Irving Azoff

A man who needs no introduction...

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets Podcasting.
My guest today is a man who food needs an introduction,
a man who's played every role of the music business,
the one and only Irving as of Irving. Good to
have you here, thrilled to be here, Abob. So what's
really going on with the live business? Are we back?
Are we not back? Are we gonna have to have

(00:29):
vaccine passports? How do you see it? We're not gonna
have vaccine passports. Um. The thing that you know has
has unimpressed me, shall we say, is as we were
in the in the depths of this, there was all
this talk about all these people running around, we're gonna
have testing machines, and can you test a person every
twenty seconds or ninety seconds before they walk in the building,

(00:51):
and they're gonna require that before we can go. And
then it was we're gonna have you're gonna have a
put on your device, you know, a vaccine passport. And
and what I'm finding is none of the above. When
you go to a venue I've been doing, a well
known venue called Staples Center for a Laker basketball game. UM,
and you arrive and they say, uh, I need to

(01:14):
see your vaccine card. Okay, then you pull out your
phone and a guy looks at it for about ten seconds.
Doesn't match your name against the card or anything. So um,
you know, our government blue wear masks, don't wear masks,
wash your hands, don't wash your hands. And now they've

(01:34):
blown you know, at all levels, federal, state health. We
have no plan. It's it's it's total chaos out there.
So I think it hurts consumer confidence on whether it
attend to show. Um. And you know, that's just you know,
in addition to you know, musicians basically being the bottom

(01:57):
of the heap uh in terms of um assistance, financial
assistance for their cruise and them during this pandemic um,
they haven't even come up with a decent plan to
protect us, or protect the fans or give people confidence
to come back to shows. Now, does that mean that
people aren't going to come? Of course they're gonna come,

(02:17):
but they're not. I don't think they're gonna come um
in the numbers that they would have had we had
a cohesive vaccination passport plan. So are there any issues
of liability in the behalf of the promoter of the act?
Is are you hesitant to book your acts until you
see what ultimately plays out. Look, it's the it's the wild,

(02:38):
wild West. Um. I don't think anybody's really worried about liability,
you know. And we've got some states all already passing
no liability laws. Um, California, who had the strictest um
lockdown laws. UM. Now suddenly, as I understand it, if
you're going to go into a music venue, UM, it's
the honor system. You have to say, I've either been

(03:00):
vaccinated or tested in the last forty eight hours. Uh
so you know what, what's what's somebody gonna sue for
that for I mean, you know it's crazy, okay, But
in terms of booking your acts, where you that where
were you on that one of your acts going to
start hitting the boards? The gardens opening Medison Square Gardens
opening June seventeenth with the Food Fighters that that that

(03:22):
was up and sold out already, the second shows in
the Garden or the Eagles in August, I think two
and two. Um, there's an announcement coming at the Forum
for a mid July date. UM. So you know, Jimmy
Buffett's opening his tour in July eighth in Nashville. Um,
people are going you know and um and uh it's

(03:43):
hard if you're a you know on a level arena
or stadium act that you have to go build a
huge production because you can't be sure, um of what
of what's going to happen. So you know, the you know, uh,
they're really the really big tours are being very wary.
Most of them are just holding off until next year. Okay,

(04:03):
so let's talk about your management company. Who started in management?
Explain it to me. Jeffrey runs it, where are you involved, etcetera.
But we're a private company, Bob, so we're not big
on titles, so nobody really runs it. Um. We're a
group of very talented managers. Um. And and you know

(04:25):
we have teams of people on each account. But you know,
a managed you can't run a management business like a
real business, you know, I mean, as you know, as
you know, most of us in the business don't feel
that we really have jobs. You know, we really do
this because we love it. Um. But yeah, my my
son Jeffrey is very talented. I think he's one of
the best managers I've ever known. So yeah, he's he's

(04:47):
got a group of managers around him who have been
incredibly successful. Okay, so, uh at full Stop is what
the management company is called. Now, what's the derivation of that?
Why is it called full stop? Um? Full Stop was
a company founded by Harry Styles and Jeffrey. Aesof that

(05:11):
merged with I don't know what was I calling mine?
He's off music management, I think, and and that, uh,
you know who needs you know, we don't have a
case of Geff and I justs we didn't need the
name on the door, so full stop was full stop
was fine? So I love the name. Okay, it's kind
of an English term, you know, from in the war.

(05:31):
You know, at the end of the at the end
of the wires that would come in, it would say
full stop. That's how you knew when it was over.
So I I don't know the derivation. There's something English
about it. You'd have to ask carrier Jeffrey. Okay, how
many acts are under the full Stop banner at this
particular point in time, I don't know. I never counted.
We don't publish artist rosters. I really don't know. Twenty thirty, fifty,

(05:56):
I don't know more than I'd say closer to thirty
than twenty or fifty. Okay, how many people work for
full Stop? I don't know, what is this? The I
R S. I mean, what's going on here? Bob? No, no, no,
why would the things people want to know? I'm not
writing it down to, you know, to write a book.
It's just to get an idea. I would guess there

(06:18):
are far more people that work there than clients, so
you know, probably maybe are they all there in Westwood
at this point or is everybody spread out? Uh? We
were spread out before, you know. Uh, but um, it's
really interesting because if you go into a management office

(06:39):
in the middle of the summer especially, and there's a
lot of people there, you know it's not going well
because we by nature touring being you know, a vast
majority of the earnings, uh, for our artists. You most
people are on the road. People are out, um, you know,
so you know, we don't care where people live. We've
got people. We've got people in Nashville, We've got people

(07:00):
New York, we got people in Scottsdale. People you know,
people living up in the Bay Area, people living in
the desert. Okay, needless, just say you are the most
experienced manager extant. To what degree are you focused on
mentoring the other people at full Stop or it's pretty
much everybody going their own way and just gleaning your

(07:21):
great moves and acting accordingly. Um uh, we think we
have an incredible culture. UM. You know, this isn't Frontline
Management where we you know, um, which as you know
because we've talked about it a lot, but for your listeners,
we may not have when you know. When we you know,
Frontline Management was founded at a time when there's a

(07:41):
lot of consolidation going on the business and I was
starting over in the management business after having left the
record business, and and we found that no matter how
big the Eagles and Fleetwood Mac were, you weren't going
to fight the consolidation in the business. UM. So we
got other like manded managers to that we acquired or
merged with. UM. But full Stop is a business that's

(08:04):
been grown out of culture, so we're not interested in
acquiring other managers. We kind of it's all everything's homegrown,
you know. Um. We've got incredible people and managers who
have worked up through the rants. It's a great place
for for somebody interested in the managing business to work
because you're gonna you're gonna grow and you're gonna learn
it and you're gonna you're gonna become successful and wealthy

(08:24):
doing it. But we have a culture. Um. You know.
Rule one is always make the right decision for your
artists and it will be the right decision for your business.
So you don't think short term, We think long term.
Rule two is see rule one. UM, And that's uh,
that's that's kind of how how we run it. You know,

(08:45):
none of us can sell a ticket. Um. Uh. And
we love it. And if you don't, you know, my
advice is, if you don't love artists and the craziest
that comes with it, don't do it. Let's talk about average,
which you referenced. You famously lined up certain clients so
you had power against the labels or Visa Viva labels.

(09:08):
Same deal. When Live Nation then called Clear Channel was
moving up, you helped form a competitor a g. Can
you tell us about those experiences in your strategies? Um,
it was survival. I mean back in those days, it
was shrinking from like twelve to five record labels. Now
we're basically down to the three majors, but with some
wonderful independent action going on now outside of it, Um,

(09:33):
there was big consolidation at retail, you know, because this
was even precede you know, it was even pre c
d s in early days of c ds when we
when we did that, and there was consolidation and promoters,
you know, because Bob Sullerman, which was the primary it
wasn't really about the labels as much as it was
the live side of the business. And Bob Sullerman had
come along and you know, and rolled up a whole

(09:55):
bunch of these big promoters and sold them to Clear
Channel Radio. Uh and in those days called Clear Channel. Um.
And and I woke up one day, uh, and I'd
restarted my business, and I believe I was managing the
Eagles and Journey. And I got into a big beef
with a couple of promoters that were running Clear Channel
at the time, who are my friends who had done

(10:16):
business with for thirty years. And I said, I gotta
get bigger fast, or I'm not going to be able
to you know, no matter how you know, I should
I should quit because I can't I can't get fair
deals for my artists. UM. So that's that was the
the reason for putting together front Line And what about
helping in the creation of a g um that was

(10:38):
that was the level of playing field as well in
those days. And you know Tim lay Wicky who UM
who I met when he was building staples UM understood
the content game and said we want to be in it.
And I felt that. And I had invested in a
company called Concerts West, not the original Big Concerts West,

(11:01):
but some guys that are in Gongo area and Meglan
who had split off from the origin know when Concerts
West folded and Terry Bassett gave them the name so
that the company name would go on. So I I
had invested in those guys, and in those days I
had invested in Golden Voice in Coachella, UM, and then
we kind of put together Golden Voice Coachella and UH

(11:26):
Concerts West to start a g live. Okay, let's stay
with a live business. This is a business where those
on the inside know what's going on, those on the
outside are clueless. Ticket masters paid to take the heat.
But as a manager, we've discussed a number of issues
relative to the buildings, tickets on the manifest, what leverage

(11:47):
their employing. Can you go a little deeper into that,
UM tickets on the manifest off the man of what
you want to know. Yeah, we were taught. We were
talking that the buildings are withholding tickets and wanting certain
commitments in order to take the data for you to
play the date. Um there were you know, Bob, it's

(12:09):
really been cleaned up recently over the years though. Um.
So like if you if you landed on Earth from Mars,
how a record contract has written or paid, or how
a live contract has written or paid, It would never
look this way. When Fred rosen Um took over and

(12:29):
and made and switched, we had a company in those
old days called Tickettron that he kind of put out
a business. And the difference between Tickettron and ticket Master
was it was an all in ticket price went during
the Tickettron days and then you would pay them a
dollar and a half or two bucks for selling your ticket.
Rosen came along and said to the buildings, instead of

