there's certain agents like
at Kirk Summer, like the guy doesn't miss you know
his from from the Killers to Adele too. I'm sorry

(01:08:25):
I mess up his roster, but he's what Yeah, they're
all he there. And then there's guys who you know,
are hypers who this this is the one, Gary Dell,
this is the one. And you know I was in
record promotion for sixteen years. Man, you can't. You can't
hype a hyper I could. I could read through it

(01:08:47):
because that's what I did for sixteen years before. I
was on the other side and hyped and hype some
stuff that I didn't personally believe in. And that was
always a problem for me.

Speaker 1 (01:08:58):
By the way, what did you learn about hard tickets?
Working with Geigert? Saved Live.

Speaker 2 (01:09:04):
Like legit numbers. You know, I Mark is so good
at at separating his passion and gut from and so
and so is Danny from his brain? Uh, And I
I'm ever evolving. I'm an instinct passion guy. If I

(01:09:25):
like something, I will tell you without look. I have
a really good batting average. I just and that's from
being a drummer as a kid and being a music guy.
And like you, I'm song I'm a song driven man.
I know a good song. And I was working at
record labels and working with some really good radio programmers

(01:09:47):
because how you devise a festival is quite similar to
how you properly program a radio station. You know, if
when k Rock, Kevin Weatherley, name drop, who's probably the
best rock broadcaster in our lifetime, you should have them
on your show one day. He won't put when he
plays Metallica, the next song won't be wet Leg. You

(01:10:12):
got to get to wet Lake. How do you get
from Metallica to wet Leg, Metallica to the Foo Fighters
to Incubus to you can probably go Incubis to wet Leg.
So that's a good way to program and curate a festival.
I learned a lot, and so did Dell on our
record promotion days too. I feel have a step up

(01:10:36):
on festival curators.

Speaker 1 (01:10:38):
In terms of hard ticket sales. Do you rely on
the Polestar numbers? Or do you actually call people? How
do you get the number that you're faithful with?

Speaker 2 (01:10:47):
Both? Polestar's great somewhat of a bible, but they only
you know, we all know what the Polestar usually will
the people that turn in Polestar numbers are they're usually
because they're good, right, who's gonna? Who's Why would you
turn in bad post numbers to Pollstar? What good will
that do you? So? You know own venues? I knew

(01:11:09):
I knew I book bands, I book rock bands, hard
rock bands, metal bands, all bands. Sleep Token there's one there,
there's and I'm sorry I left them out, spirit Box
being another ghost being another Uh. Sleep Token is a
phenom and.

Speaker 1 (01:11:27):
Well ghost has been operating for number of years. I'm
fully up to speed on them. Sleep Token, I'm not
tell me the.

Speaker 2 (01:11:34):
Story there sleep tokens from Britain. Sleep Token is a
maxed band. Nobody knows what the lead singer looks like.
So there's a ghost uh kind of parallel. They're like
ghost meets Deftones. They're like heady thinking person's metal, very
kind of pink Pink Floyd's a weird reference, but I

(01:11:56):
mean that because they're spacey. Uh. The songs are space
The songs have space in them, like Deftones, but it's
rocking and it got it just connected, you know, Nick Storts,
the agent can't put his finger on it. It just connected.
They they sold out two days at Red Rocks in
four days at Radio City. I don't know if it's

(01:12:17):
fo multiple and their arena level. Now they can only
play in the dark. There's a couple bands that we
deal with that that won't that have to play in
the dark, which restricts us sleep Token being one of them.
But love them and sleep Token, Man, if there was
ten sleep Tokens, my job would be a lot easier.

Speaker 1 (01:12:39):
Okay, let's go back to an earlier story where I
forget the name of the band. You discovered them on YouTube?
Were you literally just independently coursing around YouTube and you
found them?

Speaker 2 (01:12:50):
Yes? And I love Algorithms can be the devil, right,
but sometimes there's algorithm heaven. I'm gonna I'm gonna tell
you about a band that dropped from the Algorithm's sky
to me. They're a band called My First Time. They
have a song called Wark where it is Arctic Monkeys
meets wet leg. They are unsigned, they have no agent,

(01:13:14):
the manager. I've fell in love with it. Anybody listening,
go find My First Time. If that was nineteen ninety nine,
a major label would snap them up, Alternative radio would
jump on it, and they'd be on MTV buzz bind
and see you later, Charlie. I invited them to play
at Rockville, and I convinced Danny and Dell and we

(01:13:36):
had an opening slot on the Food Fighter stage and
I often and they turned it down, which made me
want them more. Of course, I think because the money
that we actually had. This is to the point of
an earlier like why the numbers they can't They couldn't
get their work, visas and the flights. And that's why
it's so hard for bands overseas and rock to break
in America because, unlike you know, overseas, you can place

(01:14:00):
to ten shows, you get on NMA, you get a
melody maker, you play the festivals, you can get real traction,
and that doesn't work in America. You gotta grind, you
gotta play you gotta play Des Moines, you gotta play Fargo, Duluth.