(12:51):
you paying a dollar and a half to two bucks
to Tickettron, I'll pay you, but I'm gonna put a
service charge on top. So he they inflated the price
of tickets and and basically took a piece of the
artist gross and and start paying the buildings. So then
you know, so as things happen. So then we as
managers and agents then said okay, but we're not gonna

(13:14):
pay you rent. Right, So then when we weren't paying
them rent, they said, okay, but we've got these seats
that we sold as I don't know, sponsor seats, club seats,
you know, whatever, wherever you want to call them, and uh,
you know, and and that's what helped us finance the
improvements on our buildings. So those seats don't exist, meaning yeah,

(13:36):
we're gonna they're sold and we're gonna put people in them,
but they're sold by the year. And then suddenly buildings
started with sweets. So so through the years, it's just
a moving of the same money around. Okay, you know, uh,
you know, a standard or nine five deal with an artist,
if promoter had to live off of just that, um,
there'd be no you know, there would be no live nation,

(13:58):
there be no age, either be no promoters. So so
then it comes down to, oh, but we have to
have rebates and we have to have ticket service fees,
and we have. Then then somebody invented the facility fee,
which was supposed to pay a state government or something
attacks but it wasn't attacked. It was to pay off
your loan for having built the building. But no, no,
two buildings have the same economics. But um, um, you know,

(14:22):
since you know, listen, um, Michael Rapino is committed to
a fair count okay, and and between him, um and
and pressure and and look, buildings are not the enemy.
You know, Buildings don't make nearly the kind of money
that people think, okay, So um, And there's a lot
of people that would take tickets off the manifest you know,

(14:44):
in this order, I would say the um, the stub
hubs of the world are the are the worst, okay,
because they have no skin in the game, and they've
got people that get ahold of tickets and they take
a big chunk um. You know, buildings taking tickets, you know,
manifests tickets off the manifest except you know that's kind
of gone away, especially for a big act, okay. And

(15:06):
then of course you've got acts that are doing it themselves.
So um, it's a while wild west out there. Okay.
So let's today today. If you play an arena fifteen
thousand seats, how many of those seats are in the
deal with the act? And how many just never show off? Well,
I can. I can tell you at the Forum, every

(15:27):
seats on the manifest. Okay, I can tell you that, UM,
in most buildings, every seats on the manifest except for
the sweets. Okay. Now, on a big show they might
try and put four extra stools and the suits and
sell them. But the buildings are being really cool now,
so they're kind of telling you and they're gonna they're

(15:47):
gonna pay you or split that money with you on
those seats. Um, it's it's gotten cleaned, it's gotten a
lot cleaned up. There are there are a few buildings,
uh that still have some some some unmanifested seats. And
their claim is, look, the way we built this building
was with the money from these suite holders. We took
these massive, several thousand dollar year commitment for people to

(16:10):
have these suits, and that's what allowed us to go
have the money to go get financed so we can
build the building. UM and and what so, So what
goes on is with the exception of the suites, it's
pretty clean out there with the buildings. Now there's a
few and what they claim is well for the suites
that are behind the stage and can't see, that's why
we have these unmanifested seats to move these people down there.

(16:33):
But of course we find them listed on the secondary
a lot of times, and you don't know if it
was the guys in the suite that listed it or
the building that listed it. But every time we find that,
we clean it up real quickly. And all in all,
the building sign of the business is very clean, The
ticketmaster side of the business is very clean. The secondary
is very dirty. Okay, before we get to the secondary,

(16:55):
let's just just you talk. Can you explain since you
certainly worked at Live Nation where the profit verticals for
the promoter um, Well, at Live Nation they have a
wonderful sponsor, you know, have the sponsorship branding arm um

(17:16):
is you know they're allowing you know that that isn't shared, okay,
so that they make their money that way they you
know then and certainly when they own venues, they're making
it off the popcorn and the beer in the parking
and and and stuff like that. But on the straight
promoter line, the money, the money's you know, the money's made,
you know, off a piece off a piece of the ticket. Okay,

(17:41):
what's the status of the secondary market today? And uh,
we'll see post COVID, you know um stub Hub and
those you know whereas Live Nation and a g. When
COVID hit, we're saying, if you'd like a refund, here's
your cash. Stub Hub basically issued credits. Okay, So coming

(18:01):
out of COVID, I'm hoping these guys have maybe shot
themselves at the foot because when the consumer realizes that
he can't get his cash back from these people, maybe
people will realizing for the pariahs that they are. Now.
You certainly come up with ways to beat the scalpers.
You came up with Platinum, and you told me once
you know, find someone who complains about paying you know,

(18:24):
five sit in the first ten rows for the Eagles.
You can't find them, so well he well here look here,
here's what it is. You gotta price your tickets, right.
I mean, if you're an act and you think your
your fans gonna love you more because you charge less money,
and then somebody buys six tickets and gives and sells
four of them on the secondary. You know, when when

(18:46):
you go to a concert you don't turn it's not
you know, when you get on an airplane, you don't
get to the person next to you and say how
much did you pay for your ticket? I paid more
than you. Oh I'm piste off. It's just a fact
alive when you when you walk into building, nobody turns
to the guy next and says where did you get
your ticket and how much did you pay? They just
know what they paid and whether they thought it was
worth it, you know. And the great thing is that

(19:06):
we can dynamically price now. And if you if an
act will price their tickets right, so you have a
chance to charge in the upper deck and the seats
behind the stage a very small amount of money so
that more of your real fans they can pick where
they want to sit in the building, where what they
can afford um. And you know, if if acts would
just price their tickets right, the only people that ever

(19:27):
complain about tickets being priced too high were the press
who got their tickets for free anyway, you know, And
and and you know, we're in a new era where
more and more acts are not afraid to price their
tickets right. Platinum, it's just that's just pricing your tickets right.
Only when you when you go on Ticketmaster, it says
it's a hundred and fifty dollar and a hundred and
seventy five dollar ticket, but they know to go to

(19:50):
Platinum and there's some five hundred dollar tickets. It's just
in a way for an act to say I didn't
charge five hundred dollars from my tickets. They're fucking kidding themselves. Okay,
let's talk about e g g. The Oakview Group. What exactly
is ov G uh. Oak View Group is a a
company that's primarily owned by Tim Lwicky, UH, the light

(20:11):
Wicky family and the Asa family. UH, funded with and
partnered with silver Lake, A wonderful UM one of the
biggest private equity companies in the world. UM. And we
have UM UM. We're committed to building new arenas and
maybe other kinds of venues at some point UM and
taking over certain existing arenas and renovating them. And what

(20:35):
we're committed is to, you know, buildings that are built
UM for the future, not the past. For instance, in
our you know, in our buildings, UH, you know, you've
got a sports tenant, seailar being one backstage and music
being at afterthought where you just get to go use
the visiting team visiting NBA or hockey teams dressing room.

(20:55):
There's full sets of dressing rooms like at the Forum
for music and a full set addressing rooms for sports. Right,
we're trying to say that music is a tenant and
just as important as sports. UM and UH and the
right and the right mix of premium and great experiences
in the building. People want experience more than just the
concert now in a building, so UM, you know. And

(21:18):
we were opening in Seattle in mid October. We're opening
in New York at the at UBA you know ubs
Belmont Park, the home of the Islanders. Seattle's the home
of the Kraken. UH. And we're opening in in Austin
in April of UM and then the next couple to
come online or Manchester, England and Palm Springs, California. Now

(21:40):
haven't you also UH created a group of buildings where
you share information and there are other initiatives you have
as a whole. Yeah, the the Arena Alliance. So if
you're a big national brand, you're probably not going to
just go to Salt Lake. And if you're if you're Walmart,
you're probably not going to go do a dealing. You know,

(22:02):
you don't have anybody in the field there's gonna Walmart's
going to do a deal with the building in Salt Lake. Okay,
they like to buy nationally. So you've got these billionaires
that known the hockey and the NBA teams, but they're
not getting any national brands. So what we do is
people for people like pet Smart and Walmart you know
there we offer it to all our buildings. Were able
to create national in you know, national brand income for

(22:24):
these buildings that they wouldn't have. And we share information
for routing purposes, um and you know, and and and
stuff like that. So we help these buildings get booked. Um,
we help them on you know, as we went through
the COVID protocol. We're you know, we help people through
their safety stuff. It's it's a consulting arm um and

(22:45):
and um, you know we're not you know, the Arena
Alliance are not promoters. Um. You know, we don't book
the buildings. They booked themselves. But we you know, we
we make sure to get all the information out out
for them. Um. But we but we're creating these national brands.
It's it's it's castlow positive in each building. Okay, let's
go back to silver Lake. Silver Lake, you know, huge

(23:06):
venture firm. They ultimately want their money back, whether it
be going public or someone replacing them. Is that sort
of built into the ov G relationship? M No, it's not. Okay,
And they haven't said they're they're they're savvy investors. Um,
they're just encouraging us to grow the business because they

(23:27):
like what we what they say. Okay, let's talk about
selling just in general, not just ov G. You certainly
of someone who has sold your management company a number
of times, and you've represented people who sold things. When
do you think you should sell? And when do you
think you should hold on? You know, Um, there's a

(23:47):
lot of questions to go into that, um, family estate
planning being one. Uh. And you know, and and are
their errors around to to keep running these companies that
want to do it and that you believe and can
do it um uh And you know, and but if
you're building brands for your artists, most of those people
are building it to sell. So if that's what you're that,

(24:11):
that's what you're referring to. But you know, UM, we
never start a business going hey, we're gonna sell this.
It just happens. Um. But in terms of in terms
of the management business, I never you know, I merged
more than I sold. You know, we merged people together
in front Line. Uh, then we merged with Ticketmaster. Then

(24:33):
we merged Ticketmaster in front Line with Live Nation. Um
so you know, so then when I left, um, you know,
Frontline State. So that group of manager stayed and I
started over. Yeah. But also when you went to m
c A, didn't they pay you for front Line? About
three years in they paid me for front one. They

(24:55):
bought front one. What was what was the logic of
three years? Uh? There was a new existing consent decree
from the old m c A days. Um, they didn't.
They didn't want me spending my dame and my time
on management. I would have been happy not to sell.
They wanted me to spend all my time. You know
at that point I was running the record company, we
were building amphitheaters, I was running their video business. Uh.

(25:17):
They didn't want me compromised and you know, running around
to shows all over the world. Okay, let's go back
to the cell. If someone is not a state planning
and you represent that act. Now with these huge multiples
for publishing catalogs, what do you tell them? Um, there's
a lot of questions you have to ask people. Do

(25:40):
you have airs. Do you hate your kids? Are you
worried that your kids are gonna screw up your legacy?
Do you have things you want to buy? Uh? Even
at these multiples, if you're just gonna take the money
and throw it in treasury bills or stuff that's really safe,
your cash flow every year is the same or more
holding right, But if you really want to, you know,

(26:02):
have things that you want to buy with the money,
or you know, for guys in their mid seventies that
are that are struggling to make ends meet, they can't
tour anymore, why shouldn't they sell for a big, huge check? Okay,
I don't you know? And then again for guys like
Ryan Tedder who are as hot as hell, are going
to write more hits, you know, if his family can
enjoy the benefits of him selling his what he's written

(26:23):
to date because he knows he's gonna sell, you know,
write more going forward? Why not? It works for some people,
doesn't work for others. But as you're seeing, whether you're
Paul Simon or you're Neil Young or you're Bob Dylan, Um,
you know these people are you know, I understand every
one of them wanting to sell and why And as
you know, you know, we're, um, it's not our primary business.

(26:45):
But when you know, um, i'd rather my family um
own royalties from the works of the Beach Boys or
Linda Ronstad or or David Crosby. Then uh, you know,
by a Treasury bill. So that's why I'm in that business. Okay,
let's talk about iconic. Uh you have relationships with those
three entities. Do you own them a hundred percent? Is

(27:07):
it your personal money? Is it somebody else's money? We
uh on on the on the Beach Boys were a
partnership with the Beach Boys, with us being the controlling
partner in certain in certain masters, recorded music, flow, royalties, publishing, writing.
It depends down. You know. They have a very complex thing.
So we kind of we're so we're the controlling shareholder there. Um.

(27:29):
In the case of Linda Ronstadt, um, we bought her
masters and her flow of her recording income. Uh. And
in the case of David Crosby, we bought his recording
in his and his publishing and writing. Now I need
to say, there are a lot of elderly classic rock
legendary acts. You have three, how many might you ultimately
end up with? I don't know we um uh. You know,

(27:54):
obviously the return on investment is not good if you
just pay a percent cash for these things. So we
were fortunate enough um to be able to get some
debt rated uh and sold some debt to a company
that likes to own debt so that you know, we
have UM a substantial line of credit in that area too.

(28:17):
You know, we put up, we put up some some equity.
But then we have we don't know, you don't borrow
and anything, but UM, so we have so we have
resources available and when we see the right things. UM,
we'll announce a couple more deals soon. But you know
they're all very predictable. There might you know, so far
I am done. I haven't done a deal with the client.

(28:39):
You know, it's been with friends. UM. But they're predictable deals.
You'll see us do more. You know, we believe that UM,
we have something to add. I'm not going to buy
anything that we don't believe. We can't make the cash
flow bigger. UM. We encourage um some of these uh
you know artists to stay in. I'd rather buy half
than all of it, because I think I can their

(29:00):
half worth you know, a lot more plus they've gotten
the capital gain on the first half that they sold. UM.
But you know, we we've we've built and we're building
out an incredible marketing staff. UM will make some announcements
on some exciting things on the Beach Boys. UM. You know,
they spent the last I don't know how many decades
fighting with each other, UM, and a lot of missed

(29:22):
opportunities were making up for lost time. And I'm and
I'm just I'm a Beach Boys freak. It was one
of the it was the first real show I ever
attended when I was a kid. UH. And I just
I just think that that there's credible upside and the
Beach Boys. When you talk about iconic and you look
at your other enterprises, there any advantage in mass and

(29:44):
market share in the legacy business. I don't think so.
And then let's go into GMR. Tell us how you,
of all people, suddenly came up with the idea and
where we are now on global rights management. UM. It's

(30:06):
it's no secret that I hitched my start to two
guys named Glenn Fry and Don Henley. Throughout all my career, UH,
and a lot of what has motivated me to do
things has been things that I that they've either taught
me or that we experienced together. Um. And there was
a there was a time on YouTube where some satanic

(30:29):
minister was using a hotel California under one of his
crazy satanic bullshit things. So you know, you know, you know,
the whackable job at at YouTube. So you send a letter,
they take it down, pops back up. Then you have
to send a lawyer's letter, they take it down, pops
back up. Then you have to kind of really get

(30:51):
into a process improve you know, uh, improved stuff before
YouTube will take it down. And what we found out
was this satanic minister had gone to the UK uh
two prs, the the the society there. Um and I
believe we were b m I at the time, so
b A my Ra as CAP. I'm not sure because

(31:12):
we went back and forth. But basically b MRI as
CAP had given blanket rights right. So in the United States,
if you want to put a song in a play,
or you want to put a song in your you know,
in a play at at a high school, you gotta
get permission. Well, the YouTube had a blanket license YouTube

(31:33):
and this guy went and got a blanket license from
the UK from the performing right stiety. So now suddenly
you could use the Eagles song in a satanic message
on YouTube and you didn't need any permission and we
couldn't stop it. So and then I started looking into it,
you know, and then I would see you can't audit
as cap or b m I when you know, UM,

(31:55):
no right to audit. You can't sue them, and and
I would get stays for all my acts, which just
to check and I'd go, well, what's this based on?
And the answers you just shut up in cash it
so um. So we started the first private h performing
rights organization in seventy five years. We promptly got sued

(32:17):
by their radio music licensing cartel uh and all that.
But it's been a great ride. We're wildly successful. Um.
We've signed you know, major writer after major writer. Our
writers are rap cartists, higher are our people make more money.
It's transparent. Um. You can go on the website and say, hey,

(32:38):
I got played four time on Kiss FM and this
is how much money I made. Um. So it's been
a great business. Um. And we feel like we've made
the world a better place for these writers. How much
more would I get if I switched from on a
traditional Aska BM I to your company. UM. Hard to

(32:58):
say in a blanket answer, but we did have We
do have deals where we've garen pee people. You'll make
ten or more, um, for sure, but I think we
make people in most instances way more. Okay, you own
two restaurants, you own a certain amount of real estate,
how how much of your time and how much your

(33:20):
investments in real estate? Uh? Okay, I don't own any
I don't own any restaurants. Those are Shelley's. Okay, everything's
in the well. The family owns the restaurants, but Shelley. Okay.
So Nate Now's uh, seventy five year old restaurant in
Beverly Hills was in jeopardy of becoming extinct. You know,

(33:41):
the Beverly Hills real estate worth had pretty much made
it extinct. So through through a labor love, we and
some other family friends UM have taken it over, even
pre COVID. You know, we have the right to lose money,
but we have a mean mats of Brian, a great
corn beef and a great mats of ball suit. Uh.
The Apple Pan similar situation where we got a call

(34:05):
um and the family that had owned it wanted another
family in the restaurant business to kind of take it
over that had some Hamburger history. We've had some history
with five guys, Corn cap Shaw and myself and a
group that included Phil Nicholson and a bunch of others
that owned a bunch of five guys restaurants together. Um,

(34:26):
so we kind of it kind of fell into it.
But it's for fun and community and uh. Um, you know,
one Eagles date's gonna make us more than a year
a year at the restaurant. Uh. And as far as
real estate goes, Um, we're not heavily invested, but that
we have invested in the years and everything from apartment

(34:49):
buildings to office buildings and um, you kind of hang
on and never sell those, Okay, in terms of things
that your where your money is invested in, taking your time.
Is there anything else in your portfolio that I haven't mentioned. Um,
let's say Oak View g MR Management Business Iconic and uh,

(35:11):
we're in the process now of starting a record label,
the music publishing company, and your thoughts in creating those were, um,
pretty simple, you know you. Um again, I think we
want to be an alternative to the majors because I
believe that artists should own their I P. So we're
gonna be a different model and more artist friendly model

(35:35):
economic model. UM. And when you look at UH, you know,
Universal's worth what forty fifty billion, sixty billion? I don't
know what the number is gonna be when they go.
Probably Warners is trading at what billion, twenty billions something
like that. Sony's probably worth somewhere in between. So you're
over a hundred billion dollars UM. You know, artists like

(35:58):
to do business with us because we're very hard is friendly.
We proved it GMR that we can sign UM. We've
landed an incredible talent in UH to go with my
son Jeffrey, with Sean Tubby Holiday who's an incredibly gifted
in our guy. UM. And we've started to sign UM.
And you know, we kind of think if if we can't,

(36:22):
you know, get two percent of the market, we're idiots.
So what's two percent of the market worth two billion dollars?
And what kind of deals you offering? You know, fifty
fifty on streaming revenue? Who owns the asset? UH? They
will be a profit participant for a number of years UM.
But the artists will always have a right to buy

(36:42):
us out at fair market value, okay, or or or
it's either a term or a right to buy out,
depending on which the artist prefers. And then in terms
of net how's the net split? Um? Certain, you know,
it depends on who it is and what it is
and when it isn't their career. But we won't be
doing three sixty deals and asking for pieces of touring

(37:03):
and pieces of of all that stuff. But you know,
if you're a major established artist, I'm not. You know,
we're not gonna ask for anywhere near fifty. Okay, let's
go back to the beginning. So originally you're from Illinois.
Where are you from? Uh? I was? I was born
in Chicago. Was raised in a little town called Danville,

(37:25):
ILLINOI went to a little bit slower. How far is
Danville from Chicago? A hundred and thirty miles? So what's
what's Danville like? Are you growing up in the sticks
or is it like up to date? Uh? Town of
about thirty forty people. Um, a lot of you know plants.