Speaker 1 (01:14:15):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:14:17):
So back to your thing on Turnstyle. Yes, what I
do in music discovery is all there's that's a you know,
Spotify and YouTuber outstanding to me that way on the
right side of YouTube there's bands and this particular turnstyle.
I just anybody listening go to like YouTube turnstyle, like

(01:14:38):
Turnstyle twenty seventeen, and you'll find the craziest shit. Like
fans couldn't not they had to be on stage and
the band I couldn't stay on stage. It's just this
there was a community spirit. So that's why I brought
up Fugazi, that there was no boundary between stage and
band and fan, between stage and the audience. And I

(01:15:01):
just flipped out and there was so much energy there
and I just I have to I got to book
this band. And I don't remember the band I was
looking at or following that led me to turnstile. I
have no idea.

Speaker 1 (01:15:15):
If I am early in the day, do I have
a radius clause M yep.

Speaker 2 (01:15:22):
But we're again, we're flexible because we also realize those bands,
say you're in a van, you can't get front like
welcome to Rockville and Sonic Temple are back to back weekends.
That's Florida to Columbus, Ohio. You got to get from
Daytona Beach to Columbus. So we so you play Charleston.

(01:15:44):
I'm just doing a simple map, and you play Savannah
and Charleston and Norfolk and you got to get to Columbus.
And if they're like, look, man, there's no avails because
of your festival. All the bands have taken up the
outside radius. Can we please play Lexington, Kentucky and if
it's a three hundred seater and we'll talk about it. Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:16:14):
Conventional wisdom is rock doesn't stream. Do you believe that?
And if so, what are your thoughts.

Speaker 2 (01:16:21):
Why I don't. The answer is no, but it doesn't
stream as much as popular music. To my earlier point,
I think rock was always on the wrong side of
the tracks. Another band that I should bring up to
you Knocked Loose, get Ready. They're on a They're on
a rocket to the moon. They have a song called

(01:16:41):
Slaughterhouse that has thirty seven million Spotify hits listens. That's
a really good number, thirty seven mil for a band
that has zero zero terrestrial radio airplay, so you find
those uh yeah, I mean you know, you look at
Beyonce or Taylor and there's no competition, But then you

(01:17:06):
look at like again, food fighters. I think I looked
at last Night it's what twenty three million monthly listeners.
That's that's pretty damn good.

Speaker 1 (01:17:15):
Although there's a difference between acts that broke in the
MTVVH one era and certainly since twenty ten. It's a
different marketplace. But okay, you have the six festivals this year?
How many rock festivals of this stretch? People who are
not in the business have no idea how much it
takes to put these things on. You don't snap your fingers.

(01:17:38):
A good idea and execution are different. But is this
an underserve market? Could we have another seven or ten
of these? Or are you pretty much covering it?

Speaker 2 (01:17:50):
I think Look, I think DWP has the the flag
in the sand. There's not there's boxes that you should
check when you think about doing this in our In
my opinion, when you look at a market or a region,
is there what what's the festival layout? Is there? Is

(01:18:11):
it a shed market where where these rock bands are
going to play the shed? Louisville not a shed market,
Daytona Beach not a shed market. Columbus, Ohio not a
shed market. Is there feeder markets big on that where
people could come in? Is there radio support? Because again
in rock, I can't speak for other formats or genres,

(01:18:33):
but terrestrial radio is still very powerful because the number
I don't know if I should on the data and
the data if it's not number one, it's right there,
the number one way. You've heard about this festival through
the local rock radio station, which is nice. Granted, they
should play out more new music, and they they they're

(01:18:56):
scared of it and that that pisses me off. But
that's a whole other story. So I think there's boxes
you should check, and I don't see a lot of
markets or regions where I would check all the boxes
where you could say that we haven't covered that, where
you could say, yeah, there needs to be a rock
festival there.

Speaker 1 (01:19:14):
Now since you've been doing this for an excess of
a decade, or any festivals that you shut down and why.

Speaker 2 (01:19:23):
I told you about, you know, the partnership with AEG
there was let's see what, uh you're always looking for
the bad huh? Yeah, Look, things run its course for
what was the one in Dover that AEG had that
was a good one? Damn it.

Speaker 1 (01:19:40):
Uh I'm aware of the third parties, But you have
a very specialized festival and you don't have an unlimited
bank account. So I'm wondering if you've learned anything from
things that haven't worked.

Speaker 2 (01:19:53):
Yeah, there was one like we used to. We had
a couple of great experiences with something we called Chicago
Open Air in Chicago, uh where, and we had tool
and system of a down one year, but Chicago Lollapalooza,
Wrigley Field, Pitchfork a shed number three market in America.
Every band's playing there. We're kind of a big serve

(01:20:16):
the underserved. We're kind of, you know, hit them where
they ain't. We're Southwest Airlines, you know. That's the that's
the mentality of that kind of a nice unspoken mission statement. Louisville, Kentucky, Jacksonville,
Florida now Daytona Beach, Florida, Sacramento, the Saint New York
or Los Angeles, uh so, Chicago. For those reasons. We

(01:20:40):
did one in Fort Myers, Florida, which was a sister
of Welcome to Rockville, which we called Fort rock which
was because of Fort Myers did that for a couple
of years to kind of reading and leads it, you know,
for for the Saturday bands, put them on the Sunday.
But Fort Myers wasn't big enough.

Speaker 1 (01:20:59):
Okay, what is the demo who comes to your festival?
What are the ages?