(37:47):
You know, there was a GM plant heister, there was
I think there was a forget who the big cereal
company was there, um, but it was mostly an industrial
and right on the Illinois Indiana border. Um. But for
some reason it had Uh there was a lady that
taught at the high school for years and uh they

(38:09):
had a real good arts program. You know. Dick van Dyke,
Jerry Van Dyke, Bobby Short, Jeene Hackman all came from Danville, Illinois. UM.
So that's where I grew up and then thirty west
of that. What'd your father do for a living. My
father was a pharmacist and had a share in a
couple of pharmacies. My mom was a bookkeeper. Okay, how
many kids in the family, brother and sister. I was

(38:31):
the oldest. You were the oldest. Okay, you go to school.
You got a public school. I assume, oh yeah, oh,
you got a public school. You're the class clown or
you're the troublemaker? Are you the silent? Are you popular?
What's your role in school? Straight a's class clown and
you could get away with it because you're so smart.
Guess Okay, you have a big interest in sports. Were

(38:55):
you an athlete? No? No, no, no, no, I mean
did you forget the team? Yeah? Oh yeah, we played
Yeah all summer we played baseball in the park, you know,
played basketball poor like basketball baseball. Okay, so now you're
in high school. How do you fit in? In high school? Well,

(39:18):
there were I think eight of us Jewish kids in
the whole school. Yeah, um, but we fit in. You know,
were you a manager? Were you the guy who's rounding
people up even back then? Yeah. By the time I
was a senior in high school, you know, my friends
were in bands. I know, I tried. I couldn't sing.

(39:39):
I tried drums, I tried saxophone. Remember in those days,
you had to learn an instrument. That's part of it. Yeah,
you know, I wasn't gifted as a as a musician.
So then I just started kind of My friends were
all were in bands, so, um, I kind of started
the business side of it. So I started booking bands
when I was in high school. Okay, but you also

(40:01):
told me that you were representing the DJs at w
l S. That's later. You're already in college when that happens, correct, Okay. Uh, Now,
needless to say, somewhat like myself, you're somewhat vertically challenged.
What was the experience of being in school? Did you
make that work for you? Was, did you take abuse?

(40:22):
I was no. I was good in high school and
I liked it. Uh. But when I got to college,
I went. You know, my dad was a pharmacist, so
my parents decided I should be a doctor. So I
I go to the University of Illinois and Champagne, thirty
miles away. I go there for a couple of reasons.
I go there because I already had this booking business going.

(40:44):
So I knew how I was going to put my
way through school. Um too, I had. I had applied
at U c l a UM where my and my
my grandmother, and I had aunts and uncles out here. Uh.
And I applied at Johns Hopkins Uh. And I got
an accepted at all three. Um, I was gonna come
to you at very one, various different points. I decided

(41:07):
I was going to each one of those, and then
at the at the end of the day, I just
decided that I loved booking bands and stuff, and I
had already started a business there, so I stayed and
went to the University of Illinois. Okay, what was the
status of your band booking business by time you graduate
from high school? And local bands? You know, a bunch

(41:28):
of local bands. We were playing, you know, renting halls
and collecting the money, you know, planning sock ops. Well
what was your deal with the bands and how much
money could you make? Oh? You know those days you
were playing for Union scale and stuff. So you know,
the band was making a hundred ten dollars and I
was getting you know, eleven bucks on top or something.

(41:49):
It's crazy. Okay, So you go to college, you're a freshman,
You walk on the campus. Then what happens? Uh, I'm
met a crazy guy that book bands there book college bands,
a guy named Robert Nutt and U T t Um
and he uh he and I started an agency called

(42:12):
Blytheam Limited b L y T h M Limited. Some
street what what what? Why was it called that? It's
a street in England. Bob had been to England with
one of the one of the our one of our artists,
guy in the Finchley Boys, and it was a street
in England that he remembered. Um, and we just kind
of took the college circuit by storm. You know, there

(42:33):
are those days University of Illinois had fifty six fraternities
and like twenty eight sororities and like three beer bars. Right,
So We had a lot of gigs to go around,
and there weren't enough local bands to do it. So
we had bands coming in from all over the Tri
state area that we would book. And then we grew
a business. We expanded the business out there, we opened

(42:53):
we opened offices in Madison, Wisconsin, and Chicago and Champagne.
So by the time I was a sophomore in college,
you know, I didn't have any time for school, and
I was making more money than a doctor ever could.
So you know that was it? Okay, a little bit slower?
How much money were you making? This is the late sixties.
Hundreds of thousands a year. That's net to you. Yeah,

(43:17):
that's a lot of money. Especially and then and then
what did your parents say when nice Jewish boy drops
out of college? Um, they were very happy to move
in the new house. I bought him, no problem. Okay,
Mr Nutt, who you're working with, is he making as
much money as you? Yeah? Okay? And you're the two principles.

(43:38):
There is no one else with you? Okay. How do
you end up representing the w l S d JS
um So w LS was this powerhouse in Chicago, hundred
thousand water with ten thousand what I don't know what
the number was. Was it a hundred thousand, Yeah, hundred
thousand wats you could you could hear it all over
the Midwest. You could hear it Nashville. It was like

(44:00):
I think it was fifty was as much as you
But you know the three big stations in the world
where w ABC, kh J in l A and w
l S and Chicago. Uh so um if you so
there were this chain. There were all these clubs around
Chicago that one of their ex DJ is a guy
named dex Card dex Cards Wild Goose Clubs. So he

(44:23):
had like seven of these clubs. So what you would
do to get you couldn't afford as a as a
little club promoter. You couldn't afford advertising on w LS.
But w LS allowed their DJs to go out and
m c these shows. And then they had they had
spots that they ran all the time where we go
tonight at x Cards, Wild Goose and Joliet, Illinois. You

(44:44):
can see three Dog Night with Larry lu Jack, right,
and so all these disc jockeys and by the way,
and when you bring him down to the you know,
to the prom at Danville High School, they were draws.
They were a big deal, so it was legitimate. I
mean that you booked these guys, but you'd always book
them with UH, you know, with an act, so they act,

(45:05):
you book, you package the act in the DJ together
and UH and that's kind of how it started. Yeah, well,
tell me the story, tell my audience story about your
meeting with Morris Levy. Um. One of our bands, UH
from Champagne, Illinois at the University of I was a
big band on campus. Was a band called the One
Eyed Jacks um and and Bob Nutt had gotten them

(45:30):
UH up in Chicago, and there was a jingle ad
agency guy that had a studio and they'd recorded a
record the name of which I can't even remember right now.
And Art Roberts, who was the program director, w ls UM,
I love the song, and he said, I'm gonna play
this and so I said, well, it's great that you're

(45:55):
gonna play it. Um, how do I get a record label?
And those days you'd have distroy aributors like All State
in Chicago distributed Columbia Records and this one and that one.
And he says, I'll help you get her. I'll help
you get a record deal. Okay, and so he says,
we're gonna go to New York. Um, I'm gonna get
you a lawyer, and we're gonna go play this. The

(46:15):
fact that I'm willing to put this record on w LS,
You're gonna get a record deal, he says. And my
ears are good. This is gonna be a smash. I
mean he really believed in the record. This wasn't under
that table anything, right. Um, So I, Uh, my mom
was afraid to fly if we took a vacation to Florida.
We drove. So I'm eighteen, nineteen years old. I think

(46:35):
I was nineteen. Maybe I've never been on an airplane.
My first plane flight to go to New York with
Art roberts Um and we hired this lawyer named Mort Farber,
who at the time represented I think like Ingelbert Hunker,
Dank and a bunch of people. And he sets up
two meetings. When we go to h we go to
see Atlantic Records Jerry Greenberg at the time, and we

(46:58):
play We play the record for Jerry. Jay says, it's
a nice record. I'd have to hear more. I'm not
sure I want it, and uh, And then we go
over to Roulette Records to see Morris Leavey and they're
riding high at that time with Tommy James and the
Shan dels Uh and the lawyer Mort Farber says to me, look,
he says, here's what you're gonna do. He says, Morris

(47:20):
is gonna offer you three for the single and says
if it's a hit, he'll make an album. But we
don't have another deal. So you tell him, okay, I
remember the numbers, like five grand, but tell him you
got he's got to give you five thousand for the record,
but you want five points, not three points. So we
get in the meeting, me and Art and Morris, and
he listens to the record and he says, let me

(47:42):
bring my promotion guy in. He he brings this guy,
Red Schwartz, this famous promotion guy who has just broken
Tommy James, and Red Sworts says, I like this record.
I like this right. So so Moore says, okay, kid,
I'll tell you what. And he's got his big cigars
and he's chomping on the scars. He says, I'll take it.
I'm gonna I'm gonna take the record. I'm gonna give
you five thousand dollars and three points, just like just
like Mark part Center says, well, Mr Levy, you know

(48:04):
we have other interests. Um, I'm okay with the five
thou dollars, but could we please have five? And he
whirls around on the chair and he looks at me
and he says, I'll give you five percent, but I'm
gonna pay you three. That was my first record deal.
Whatever happened with the record, the record came out and stiffed. Okay,

(48:25):
so you're this incredible entrepreneur. Where did you learn how
to do that? I don't know, just in your you know,
it's in your blood. Okay, Well, I didn't want to
have a real job. Okay, if you're in high school,
you're working in high school other than booking bands. Did
you ever have a paper route? Did you ever sell anything?
I had a paper route when I was, you know,

(48:46):
young kid. We had a We had these classes called
Junior Achievement. I remember. We had so you had to
make you know, we made these stupid lights that you
put in your car, that you plug in the battery
if your car broke down. Um, you learned stuff like that.
Um My father owned a pharmacy so in the you know,
in the summers, I would work there, right, work in

(49:08):
the pharmacy, work to cash, registered, do stuff like that.
Um kind of had a little business mowing lawns and
and shoveling snow, but I hired people to do that.
I would book the lawns. But okay, that's where it starts,
is to start there or anything before that kind of
a combination of all of it. Okay, So now you're
in Illinois, you drop out of college. Are you booking

(49:29):
bands that are named talent or just all the local
talent the area? Um? No, we were booking regional bands
that were important. Okay. Um, but by this time, the
the agents around the country, you know, knew we controlled
the college markets especially, so we we were booking some
we were booking some national talent. You know. The relationship

(49:51):
with WS certainly didn't hurt me. Like when like three
Dog Night came in, you know, and and and basically
they wanted to break in the area. And those days,
you could put a record on Impuri Illinois or Rockford,
Illinois and if it showed up, it was a hit.
That's how you got Chicago to play it. I mean,
it was legit in those days of how it worked.
So you know, so Art Roberts, the program director at

(50:13):
w LS, would would tell like whoever it was at
ABC Dunhill, Hey, you know, if you really want to
break this record, there's an agent here that can get
you dates. If you're gonna put the record on the
radio and Purian Rockford and all that, you should go
play there because that's how you really get a simple thing,
you know, the country. In those days, you could go
out and hard work. That's how Area Speedwagon was built.