Speaker 2 (01:21:05):
I'm going to go with an overall twenty five to
forty nine, with the core for thirty four to forty
four being it. And you sure you see kids, Sure
you see kids with dads and moms, and sure you
see teenagers in bulk, but the core is that kind

(01:21:26):
of thirty four to twenty nine to forty four Bob
sixty five, male thirty five maybe a little more more
than you think on female.

Speaker 1 (01:21:39):
Okay, you talked about it generally financial paycheck to paycheck.
I don't want to use the term blue collar, but
let's just use the term lower middle class. The people
who buy VIP are they a different economic stratum? Yes?
And no.

Speaker 2 (01:21:58):
I mean it's value priced, they're they're all of there's
there's again, there's there's camping, there's literal PLoP up a tent.
God bless them for four days in a tent. You know,
I'm clamping at best middle aged Jewish man myself. There's
Hotel v I P. So yeah, the I don't know

(01:22:21):
the higher price there. There's a guy who I met
who's a dentist. His name's Giddis. Shout out to Gidas
if he's listening. Guy uh who is a dentist in Detroit,
and him and his wife Sarah, this is there. They
go all in super v I P. There. They just
love rock and roll. This is their vacation. I think

(01:22:42):
he has like a I think he also has like
a Michigan lake house too. He does very well for himself,
but he that spare no expense. You know. There's a
certain core of that where they grew up with rock
and roll and this is this is their dream weekend.
It's it's guid us by the way.

Speaker 1 (01:23:00):
Sorry, let's say it's dark. It's on the main stage.
A Trump impersonator comes out, somebody dresses Trump. What's the
audience reaction going to be?

Speaker 2 (01:23:13):
Could this? Could this be another podcast? Fortunately? Bob as
I am. When it comes to politics, for me, it
is all about character and morals and empathy and having
the government be supporting and not having the government being
a punisher. So that's where my politics lie. And that's

(01:23:36):
predominantly every person who I deal with behind the scenes
at a festival too. And fortunately, God bless these festivals.
And I'm telling you are very apolitical. We haven't had
one instance of that. Man, I'm telling you.

Speaker 1 (01:23:51):
Let me change the question. The perception of this audience
is the lean right would that be accurate?

Speaker 2 (01:24:02):
That is the generic h uh thought? And if that
was the case, I would have a hard time doing
my job as a as as as a person again
of of of moral character. That is not the case.
It is when I say they leave their politics and
at the door at the front gate, they really do. Again,

(01:24:25):
I've I've never seen i haven't seen it. And I'm
really and uh and and maybe it's just the true
nature of this community of this rock festival. I'm not
blowing smoke. I would tell you. I'm I'm an open
book on this on this stuff. We were We're in
the throes of a coup right now, God help us.

(01:24:48):
And I'm just hoping that, uh, that sanity wins out.
And unfortunately, again at these festivals, bands are a political
but they'll speak from their heart and nobody's It's never
been an issue, And if it was, I would tell.

Speaker 1 (01:25:05):
You what about fights in violence?

Speaker 2 (01:25:08):
No, you know that the whole the old saying of
if you see something in the mosh pits and the
slam dancing, you can see somebody down, pick them up,
it's not and and and that these people are drinking
all day it's not violent. It's it's wonderful. I I
just I urge anybody who has doubts, and I've gotten
a lot of people down off the fence to come

(01:25:29):
to one of these festivals, and the energy is vibrant
and alive. And the last thing you think about at
these festivals is that rock is dead. It is the
I'm telling you, And that's what makes me happy because
I am just such a flag waiver of rock and roll.
I'm a rock and roll kid. I could give you
my trajectory from from the British Invasion to Cream and

(01:25:52):
Zeppelin and Henrix to Bowie that led me.

Speaker 1 (01:25:56):
Okay, let's let's just put a bow on this. You
live at where you have a festival, Your sixteen year
old daughter comes to you and says, I want to
go for a day to one of these Danny Wimer festivals.
You say, have at it, or you say, well, who
you're going with? Maybe I'll take you. What would you
say as a.

Speaker 2 (01:26:16):
Parent as a parent, as a parent, yeah, who you
going with? Sure, I've been a big live show. My kids,
my two children have seen more than I'll ever see.
And yes, outside Lands, Coachella, Goveball, my kids have been
to a lot of these festivals. DWP festivals are completely safe.

(01:26:38):
Have at it. Who you going, how are you going with?
Have at it? Have an amazing time. Keep keep your
cell phone on you let me know where you are here,
and here's who here's who you should see.

Speaker 1 (01:26:50):
Okay, we've mentioned all of these acts that a lot
of America is unfamiliar with the people. Are you listening
to this spot? Cast Ethan? Is there any chance that
these bands I'm gonna use cliches will cross over, but
let me just put it a different way, will become

(01:27:11):
much bigger than they presently are. I'm talking about new acts.
There weren't the beneficiaries of the old system MTV, when
terrestrial radio was much more powerful acts from the last
ten or twelve so years.

Speaker 2 (01:27:26):
Yes, well, look in one band I'll mention that is
from that area you mentioned that is currently having a
big crossover successes the band shine Down. But so there
is hope you know wait.