(50:35):
You know, work. You know, you worked every little nook
and cranny. So you know, I would get a call
and they'd say three dog night, take them for three
weeks and book them, you know, and they'd pay me
an agency commission and I book them all over the
three state area little towns and the record would go on.
And that's how you that's how you built a base
in those days. Um. And you know, I always thought
that I had a big edge coming from Illinois and

(50:56):
having seen how the process worked, and you know, and
I actually, you know, we actually broke Orio Speedwagon off
that process. And you know, and you've got guys on
the coast that had you know, growing up in New
York and l A. You know, they just think you
walk in and get a record deal, put on the radio,
and it happens. But these bands that had touring basis,
you know, it was become bigger and quicker. How many

(51:17):
years were you in Illinois before you left for l
A and once you got to college? Uh? I moved
to l A when I was twenty two. So what
very long? No? Okay, and you're in there. How do
you develop your relationship with Ario Speedwagon and Dan Volgeber?

(51:42):
Uh Ario Speedwagon? Um, we're a local band that played
in our clubs and so I was their agent, you know,
and then there was no difference between agent manager in
those days, you know. And that's so we made some
tapes and you know, we I went to New York
got him a record deal um with Ronald Lexemburg at

(52:05):
U Epic Records, UM, and you know, so that's how
that kind of started. But I actually moved to California
because I had Rio and Vogelberg and I felt that
I had to go to New York or l A
to break them because how did you get how did
you get Fogelberg? Uh? Fogelberg was the local folk singer.
He played at a place called the Red Herring, which

(52:26):
was a coffee shop on the other side of town
in urbana Um. And you know, and the rock guys
didn't really hang out with the folk guys. And I
was the rock guy. Uh and uh, a friend of
mine took me to see Fogelberg, who was friend who
kind of knew Fogelberg and thought he was great. And
then uh, he came to my office the next day.
He had made a tape because his father was a

(52:49):
high school music teacher in Pure Illinois and had a
friend in Peak in Illinois, where he had been in
the studio made some tapes that they and they were
playing his his tapes on the local college radio station.
So Dan was like a year younger than me. So
he came to my office, came on his bicycle, came
in and played me these tapes. And then of course
his bicycle got stolen while he was hit in my

(53:10):
office playing me the tapes. But but the first person
to take me to see Dan was a guy that
I had met who just came up to me and said, Hey,
you gotta go here. This guy is incredible. I have
nothing to do with him. I don't know him, but
he's a great, great singer. You gotta go hear him.
Um and the and the the guy was down at
the University Illinois visiting his girlfriend. Um the guy was

(53:33):
John Belushi. It took me to see Dan. I hadn't
heard that story before. Okay, so now you're you want
to go to l A and then you ultimately write
letters to everybody. By the way, it's just strikes me,
you know, so I meet my, think my, I really
get started, and you start thinking about it, you know, Belushi,

(53:55):
Fogelberg and you know what are they now? They're both dead, right,
I mean, it's God, it's crazy, both prematurely did well.
You know, it's weird when I remember watching the George
Carlin special before he died and he had his address
because ripping this guy out, he's dead and that's in
the future. Now that's us. It's very weird. And you

(54:16):
start wondering how much time you actually have left, which
begs the question anything you have to do before you die? Uh?
Who is the one who's it? Said to me, I
don't intend to retire and I don't intend to die.
I'll just go with that. Well, it didn't work for

(54:36):
some to Redstone. So but irrelevant when that happens thirty
years from an hour, thirty minutes from now. God forbid
any place you haven't been, anything you haven't done, you know,
I know, you know, I feel very fortunate and blessed
to what I've done. I'm not. I don't have a
bucket list left. I mean, it's like, uh, just do
more of the same. Okay, So you want to move

(54:57):
to l A. And you told me you wrote these letters. Uh. Well,
I sent Fogelberg's tape to Geffen because there had been
an article in Rolling Stone that said, uh, um that
he was starting asylum records. Um. And and he you know,
And I sent it to him. I don't and then
I then I called him. He picked up the phone. Um.

(55:20):
I knew him a little bit because when he was
an agent at uh he was booking the association, I think,
and I booked something or we had a conversation about
booking something. Uh and he uh and he said that
he had listened to the tape and he really liked
it and that I should come see him. Uh. So

(55:42):
Ario already had a record deal with Epic, and my
friend Terry Bassett at concerts. West had put them on
a Grand Funk Railroad tour, so they were out touring
everywhere and we we had our start. Um. But I
uh so I came out to see Geffen and he said,
and he told me, um, that Jack and Brown really
liked the Vogelberg tapes, but that he was backed up

(56:05):
on male singer songwriters because he had Jackson, he had Nendoheeny,
he had David Blue, you know, all these all these
and he said, if I could wait a year, he
would sign Dan. Now us being what we were, kids
being kids. Um, uh, we didn't wait a year, but
I took it. I took a job working for Jerry

(56:25):
Heller at a place called the Heller Ficial Agency. Wait wait,
you told me that you tried to get a job
with a million other people. That was and he was
the only one who offered you a job. No, no,
that wasn't true. That. I don't know what I told
you then, but but do your call. But I uh, um,
I had to decide I was gonna go to New
Yorker l A. I decided I was going to lead
Champagne and I had actually Bob Nutt had you know,

(56:47):
right free free you know, kind of just went nuts
on drugs and alcohol and kind of disappeared. And I
and the guy I kind of gave the agency to
the guys that worked for me, uh and said I
don't want to do us anymore. And I'd saved a
bunch of money anyway. So um. But the biggest agent
in the business was Frank Barcelona, premier talent in New York,

(57:09):
you know, and a gentleman who was you know, who
was a pioneer of you know, he divided the country
up and decided who got what. He had all the
big English bands, right and uh and um so uh
and and I had books and stuff for Frank and stuff.
And my friend Bill Elson from Chicago gone to work there.
Um and Bill had and so I've been in to

(57:31):
see Frank and he so he kind of said, I'm
gonna come work here. Come moved to New York and
work here. So he said, I'm gonna be in Chicago.
I'm gonna be at Aaron Russo's Kinetic Playground to see
led Zeppelin. Why don't you come up to Chicago and
meet with me. I'll meet you in front of the
Kinetic Playground. At eight o'clock whatever it was, and and
and and so I go up there and the Kinetic

(57:53):
playground earlier in the day had burned to the ground,
and I took that as a message, don't move to
new Arc, okay. So and I have then offered this
other job. Jerry Heller was a very uh. It was
a new startup agency. UH represented jose Feliciano. The guests
who Lee Michael's Nils Lofgern and grin Um had a

(58:17):
bunch of stuff, a bunch of Geff and stuff, Jojo
gunn On Asylum and a bunch of stuff Um and
Jerry and Donna owned this agency. So it was the
two of them and me. Uh. And they were fun
times until Jerry did too much blow and kind of
gotten to fight with Geffen and was fighting with everybody.
And then I moved to associated booking company tell the

(58:42):
story of we're going to do the Lee Michael's Deep.
So Jerry Heller says to me, Uh, go up stay
with Lee. Um, make sure he goes to this gig.
I think it was. I don't know. It wasn't Sacramento,
might have been Fresno or or something. You told me
Sacramento the last time, yeah, because it was drivable from

(59:04):
San Francisco, right, And he had some like Ferrari or something.
So I get to his house. The sky had live
mountain lions and tigers in his backyard as pets. Okay,
scared the ship out of me. So I survived that.
And he had this wonderful girlfriend that I think had.

(59:26):
I know whether she was with Van Morrison before or
after him, but I remember her name was Janet Planet. Right, okay,
And so Lee and I we jump in the car.
He drives like a hundred miles an hour to the
gig okay uh. And he he had this two piece band,
him and a drummer named Frosty, and he had this

(59:47):
massive hit record and he was huge in California, so
you know. And and he played like twenty minutes and
comes over the size stage and says, come on, kid,
we're leaving. And I went, you can't leave. You just
played fifty twenty minutes. He says, do you have the money?

(01:00:08):
I said yeah. He says we got paid. I said yeah.
He says we're out of here, okay, and drag me
to the car and we drove back to San Francisco
and you all still have to give the money back.
Of course we had to give the money back because
they nearly rioted. And then Jerry Heller said to me,
what what do you I send you up there? How
do you fund this up? How did you let the
guy leave? Right? But anyway, there's I got a million

(01:00:31):
of those stories. Okay, so you'll go to Associated Booking.
What is that? Associated Booking was a bigger agency, um,
you know, and if you know, it was founded basically
by Joe Glazer. Um. The guy running it was Oscar Cohen.
But you know it was built on the back of
uh you know, Glazer represented um people like Louis Armstrong

(01:00:53):
and you know, all the big bands and and and
that stuff and and it was. It was a solid place.
You know, Tom Ross who founded CIA Personal Appearance Department
was there, Johnny Podell who later kind of founded a
t I. But but we had um Alice Cooper, Quicksilver,
Messenger Service, um, the doors. It was you know, it

(01:01:16):
was a real real place. Okay, then you end up
booking the Roxy. Yeah, I'm an Associated Booking And then
David Elliott convinced me to leave. Take Vogel Burgnario with me,
who I was managing while I was still an agent. Um.
And come when when David goes to asylum, I go
to Geff and Roberts too, um to kind of fill

(01:01:40):
the void. Uh and and every and they were all
piste off at Doug Weston for the shitty deals he
was giving artists. So I guess I kind of I
guess you know, I would have to say thank you
to Elliott and David and Lou Adler, who said, uh,
if you see something really wrong where an artist is
getting screwed, uh, you know, start something, start a competitor, right,

(01:02:03):
So they went and built the Roxy because Doug Weston's
deals for artists were unfair. I mean you'd have to
give them big options. You know, Elton, John, Bet Midler,
everybody came in there. I mean you would have to
play their three, four or five weeks to get your
initial booking you'd get. They'd have four options at like
stupid low money. Um. But yeah, so I end up

(01:02:24):
book So I end up booking the the opening of
the Roxy. And um, in those days, Cheech and Chong
were huge, and that was lose act of course. UM,
and I'm trying to remember who we booked the opening week? Um,
it doesn't come to me now, but I know Cheech
and Chong had been in there, and and and a

(01:02:46):
bunch of bands and and so Lou has said to me,
you know we need something you need something black too.
So I booked the Temptations. Um, but they could only play.
They'd only were only open to play, like Friday Saturday
or set Mattery Sunday. And he said, look, you know
my ax just came in here and played five days. Um.
So I got this big fight with Luke because he said,

(01:03:07):
you can't book the Temptations unless play. They played the
whole week, and I said, I'll tell you what, asshole,
you booked the fucking so I know. So I booked
the opening and quit. Um, but should happens? But those
are those are incredible days in the strip at l A. Okay,
So you're working at Geff and Roberts. What are you
doing there? What's going on there? I was predominantly doing

(01:03:30):
what I knew best, which was touring, you know, So
I was I was booking the tours with you know,
there were agents, but I was putting together and supervising
the book. And how did you end up managing the Eagles. Um,
so we were managing those days. Uh, Dylan, Crazy Stills,
Nash Young, Joni, America Eagles. So the Eagles in America

(01:03:54):
were the kids, Poco. I think too, Jackson, Uh, and
the Eagles America were kind of the kids. And I
bring Joe Walsh scenario and Vogelberg with me too. Well,
how do you get involved with Joe Walsh because he's
with the Belkons in Ohio? How does that start? Uh?
Um Belkon and I promoted, Um, Mike was a friend

(01:04:15):
of mine. We promoted a series of concerts in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.
And so I was around Joe a lot. With Mike
and Joe. The James gang had broken up, Joe had
made an unsuccessful solo album, Mike and Joe had parted company.
Um and um, Joe and I had stayed in touch
because I promoted a bunch of dates on him. So

(01:04:36):
he looks me up in l A. He found me
in l A. Okay, So you're back to the story
with the Eagles. Uh. Yeah. So um, it's no secret
that uh um, the Eagles and Geffen had their differences. Um.
So at some point, um, big blow up occurs. Uh,

(01:04:58):
and the Eagles say we're lee eaving. Um, why don't
you come, Why don't you take Vogelberg and Aaria, Why
don't you come start your company and be our manager? Right?
And I'd had a failed negotiation with David Elliott to
become a partner in the firm. Um the deal and
by the way, the deal just changed, shall we say,

(01:05:20):
it wasn't what they said it was going to be.
After a year happens in rock and roll. No, uh
and and uh and they and by the way they
were they were great mentors. And the deal and by
the even the change deal was okay. But my heart
Glenn and Glenna Donna become my closest friends, and Vogelberg
and Joe. You know, I just want to be with
my guys. So so I go back to David Elliott

(01:05:42):
and say, you know, the Eagles are leaving and they
want you know, and you know, the deal didn't happen
that you said was going to happen. Um, I think
I'm gonna go with him. And they go, Okay, you
can have your deal. We don't give a we don't
give a funk if they leave, but we care you leave, right,
So I said, I'm gonna stay. And I go back

(01:06:03):
to the Eagles and say, guess what, We're gonna stay,
but things will be different because now I'm a partner
and I can do Then they said, nah, we're not staying.
Pick that it's demmeer us And so I went. So,
I you know, I went with them because they were
you know, was it was. They were you know, they were,
we were you know, obviously we were really tight. So

(01:06:23):
what was the status? Where were they in their album cycles? Then? Um,
when we left was probably after Desperado but before on
the Borders released. Okay, so they had the peak on
the first album, but they were relatively cold at the time, yes, unfortunately. Okay,

(01:06:44):
so the first big success you have that your new manager,
Joe Joe Wos was bigger than the Eagles at that
point because he has the smoker you drink player, get
Rocky Mountain way right? And so is the next big
success the Eagles or is there something else? Well? Are
Ario is a huge touring band? Um, Joe was, and

(01:07:04):
you know, and and yeah, and then uh Dan broke
after the Eagles, but um, you know, and then it's
kind of a blur you know, Jimmy Buffett comes aboard,
Boss Gags, Steely Dan, Stevie Nicks. Okay, so what was
your special sauce? Um? You know, I think it's just

(01:07:26):
that that standard, that standard thing. You know, you take
every phone call, you return every phone call, you treat
people with respect. Um. If you know you can't be
afraid to get in a fight. You show me a
manager that just says yes and never gets in a fight.
He's doing a shitty job, okay, because you know, saying
saying yes is easy, saying no is hard, you know,

(01:07:47):
can get you in some scrapes. Um. And and you know,
the whole thing about you know, you gotta understand, you know,
the artist is that the artist is the drawing card,
and the artist is the reason you're there and you
and you gotta like these people, and you gotta like
you to love music or you shouldn't do it. Okay.
People who don't actually know you and go by reputation,
they're not aware of the fact that you're so charming

(01:08:08):
and friendly and you get along. It's not just your personality.
Was that a strategy? Also? I don't think it's a strategy.
But listen, Hanley has this this line he uses all
the time. When it's necessary, I need you to go
seventies on him. Okay, And and and we I mean,

(01:08:29):
come on when your kids and you're you know, you're
you know, Glenn Fry was James Dean Man. I mean,
you know, it was like we were running hard and fast.
You know. I was never you know, consuming what they
were consuming. But I certainly had the punk attitude, you know. Um,
and you know, you're in Hollywood and it's an actor job.
And you know during in the seventies in Hollywood, you know,

(01:08:50):
you you know, you had you had rough characters out there,
whether it was you know, you'd sit in front of
the sitt in the trouber or at night and listened
to Albert Grossman and David Geffen scream at each other. Right. Um,
So it was you just you had to kind of
play to the to the the type cast that you
were given. You know, we're all we're in Hollywood, so

(01:09:12):
you know all that all that kind of seventies behavior
was it was one, it was an act too. It
was fun um and three it worked. Now, you notoriously
got into battles where you didn't speak to people for
a while, and then you made up what was happening there. Well,

(01:09:32):
when you put somebody in jail, they get out eventually.
I mean, I kind of it was. I looked at
it more like a hockey game. You have a fight,
the guy goes in the penalty box, and then he
gets out of the penalty box. Yeah, but you also
sent like, uh, Chuck Morris an actual buck and told
him he was out of the penalty box. Possible. Okay,

(01:09:54):
were you aware before it's released? How big and here's
how good your memory is and my memory is to
did you ever know why Chuck Morris went in the
penalty box? He did tell me, But how you're gonna
remind me? I can't whip it out. So when I
was an m c A Records, he was man as
I sold, you know, and we still had the management business,
right and you know, he was my promoter in Colorado

(01:10:15):
and other places and close close friend, and he was
managing the Dirt Band and um, the Dirt went off
of Warner and he made a deal with me for
the Dirt Band to come record for me. And it
was you know, and we were launching, really getting big
in Nashville. Um, and then he decided not to close
the deal, so I put him in the penalty box
for a while. Fair right, they went to United Artists.

(01:10:38):
It really fucked him up, just when he tells the story.
But going back, you're you know, it takes a while
to make Hotel California. Are you aware of the phenomenon
it's going to be before it comes out? Uh? We
knew it was magical. Yeah, I mean, look, you never
you never can predict that level of success. But um,

(01:11:02):
you know, he just uh, you know, I had the
good fortune to be sitting there as those songs were written,
you know, whether it was in the rented houses that
we rented or sometimes in my house. Um, and I
was there when the tracks were laid, and I was
there when the vocals were late, you know, and you
just you know, Glenn and Donnas had just hit the

(01:11:26):
hit their stride, you know. And I don't know why,
you know, these guys can't. It doesn't last thirty or
forty or fifty years, the ability to write and and
record and stay you know, ahead of it. Um, but
that you know, but they that those were you know,
but but look I would contend even all the way back.
But you know, long run hotel California on the border

(01:11:48):
were you know, and I and I thought Long Road
out of Eden were just amazing pieces of work certainly.
So ultimately you have this huge success and suddenly you're
managing everybody Steely Dan boss gags Buffet. Are these people
just calling the up say, you know, give me some
of the magic. How do you end up managing all
those people? Uh? Networking? You know, there's no two situations

(01:12:12):
that are saying, um, Jimmy Buffett, Um, I'm in the um.
You know. We had houses in Aspen, and I was
in the I was in the Jerome Bar, and Aspen
called the office and got a message that some opening
act had canceled and we were leaving the next day
to start a date in Carolina. And I looked over

(01:12:32):
and I knew Jimmy because we were both at Aspen.
He's sitting literally sitting at the bar with Hunter Thompson
at the Jerome Bar hotel, and I'm going, Jimmy's wife's
from Carolina. He's Jimmy's big and Carolina. We're starting in
the Carolina. So I went over and tapped him on
the shoulder and said, hey, he wanted he want to
come open for the Eagles on the tour and he says, yeah,

(01:12:54):
I ain't doing nothing. Of course, I said, all right,
grab your guitar and meet me at the airport. I'll
book the flights tomorrow morning. He flew together the date
and that's and he and and uh he was Uh.
He was managed by a guy in Nashville at the
time and had a record deal and was starting out
and it was kind of just getting started for him.
But things things got got way late, and one day
after he opens for the Eagles at Madison were Garden,

(01:13:17):
his wife Jane Buffett, hops in my limo and says, uh,
you're going to manage my husband. You're going to go
buy him out of this other contract and and manage Jimmy.
So that's how that kind of happens. Um. I believe
somebody at Columbia Records set me up with boss. Um.