Speaker 1 (01:27:43):
Wait wait, shine Down is from a long time Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:27:45):
I just said that. Yeah, so you know. No, there's
not many rock bands that cross over. That's okay for us,
that's okay. Meanwhile, like I said, Knock Lou, a band
that has zero rock airplay, Terrestrial has thirty seven million

(01:28:07):
hits on their song Slaughterhouse.

Speaker 1 (01:28:10):
Okay, let me be very direct when I get Ryan
Downey's email, when I look at the active rock tracks,
I say, if I played this for the average person,
they would say turn it off. Okay. And then I
analyze the music a lot of times, some of it
does have melody, but a lot of it doesn't. So,
if you put on your record industry hat and you

(01:28:32):
were with one of these bands and you wanted to
broaden their audience, what is it that these bands have
or do not have such that they're in this cocoon.
It's not insignificant you have all these festivals, But what
would it have to change in the music such that
more people would be interested in.

Speaker 2 (01:28:54):
Songs? Again, I personally wouldn't work with a band that
didn't start as songwriters. As I said, the things that
went at these festivals energy, songs, attitude, and I put
songs as a one B because you can get away
at our festivals with a thirty to forty five minute
set with total energy. But you're gonna plateau. You know,

(01:29:17):
you're gonna, you're gonna, you're gonna just fall fall off
the rock and roll cycle. You need songs. So bad
Omens has has a song called v An with Poppy
that is I would think, and look, I don't know
what hot Ac your top forty is actually doing. I'm

(01:29:38):
that is. I'm not totally paying that close attention to
to those charts personally, but.

Speaker 1 (01:29:45):
Well, you know, at this point in time, all that
stuff means less. If something catches fire, radio is less.
But we're living in the rock is somewhat ghetto wise.
So the question, and we all know you know when
you hear it, So the key is what would it
take for it to be broader? Now you talk about
sixty seven, seventy whatever needle to say. You know, certainly

(01:30:09):
by the time you hit the seventies, AOARFM radio ruled
the country even though there was a pop chart. So
rock is actually a pretty big ten and the type
of band you were purveying or a slice of that ten,
But it's much broader. Is it the fact that these

(01:30:29):
acts are not moving to these other areas. I'm basically saying,
what is the future for rock music? This scene is
very healthy, but what does it take it to make
it broader?

Speaker 2 (01:30:40):
I've met when I youtubed, when I fell into that
Turnstile algorithm, I never thought. I never thought in a
million years that band would write a song like Blackout
or TLC again using turnstyle. That song was all over KRQ.
I never thought that band could do that. I just
loved their energy. Now they have energy and songs and

(01:31:02):
they're gonna They're gonna play arenas. So if you have,
if you're, if you're, if you have it is back
to the basics. You gotta deliver live in rock and roll.
You have to. You have to have a great live show.
And then when you have, there's an old saying, you're
a song away. Right and Turnstile, which was a five

(01:31:24):
hundred dollars band not too long ago, is now an
arena band because of their bass, because of their live show,
and because of the songs they now write.

Speaker 1 (01:31:34):
The undercard because you're booking a lot of bands to
what degreed do those bands continue to slog out or
a lot of those acts just call it a day.

Speaker 2 (01:31:45):
Yeah, and they you know, they they we it's not
our it's not our job too. How should I say this?
It's not it's not the festival's job to break the band.
We like to have a part and would like to help.
If we're into a band, we want to support as
much as we can. So at a certain point, yeah,

(01:32:05):
if they plateau and they keep on coming back every
cycle every two years and hitting us up, there's a
certain point where we have to kind of cut the
chord and find find the flesh Water who was Fleshwater
four years ago, right, who is like, we're into that band,
we're gonna put you on, we believe in you, we're

(01:32:26):
gonna get we're gonna give you a nice profile. And
then there's a certain point where a band and their
team have to prove it and keep on going. We
have we have countless stories of that, from Knock Loose
to bad Omens to five Finger Death Punch. They opened
up a main stage. Now they're a headline hard rock
bad act because they have a ton of songs they

(01:32:48):
have popa roach. You can do a sixty minute hit
set to the core to these forty thousand fans and
they'll that those fans will know every song, so songs win.

Speaker 1 (01:33:00):
Okay. Now you come from the record company world. It
cracks me up when the record companies get a hold
of me and they'll stay, you want to see this show,
and they have a ticket buy. These are major labels
with like ten tickets. You know, I don't need their ticket.
I get it from the promoter. But to what degree
did the record company even fit into your business?

Speaker 2 (01:33:22):
Less and less? It's kind of sad, you know, because
I've been I was. I grew up with record labels,
you know, I knew which label the doors were on
and and Sire Records and I R S what a
great label? Yeah, you know there I used. The radio
chart used to be in our early days, a big

(01:33:45):
influencer of of what bands to look at, especially for
the undercart. It's it's now, it's it's nice spoken the wheel. Uh,
I think you you you said it. You know, movie
studios and major record labels are released less. You know,
it's sad, man, it's uh. I'm so loyal to a fault.

(01:34:08):
You know, I root for for the old school. I was.
I was. I think I was the last human I
knew who had the BlackBerry and not I have. I
have switched everybody. So and rock and roll is a
loyal thing too, you know. It's rock and roll is
jazz with great with songs that are that are forever

(01:34:31):
embedded into our lives.

Speaker 1 (01:34:34):
So you've had festivals played this year twenty twenty four.
What have you learned this year?