(01:13:38):
You know, my my girl Stevie Um was just you know,
Fleetwood Mac was a mess, and she knew she wanted
to make solo records. Um. And you know, and and
we've done dates together, Eagles and Fleetwood Mac. So you
mostly meet these people out on the road, you know,
And how do you get involved with Howard Kaufman. Howard

(01:14:00):
Kaufman was he and Larry Fitzgerald were running Jimmy Garcio's
management business, and they were managing Chicago and the Beach
Boys and maybe even Billy Joel. I don't know, I
don't remember. But Howard was the kind of CFO guy,
and Larry was kind of the general manager, you know,

(01:14:20):
and Garcio as the producer. UM and I, you know,
we and I we were recording up at Cariboo, the
Eagles and stuff. I met Howard and Larry. UM. One
thing led to another, and Howard ended up you know,
and Jimmy wasn't paying those guys what they were worth.
And then Howard became a partner in the company, and
the rest is kind of history. What we were. Howard's

(01:14:41):
roles as opposed to your roles, well, he kind of
picked up the uh, you know, I was the I
was the talent artist relations guy. UM. I would help
the making of the records and the and you know
kind of route the tours and stuff. But Howard would
all the you know, all the economics. He was a
very gifted business manager. So deals, Okay, how do you

(01:15:02):
end up at M c A. How did I end
up at m c A. Uh, Well, the Eagles broke up,
Fleetwood Mac broke up Um, Steely Dan broke up Um Howard.
We used to we used to have this act. We
called me the pencil and him the eraser and uh
and Howard said, you know, no matter how much money

(01:15:23):
we've made, you know, you know, without all this income
from these other people, we have to go sign other people.
And all I know is I wake up one day
and and we'd signed sticks and the go goes. After
having the Eagles, Steely Dan and Fleetwood Mac, Um and uh,
somehow fell into UM this movie FM that I had

(01:15:48):
made it at Universal, where I took my name off
because they had the right to take my name off
if I didn't like the movie, which they thought was hilarious.
That I negotiated that right. So I did the soundtrack,
which was very sick ccessful, and I took my name
off the movie because I didn't like the movie, which
they thought was fucking ridiculous. So I get a call
one day from the UM and then UM. They had

(01:16:10):
a guy running MCRE Records named Gene Frolick. And in
those days, I think records were maybe I think they
were that expensive yet, but okay, I think there were
still si whatever. Frolick decided that Gaucho by Steely Dan,
which was the last album they owed m c A, uh,
should be it was a dollar or two whatever, dollar

(01:16:33):
or two dollars more. Um, So Fagan and Becker and I,
I said, listen, I've got a perfect way to let
the public know that that we are not off, you know,
that we're unhappy that they're charging this money. So I
heard Mickey Rewden, who was this who was Frank Sinatra's
lawyer in this high powered you know, on Steve Ross
at Warner's Layer, and I had him sue m c

(01:16:56):
A on the grounds that we wanted out of our
country because um, they're not a proper record label, because
no record labels stupid enough to charge record And actually
then they of course had to file for um summary
judgment to get the case dropped, and we actually took
Sheinberg's deposition and stuff. It was fucking hilarious, and Sheinberg

(01:17:20):
thought that this was the greatest stunt ever. And of
course we lost, and the album came out and did fine.
But then I get this call from them one day
and I was, I don't know, it must have been
I can tell exactly. I was thirty five and they said, UM,
why don't you come be on our board and run
the record company? And you know, I wasn't having any

(01:17:42):
fun right then, and I and I turned it down
a couple of times, and they kept coming back to me. UM.
And I remember Shelley and I were at Caesar's Palace
in Las Vegas. They used to have this big tennis
tournament down there, UM, and we went down with our fringe,
John McEnroe UM, and he was so and and at

(01:18:06):
the time I was playing a lot of tennis and
stuff and and so he was. He was down there.
We were hanging out with John macarro and Bjorn Borg
and you know, they were doing naughty things and it
was just just really fun. And I remember Shelley come
in and get me, says, Steaming Knix is on the phone.
She's crying blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. So
I get I picked up the phone and Stevie says
to me, Um, she was signing her solo deal to UH,

(01:18:31):
Danny Goldberg and UH and Paul on Modern Records, and
she says, they say, you're being so mean to them,
and you're charging them too much money, and you're gonna
they can't afford to pay for me what you want, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera,
cter and and you know, and I just kind of
threw up my hands. I said, Shell, you know what,

(01:18:52):
that's a signal maybe I'm maybe I should just go
do this right so I, you know, and then one
thing lent to another, so I agreed to do it,
Like I felt like, I've done interviews where I called
him the music Cemetery of America, which Lew Wasserman said
Chibrick thought was hilarious. And I had called him that
joke of that joke of a record company in the
valley nobody wants to sign with. And I kind of

(01:19:14):
figured there was nowhere to go but up. Yeah, the
label is essentially moribund. They had this act I took.
I took all the album covers of the current artists,
and there's this there was this big long haul down
at the in the quarter and in the offices, put
them all up on the on the wall and and
I and I made I mad, made all the new
employees work. I said, this is the walk of shame,

(01:19:37):
she said we would, And then one by one we
dropped every act on the roster. Now suddenly you're on
the other side. You're on the buying as opposed to
the selling. Yeah, okay, And there was nothing there and
it was the worst label in the business. How did
you build it? Uh? Well, I made some mistakes. Uh.
I bought a jone Jet record she was free after

(01:19:59):
her big record on Casablanca. I bought a beat. I
bought a Barry Gibbs solo record that stiffed. I bought
a jone Jet record that's stiffed. I bought a Brian
Wilson solo record that's stiffed. But I love, but I love,
but I loved all. I loved two of the three. Um.
But I also started a label within a label, you know,

(01:20:23):
in in the black music department, and Clarence Avon helped
me hire Gerald Busby and Little Silas, both of whom
are no longer with us. UM And we built a
label within a label. In those days, you'd have like
kind of a white head of the of your music division.
Then it would report in you know, there'll be a
senior VP Black Music that was a white guy, right,

(01:20:45):
and I made Gerald president of Black Music, and you know,
and and I looked, I just let those guys go.
You know, I helped them sign, you know, when they
walk baby Face in l A and I convinced him
to sign, when they walked Teddy Riley, and I convinced
him to sign. Um, we still knew it. We stole
a new addition out from under Clive. He had a
contract issue and we got there the last minute and
overpaid and got him. And then I did the same

(01:21:07):
thing in Nashville with Jimmy Bowen and uh and uh
other people where we started a country division, um you know,
which became a you know, so basically the country and
the black music divisions made us made our day. And
then we bought Motown. So would you learn running a
label as opposed to being a manager? Um, you know,

(01:21:32):
I didn't like ever having to be on the other
side of the talent table. This is kind of why
I went back there. Okay, then it becomes an amazing operation.
You leave, you form giant you have you know, you
keep selling your company. And you were not as big

(01:21:53):
then as you were previously and as you are now
what what was going through your mind in those days
in the nineties. Um, well the giant things started out okay, um,
but it never exploded. You know, I kind of did
the same stuff I'd done there, and you know, started
country division, started a black music division, the whole thing that.

(01:22:14):
You know, it's hard to build from scratch um in
those days. Um. And so when the so we put
the Eagles back together and signed journeys, So I said,
I'm out of here. So I still you know, so
Roger Eames was at Warners at the time, So I
sold the label. UM. And by the way, still even
with a I don't want to call it unsuccessful, but

(01:22:37):
a not major asset, still got paid more money than
I would have had, you know, salary for working you know,
the salary I would have made staying at Universal. UM.
So it's still worked out, okay. And then I then,
you know, then I went back in the you know,
that's when I go back in the management business. And
then shortly after that, you know, kind of promoting a
little bit of everything. I have no attention span, and

(01:22:59):
you know, and I know enough to know that you
can do more for your artists if you have more
cloud than just managing artists and you can and you
really need the platform and more than just a management business.
You know, guys like Corn Capshaw. I've learned that really. Well,
so what did you then get with the universe merging
part of front Line with different companies? Well, we're what

(01:23:23):
was the strategy and all that? Now, that was that
you know that the front Line roll up with the
strategy was to fight the consolidation of what was clear
Channel and and and those guys at that point, okay,
you know, and then one and then you know, and
then uh then it just keeps growing, you know, and
then h um, and then the Ticketmaster opportunity came around.

(01:23:44):
I had one or two choices. I'd gotten the seed,
you know, when I got ready to merge with a
bunch of these other managers, we were we were all.
I had this theory we'd all keep half our commissions
and then the other half commissions we'd put in the pot.
So it's kind of we'd all have incentive to take
care our own acts, but also to look out for
our partners. And then when it came time to close,

(01:24:04):
you know, we had they're like four of us. Everybody was, well,
where's our check? Right? And nobody wanted to put the
half in the pot. They wanted me to buy that half. So, UM,
I knew this guy named Scott Spurling who had been
who was a Thomas Lee which is now thh Le
in Boston. I knew him because he was the student
buyer and went to went to school with my brother
at Purdue University, and just he calls me up one

(01:24:28):
day and says, hey, I'm gonna buy Warner Music. Uh,
and I'm gonna put this guy, Jeff Quaton's in charge
to run it. Can you consult us and help us
get this deal done? And I went to Scott, first
of all, you're not buying Warner Music. They're gonna use
you as a stocking horse. And Celty am I, okay too,
You're not putting Jeff Quaton it's in charge of anything, okay.

(01:24:50):
And so one thing led to another. Um, and of
course they did buy Warner Music. Um. And he came
back to me and said, how about and I and
I and we were friends, and I told him I
know how all these you know, I wanted to emerge
all these management businesses. He said, merge all the management
businesses and then we'll merge it with Warner Music, right.

(01:25:11):
And then when they when everybody said, oh, we need money,
Scott came back to me and said, I'll put up
the money, right. And so Scott and I, you know,
th H D and I went in business to buy
all these managers together. And then he comes and then
he has Edgar Brockt been running Warner etcetera, etcetera. And
then when the time and then he comes and says,
we want to emerge. You change Warner Music into a

(01:25:34):
different model. We're doing terrible right, uh, And we we
have the deal done. And I think it was own
a guy that owned timber Cent Providence owned timber Center
Warner at the time, this guy Jonathan Nelson, who is
a really nice guy. But Jonathan said it wasn't fair
for th H Lee to make a profit when they

(01:25:54):
sold Frontline Management and merged it with Warner, so he
wanted Scott to scourge his profit to the partners. And
Scott said, I'm not going to do that. And while
that was going on, Barry Diller showed up and said, um,
I'll you know, merge with Ticketmaster. I'll pay you more.
And Scott said, take their check and and and we

(01:26:16):
and We basically thought in those days, you know, the
record business was in the toilet, and we kind of felt,
all of us, felt, all our managers, that we sat down,
we all felt that UM, controlling Ticketmaster and putting us
in the life side of the business was a better
idea than merging with the record label. But you a
little bit get in the den of the wolf there
with Barry Diller. Um. Yeah, Barry's a strong personality, a

(01:26:43):
brilliant guy. He's made billions and billions and billions. But um,
I was a you know, my job because he you know,
he had screwed Ticketmaster up so bad. Um. Their deal
was expiring with both a G and Live Nation. So
it's clear, you know, right after I got there that
we had to do a deal with one of them.