Speaker 2 (01:34:41):
Uh? Curate, properly, give them, give them the appropriate ticket price,
bulk wins, and treat your fans right. Give, don't keep.
Don't keep them in the dark. It's it's about the fans.
Without them, they're are no festivals.

Speaker 1 (01:35:01):
What do you mean keep them in the dark.

Speaker 2 (01:35:03):
Don't keep them? Did I say keep him in the dark?

Speaker 1 (01:35:04):
No, you said, don't keep him in the dark. What
do you mean, keep.

Speaker 2 (01:35:08):
Them informed, keep them engaged? I think it was Dean
de Leo, my friend of a stone too, a pilot said, Gary,
when we do a show, we hit him out, We
hit him over the head with a hammer. Just just
hit them with information. Have great, great apps for for
scheduling if there's weather issues, keep them informed, keep them

(01:35:30):
in and keep them in the know. They like that.

Speaker 1 (01:35:35):
Okay, you know fifteen years ago everybody was festival crazy.
There's been a pullback in the UK. There's been a
lot of festivals canceled. What do you think of the
festival landscape going forward.

Speaker 2 (01:35:52):
I'm of the belief that if you're branded, and you
have your you have your mission statement, and you and
you know what you are as a festival, you should
do good business. If you're a festival that just plops
up the bands that I mentioned a while ago, I'm

(01:36:13):
gonna put on a festival and UH in a park
with Siza and Noah Kahn and Blink one eighty two.
Those won't survive. Branded events, UH will survive. And if
and and if you have a great marketing staff.

Speaker 1 (01:36:31):
Well tell me about the market staff. How you know
you've sent everything down? How do you get the word out?
Which is harder than ever before? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:36:40):
Cracking, that's cracking the codeh man. That is if if
if we knew how to crack the code, then are
then we'd all be zillionaires. But with Rock again, it
when I say paycheck to paycheck, things don't blow out
in Rock a lot. It is a rind. The more

(01:37:01):
and that's the more window you can have, the better
for a show. Keep your marketing fresh, keep it, keep
your audience engaged, use radio appropriately, use social media right.
Band engagement more critical than ever. And it's not just
like an iPhone video. Hey, this is so and so

(01:37:21):
from the band so and so. See it Rockville, you
get them, you know, do a guitar lesson, showing me
your new song and and and the chord struck. It's
it's keeping him engaged. Having said that, where I have
a where I try to draw the line, Bob, maybe
you two. I love the mystique of rock and it.

(01:37:44):
You know, MTV took the took the Wizard of oz
cape down a little bit. Where that that guy, that
rock star that you can only dream of on on
stage or on the album he's writing, he's right in
your face. You know twenty four to seven that that
empty takes a steak out of rock. It's not as special.
So there's that fine line. But god, it's not enough

(01:38:07):
to have a great song. You have to know how
to you know, TikTok. Right, That's that's that's just the
sad truth.

Speaker 1 (01:38:14):
Have you had any viral moments on TikTok with promoting
these festivals. Have you found that it's worked for you
in any special way?

Speaker 2 (01:38:23):
Yeah, certain bands have have, like definitely Instagram TikTok moments.
You know what we like is uh? For instance, Disturbed
Q Prime has as a as a number one rock
song with Ann Wilson of Heart and they're playing our festivals.
So what they do they'll grab a lower level rock

(01:38:45):
band as a female lead singer on our shows and
ask them to do the duet when especially now because
Anne is going to be recovering from cancer and hope
she does. That goes viral. There was a it was
Ash Costello of the New Year's Day who played probably
I think one or two o'clock, and there she was
in front of forty thousand singing this song with Disturbed,

(01:39:08):
went viral. Dave Yes the if you maybe maybe you
caught it Mammoth Wolfgang Mammoth w the h played earlier
in the day and he was side a stage and
Dave had what he does is he introduces everybody and
he starts playing eruption, and then he starts playing with
one hand, and then he starts playing with no hands

(01:39:29):
and shoot to Wolfie on the side completely went viral.
So those special moments we love that.

Speaker 1 (01:39:37):
You've certainly been to Coachella. Let's say I just five
thousand people from Coachella and I put them down in Rockville.
What would their reaction be.

Speaker 2 (01:39:49):
I think they would fucking flip out. I think they
would love it because that that was the ed M
guy with the with the with the laptop, you know,
creating the drop. That's all these songs. That's what these
rock songs are. Verse chorus, verse chorus, breakdown, middle eight
course chorus. They would I think, Bob, they would love

(01:40:12):
the energy, and that is what we do. It's look,
it's part super serving on the left and then part
education on the right. And I don't know if it's
it's maybe it's seventy thirty super serve educate, maybe it's
a little less. I like the educate. I like turning
bands onto people, and I have forced industry people to come.

(01:40:36):
I forced John McHugh to come to Rock on the
Range and we ended up doing a documentary about which
You're in the rock, about the rock festivals called long
Live Rock. There's a plug for you. So yes, all
day long, Coachella kids with your VIP and your daddy's money,

(01:40:56):
come out to one of our festivals.

Speaker 1 (01:40:58):
And your kids are how old?

Speaker 2 (01:41:00):
I have a twenty seven year old in Berlin and
a twenty five year old who is at Wasserman right
now in Brooklyn. They know they don't live in Manhattan.
They all live in Brooklyn.

Speaker 1 (01:41:10):
Yeah, can't afford to live in Manhattan.

Speaker 2 (01:41:12):
Never mind, Brooklyn is now hip but yeah and expensive.

Speaker 1 (01:41:15):
You call them and say, I'm gonna fly out to
my festival. Are they into this kind of music?

Speaker 2 (01:41:22):
That's a hard pass for them?

Speaker 1 (01:41:24):
Okay? How about your wife?

Speaker 2 (01:41:28):
Jill has been The great story of Jill Spivac is
she went to Louisville and Eddie Vedder, who at the
at the last song throws out tambourines, and there was
we were side of stage, and he had two. He
threw one out in the crowd and he threw one
to the side and she caught it. And it is

(01:41:49):
now in our playroom, not to be touched. It's it's
a spinal tap guitar. You can barely look at it.
But no, Jill, Jill's Jill, my kids. I'll tell you
what if Radiohead tours we're traveling we're deadheads for them,
so we'll go out with radio.

Speaker 1 (01:42:07):
Okay, But Radiohead could never be at one of the
Danny Wimmer rock festivals.

Speaker 2 (01:42:11):
That's okay, Radio he doesn't en play with guitars anymore,
so so that's nowhere. Yes, the Radiohead won won't be
playing one of these festivals.

Speaker 1 (01:42:22):
Yes, And since you've been doing these festivals, tell me
about two performances that stick in your head.

Speaker 2 (01:42:34):
What put us on the map in two thousand and
eight was the return of their first show in seven
years of the Stone Temple Pilots with Scott Land Big
Band for our Core sold it out. That put people
in the industry like, oh, those guys aren't fucking around.

(01:42:55):
And then probably what comes to mind is the Food Fighters.
At the first time we had the Foo Fighters Welcome
to Rockville, and something happened in that crowd and Dave Grohl,
Pat Smear Chris will cite that show as one of
their favorite American shows ever he can YouTube it because

(01:43:17):
something there was an insane amount of crowdsurfing, to the
point where Dave stopped the song and goes, hey, promoters,
is there, like, do you guys have like a crowdsurfing
contest going it was hysterical. It just worked. Man, when
a band connects, they're like the ultimate. They're the they're
the ault. They could play in your backyard. They're they're
the ultimate rock and roll party band because they have energy,

(01:43:41):
songs and attitude and and that and production at the
songs and it just works. So those two shows come
to mind. Thank you for asking that question.

Speaker 1 (01:43:51):
And then you were just at Wimbledon. That's an event.
Did you learn anything at wimbled in that you can
translate into your own business?

Speaker 2 (01:43:59):
It's the you know, that's that's Coachella. You know, you go,
you go to Coachella and you're like the grass and
how compact it was. And I like that, you know
at at at at Sonic Temple in Ohio, it's it's
in a stadium and then there's grounds you can kind
of put your arms. I hate these vast festivals where

(01:44:19):
you're getting your steps in too much. And no, thank
you for asking. It was Wimbledon was remarkable and everything
I thought it would be. And I wish I was
there still because that is the mecca. As you know,
I want to go to Glastonbury. I haven't been. I

(01:44:40):
feel that's probably the mecca of the overseas festivals.

Speaker 1 (01:44:44):
Without talking about Glastonbury. Is every festival branded separately or
is there one place where you can go as a
consumer and find all of these rock festivals.

Speaker 2 (01:45:00):
Danny Rember Presents. Yeah, they're they're all there. We we
will do certain packages, but we'd like to separate them.
You know. It's it's it's a company whose hedgehog, whose
wheelhouse is rock festivals. But there is Bourbon and beyond
there is Golden Sky, which is a country festival, and

(01:45:20):
and and then there's a big casino business that the
company has too. But yeah, it's it's, it's all there.
I don't see another company doing what this company does
and just waving the rock flag when very few want to.
You know, it's it's it's it's a passion play and

(01:45:40):
it's it's hard. It's it's it's it's hard to put
these on. It takes a fucking village. And it's in negotiating.
I love to negotiate, I love to hustle, and it's
just it's just a siege on on on your nervous system.
But it's it's what I signed up for, you know.

(01:46:01):
They what's saying, Uh, you don't find rock and roll,
rock and roll finds you. I'm a sucker in that.
Can I tell you something? Yeah, And I just thought
of this. I graduated from University of Colorado. My father,
who's still alive, my mom, who passed. My dad joined

(01:46:21):
to start up in nineteen sixty two called ibm uh
huh was an IBM or and here I am a
ski rat and a drummer. And what I got for
my graduation was a briefcase in a suit. I just
and I could laugh about it now with my dad,
but I was so pissed off because they, like, they

(01:46:43):
didn't get me. That's not I want to I want
to be a drummer. I want to be in rock
and roll. And I'm like, all right. So I had
this dichotomy, you know, of growing up in a businessman's
house but loving rock and roll. Like, I guess, if
I'm not going to be a rock and roll drummer,
I'm gonna I'm gonna find a way to be in

(01:47:05):
the business of music.

Speaker 1 (01:47:08):
Okay, So they gave you the suit in the briefcase,
you got your diploma. Then what.

Speaker 2 (01:47:16):
There was two shows that shape my life. One was
The US Festival, I wouldn't be here talking to you,
which again I'm extremely grateful and humble about at this moment.
But the US Festival, and in eighty three and then
Jane's Addiction did seven shows at the John Ansen Ford
Theater in Hollywood, two thousand capacity. Quick story on that.

(01:47:37):
I'm a kid, I'm a young twenty four year old
and I get lost in that show, like mentally lost,
and there's I've since talked to Perry Ferrell about this,
and he remembers there was a rope between the you know,
you know, Jennet's four right on the left side and
right side there's a little kind of VIP area. Somehow, somehow,

(01:47:59):
my I, my friend and I Joshua Barbone found our
way Mark Pollock, Hi, Mark got us tickets and I
found my way to this VIP and there's a rope
that connected to the monitors and this VIP area and
they were playing pigs and zen and I climb up,
I jump on the rope and I'm I'm hanging on
a rope like a monkey, and soon enough like security

(01:48:22):
grabs me and I get kicked out. This is before
cell phones, and I'm out, and this is like one
of the greatest shows of my life. And I'm like,
I gotta find my way back in, and I sneak backstage.
I don't know how I got it, but I sneak
back and I have to be incognito. And it was
a bunch of Hollywood freaks out there, but there was
one average looking dude. I'm like, that guy could be

(01:48:42):
in my fraternity and I go up to him and
we watched half a song and I go, Hi, I'm
Gary and he goes, hey, I'm Mark, and I go
what do you do? He's like, I'm the agent for
the band, and I go in my mind, I'm like,
I better say something. I'm like, how big is John
answered fours? It's about two thousand, and I do, like
seven nights fourteen thousand, Wow, you could have booked the Forum.

(01:49:07):
And he looks at me like only Mark Geiger knows
how to look at somebody and goes the Forum We're
playing seven fucking Nights at John Ansen Ford and walks away.
And that was the first time I met Mark Geiger. Anyway,
I go back to the show and I end up
getting an interview through a girlfriend that I was dating

(01:49:29):
at Electra records to be an assistant, and I didn't
want it. I didn't want the job. I had long hair,
I didn't know what I was doing. But I go
into the meeting at five point thirty. I'll never forget this.
The head of promotion, his name is Brad Hunt. Love
him and hate him for getting me into this world.
He has a stack of resumes and he looks at

(01:49:50):
my resume and words to the wise to any young
person listening when you go to interview, just be relaxed
and be you, because that's what I was at certain
interview because I didn't really care, and he looks at
my resume. He goes ah University of Colorado, and this
is the year the Colorado Buffalo's won the national championship.
And I'm kind of a big college football guy too,

(01:50:11):
so that our interview was fifty minutes of talking about
college football and then your favorite bands and everything, and
he's like, you know what I'm gonna I'm going to
leave this resume over here. I'm having a going away
party a couple nights later, because I was going to
move to San Francisco and live with my college roommate,
Rodney Lou who was a stockbroker and he had an

(01:50:33):
apartment and take my drum set and go live in
San Francisco. And I'm having to go away party in
the phone rings and I pick it up. I'm like hello,
He's like Gary, this is this is Brad Hunt and
I'm doing a sign now I cut the music, cut
off the party. Mike kai Brad and he's like, what
do you think about San Francisco? And I go for

(01:50:53):
an assistance job. He's like, no, I got a better
idea something about you. I'm going to put you in
the field and I'm going to offer you twenty seven
thousand dollars. And I was twenty five. Do you remember
the time when like you made more than your age.
I was like a big moment.

Speaker 1 (01:51:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:51:12):
So I'm like yes. And so I'm like, hey, everybody,
I just got a job. So I became the Electro
local in San Francisco and it was glorious for four months,
and then I got a call that Electra Records this
is ninety one was cutting its staff in half. So

(01:51:32):
because I was so cheap, they were so cheap, and
I had such a cheap salary, they didn't fire me,
and they moved me to Denver, so because I went
to the University of Colorado and I spent six months
in as the Denver local and bob to this day
as a ski rat. I'll never forget it. It was
the first snowfall and I had all my ski passes

(01:51:53):
lined up because of all the local radio stations, and
Brad Hunt again called me. It's like, I'm going to
promote you to Los Angele like, this is ten months
and I'm looking at the snow. I'm like, ah, I'm
going home. And that led to Electure in Los Angeles,
and at the time this is now if you remember,
there were about twenty alternative stations and I knew something

(01:52:16):
was going to click. I knew something was going to
happen with that format, and I worked at Electra and
loved it. It's where I met Dell Williams, by the way,
and I took a job at MCA Records as the
head of Alternative, which was the worst alternative label for
alternative in the industry, but it did have a guy

(01:52:38):
named Gary Kerr first God bless him, who had a
label called Radioactive who had the Ramones and a couple
other bands, but he had this band Live that had
throwing copper and that I broke Live with Gary. That
became my resume. That led me to Atlantic, which that's

(01:53:00):
where my two kids were born, led me to Capital,
and led me to my final and by the way Capital,
I got to work with Radiohead, and I took a
band that nobody believed in and nobody in America wanted
to hear about, called Coldplay. They had a song called Yellow,
Sorry for giving You My life story, No No Go,

(01:53:24):
and very few people believed in it. There was a
station at Portland, Oregon, K and RK and Lisa Warden
at K Rock and they put Yellow in and the
rest for that band is history. And we broke Coldplay.
A new regime came in which happens at record labels,
or happened at record labels, and I was one of
seventeen vice presidents. When I was fired, I was one

(01:53:46):
of two vice presidents remaining, me and Rob Borden, and
I was let go because I just wasn't part of
their plan. And for anybody listening who hasn't been fired,
I hope you get fired one day, because it was
the greatest thing that happened to me in many ways
at the time, it was fucking heartbreaking and scary, and

(01:54:08):
I went out on my own terms. I got one
more label job, but Geffen was just a stop because
I was thinking about what am I going to do?
And that's when myself and Dell Williams aligned and Danny
Wimmer and we formed right our entertainment and started rocking
the range of Carolina Rebellion, and that led me to
where I am at this very moment.

Speaker 1 (01:54:27):
Okay, just one fill in. Most people graduated from college
at twenty two. You didn't get the job with Brad
Hunt at twenty five? Would you do in that period
of time?

Speaker 2 (01:54:39):
I farted around. I took a job with Premiere Radio
Networks in selling syndicated radio shows to radio stations. I
think that helped with Brad Hunt, though he cared more
about college football seriously, and that led me to meet
Mark Pollock, who was at home Holliwood reporter, who led

(01:55:01):
me to get Jane's Addiction tickets. So I had that job.
I was drumming in a couple struggling LA bands. One
of them was called the Riddom bandits an all white
reggae band. R I D D I M. I love
reggae music. And at the time I thought reggae would
take over the world. And this reggae that I personally

(01:55:22):
really love is mostly like the British Steel Pulse oz
Wad that there's a punk ethic with those bands that
I that I really enjoyed. Bob Marley of course, Black Ohuru.
So we were a roots reggae band and we we
got on K Rock's Reggae Revolution, big moment I got.
We got opening gigs for Ecamouse and Yellow Man, and

(01:55:44):
we had a couple label meetings. One of them was
IRS Records, and one of the A and R guys
it was like Junior and our guys said, you know,
because I was a spokesperson because everybody else was too
stoned or whatever about things. And they said, one guy said,
you'd be really good at promotion, and I'm like, what's that?

(01:56:05):
And I led me to interview at IRS. By the way,
they ended up not signing the Ridden Bandits. Obviously, they
went with dread Zeppelin. Remember that one, of course you do.
Of course I love that for anybody who doesn't know
dread Zeppelin. They were a reggae band covering Zeppelin songs,
but the lead singer was an Elvis Presley impersonator. How

(01:56:26):
about that lost out to that. I think they live
comfortably in the where they now filed. Right.

Speaker 1 (01:56:32):
Okay, did you ever use the suit your father got?

Speaker 2 (01:56:35):
Ye? Yeah, probably that friend's the younger kids bar mitzvahs
or something. The briefcase I used for My wife used
it for she had a photo shoot once she got
like a Miller's outpost. We were dating, so she I
think I still have that briefcase.

Speaker 1 (01:56:56):
And at what point did your parents accept your career path?

Speaker 2 (01:57:02):
God bless them. They still to this day don't know
what I really do.

Speaker 1 (01:57:06):
Well, it's one thing not to know, it's another thing
to respect or accept totally respect.

Speaker 2 (01:57:14):
And there was a moment we had a show called
Epicenter in in Pomona and we had tool and Lincoln
Park Alison chains and they went to it. I got
them on the side of stage. My dad was wearing
an Epicenter hat and they I think they were like,

(01:57:34):
this kid is doing all right. You know, they were
at to a point where I am, as a parent,
as long as your kid is happy. As long as
your kid is happy, that that's that's it.

Speaker 1 (01:57:47):
Okay, you got two kids, you stip of money.

Speaker 2 (01:57:51):
Uh, they're still on the spivac company teat a little bit.
For some reason, they're still on. We still have a
cell phone family plan, and I'm like, why are they
Why are we pay for their cell phone bill? I
gotta get them off. No, they're almost but they're yes
little thing. When if my daughter's going to fly to

(01:58:11):
l A, I'm going to pay for that.

Speaker 1 (01:58:14):
Okay, I don't want I got a lot of questions.
I'm want to go too deep down that avenue. Gary.
I want to thank you for taking all this time
and telling your story and giving us the nuts and
bull to the rock.

Speaker 2 (01:58:23):
World, Bob, thank you for having me, thank you for
letting me kind of wave a rock and roll flag.
We're on the other side of the tracks most of
the time. We don't get these looks. So I appreciate you.
I appreciate you for being a microphone and standing up
and having moral character and fiber. We're in a we're

(01:58:44):
in a dark spot right now. I'm still optimistic that
America will take its cue from Britain and France, you know,
so that let's I would like to take this moment
to say we should Hopefully you're in the near future,
or have our peace and say it, but let's stop
the boat leaking. The far right is loving what's happening

(01:59:06):
to us right now. They're eating it up. So hopefully
we'll pick, we'll have a unified moment. We need that.
That goes to you too, George Clooney. So whoever it is,
let's be unified. So good wins over you.

Speaker 1 (01:59:26):
Well, I put it until next time. This is Bob
Left sens