(01:27:04):
So my my that you know, my deal of choice
was a G because my friend Tim was there. Um.
So the truth is that we had a handshake UM
to UM do a new long term deal with a G.
A G I think was getting like a fIF steak

(01:27:24):
in Ticketmaster and return for a long term ticketing deal. Um.
And then uh, Phil Lanchitz and Barry Um I couldn't
get along and the deal fell apart. So then I
went and made the Live Nation deal and lived happily
ever after. Yeah, so what kind of plane do you have? Now? Um?

(01:27:45):
What kind of plane? I don't have any plane. My
wife has a plane? What kind of what? Shelley, what
kind of plane does she have? She has? She has
a she has a humble airplane. We fly private. Okay,
it ain't that humble because you upgraded. So you upgraded
from something not so humble to something a little less humble.
So you don't want to mention the model the maker. No,

(01:28:07):
it's not important. Okay. Many people will say economically, it
doesn't pay to have your own plane, just use net chet.
What's the thinking there? Um? Look, and a lot a
lot of plants. Clients have planes and stuff too. Um.
First of all, I think the plane is a is
a great luxury, but it's also you know, I could

(01:28:29):
I used to pre pandemic. I'm doing it again. You
save up six seven stops and you go out, and
you know you can go out and get done in
three days. It would take you ten days if you
find commercial city to city. But that that notwithstanding, the
rule of thumb is if you're flying two hundred fifty
hours a year or more as an entertainer and executive.
Uh in in in a in a fractional jet. You

(01:28:52):
should you're better off owning your own plane. Okay, So
what's your take on YouTube now? Um? You know they've
just they still pay so little per per stream or
per whatever you want to say, user or whatever. Um.

(01:29:15):
I think they're shocked that they're now getting another so
many subscribers they're signing up for the pay service. Um,
but it's you know, it's it's you know, they they're
saying they paid four billion or whatever. You know, I've
got analysis being done. It's not as rosy as it looks.
But it's not as bad as it was. So you
know they get a they get a C minus for

(01:29:38):
me instead of an F these days. Um, but it's
getting better, it is getting better. What what will make
it get better? What would you like to see happen there?
You see is going to happen? Well, I contend with
a company like YouTube, where they say YouTube wasn't making
any money. When the worth of your company goes from
a hundred million to a trillion five or whatever it
goes to that you made money, there's different. There's two

(01:30:00):
ways to make money, cash and and the valuation of
you of your business. Their valuation of their business based
on YouTube was went way up, you know, and and
you know they and they got uh, they got into
bed with the labels or you know, the labels are
getting paid a bunch of money that isn't being shared
with artists and producers. You know, Oh, YouTube is promotional, okay,

(01:30:21):
so you don't have to pay a royalty on it,
you know, and then they pay the labels all this
flat money, and then you know, it's a look, it's
a big fight, you know. The it's uh, we're never
going to get a fair division between you know, creative
and whether it's YouTube or you know, or one of
the labels or or somebody. But we can get closer

(01:30:42):
to the middle. And of the varying streaming companies left
really three big ones, Apple, Amazon, Spotify. Do those maintain
their you know independence? Is there a merger there? How
do you see that? There's no there's no merger there.
You know, the personal regulators wouldn't allow it. There's no
fit there, and they have different business plans. Amazon, you

(01:31:05):
know is you know, Amazon Prime is about getting loyalty
from customers to their other business and they use music
and movies and streaming for all of that. You know
at you know Apple, Yes it's a services company, but
it's also um you know, hardware. But you know Apple
is the only company that you know doesn't give anything.
You know, they don't do any free okay, all right?

(01:31:27):
And Spotify I think needs to do free for their
business model. But you know, you know, you need a
healthy Spotify because you know they're in one line of business.
Amazon and Apple have other businesses. Um. So I think
there's a nice balance now between the three. And from
where you sit, you know, there's all this scuttle but
about streaming payments, I'm talking about paid services. What's your

(01:31:51):
viewpoint on that? Um? The services are paying a fair
amount to for I p so, but I don't agree.
I don't agree with how it's divided, okay, meaning you
know it's being used, you know, for a kid using
it as a radio station and punching the button thirty
five times while I'm at work, right and you know

(01:32:13):
that record that he's punching thirty five times getting paid
thirty five times. I've paid the same amount of money
I work and then I come moment at night and
listen to four tracks you know, my you know, but
my four tracks you know whoever those were don't get paid.
What the you know what the one wrecked one new
you know record that came out that the kids hit

(01:32:33):
played thirty five times during the day, So you know,
I think it should be by the user, not not
by the you know, not by the Okay, So now
you're in the publishing business. Most people believe the streaming
pive publishing gets uh too lower percentage. Do you agree
with that? Do you think? You know, there's some government

(01:32:54):
regulations spotify for them. What's the future of publishing payments on?
The general consensus amongst the artist groups is that the
labels got too big a pie in the streaming versus
the publishers. Now Universal, Sony and Warner owned huge publishing companies,
so they're getting this you know, but yeah, you know,

(01:33:18):
but but but you know, so the argument that you
would hear from publishers and writers is that, yeah, but
you know, they have a lot of administration deals and stuff.
So when a dollar goes to the record company, the
label keeps a lot more of it than when a
dollar goes to their publishing company. I don't think they
sat down and figured that out. Traditionally, labels in our
business took the artist development process and the marketing costs,

(01:33:41):
and publishers, you know, got less per record because they
took less risk. They paid writer advances, but they didn't
have marketing costs. They didn't have manufacturing costs. You know, now,
of course nobody has manufacturing costs. But there's just traditions.
And I think that's why publishers got less than they
than they you know that that that then they should

(01:34:02):
have gotten. Yeah, is there an imbalance? He isn't gonna
get fixed. I doubt it. Okay, Now the big action
in the last couple of years is third party money.
Scooter Braun took a huge check, he went through changes,
ultimately sold out to the Koreans. We have Mercuriotis, we
have Primary Wave. Is this all a good thing or

(01:34:24):
not good thing? Um? Look the you know, look the
great thing about um capitalism in general, UM is you know,
everybody's got a chance to go invent and do things differently. UM.
I wouldn't. Uh. I don't know scooters deals, but I

(01:34:45):
know that uh. Um, I do know some of the
deals he made when he was acquiring management businesses and stuff,
and the way in which they were done, and you know,
those managers end up losing clients and there wasn't full
disclosure and stuff like that, so and and and you
and uh, you know, I just think that UM, there's
there's certainly within their rights to do what they want.

(01:35:06):
UM merchs model. You know, I love the idea that
marks out there bringing attention to UM the value of
I P because that helps artists. And I don't you know,
if I don't want to if I don't want to
match or right that big a check, I you know,
I just say I can't do it. But I'm never
gonna bitch when an artist gets more money. That's that's

(01:35:26):
why we exist. Speaking of the artist, what about the
seven year rule? The seven year rules are cake okay? UM.
When I was at Universal in the eighties, and I
was one of the guys that helped, you know that
not help, but I certainly supported that we needed the
exclusion from the seven year rule because you know, sometimes
the band wouldn't happen to their fifth year, right, you

(01:35:49):
get two albums in five years, you'd lose money and
then so it was necessary. But these days, you know
how you know, how long did it really take Billie
Eilish or Olivia Rodrigo or one of those to happen. So,
you know, it's just a changing marketplace, you know. And
and the seven year rule is antiquated. So I mean,
I mean, you know, the you know, the exception you know,
giving a record. The only people in the state of

(01:36:10):
California to get an exception to the seven year labor
law are you know, people that are penalized or recording artists. So,
but there's there's a compromise to be had. Uh and
you know, the bill will come back up in January. Uh,
and they'll be a big fight and hopefully uh, reasonable
people will will work it out, you know. But you
know the labels, you know, look, so the seven year

(01:36:32):
things antiquated, but so is the uh um, you know,
the clause, the rerecording clause. You know, Taylor Swift's being
really successful right now right rerecording all her stuff. You know,
labels have far more to worry about with that than
they do the seven year statute. Okay, what is the
future of the labels because now many people, you know,

(01:36:55):
they can make the record without the label. They can
put it on Spotify just like anybody else. Now obviously
they have great I P. But going forward, you know,
look they're the banks, um. Now that they're all public
entities thinking quartered a quarter um there you know, I
see the deals of titaned um and you know it's

(01:37:19):
it's it's it's free enterprise, it's capitalism. So now that
they're down to three and that their public companies sort
of feels like they'll be flourishing. Independence coming at some point.
And the agency business, you'll say, the agencies have changed completely.
You know, w M E does not make most of
their business and not most of their money in Hollywood.

(01:37:40):
And do we even need an agent? Is you know
we need this many agents? Look look there just uh yeah,
I think we need agents. I believe in the agency system,
especially for you know, not everybody. The handful of major
attractions don't need agents, but they have areas of their
life where their agents get them, you know, look at
after them. You know. Um. But in terms of the

(01:38:02):
personal appearance agency side of the business, um, most ex
you know are needed. And you've got a lot of
managers these days that an artists, sophisticated that really need
the skills of an agent to make their make their
live deals. So who do you learn from? Mm hmm,
Well I learned the most from Don Henley and Glenn

(01:38:23):
Fry of everybody, a couple of lessons, you know. One
of the earliest things, you know, Fry showed up in
a T shirt that said song power and tossed me
a T shirt that said phone power, and uh, you
gotta have great songs. I learned that from them. It's

(01:38:44):
about songs, it's about lyric it's about distinctive melody. All
starts there, okay, But on a general level, like in
the Wall Street journals, say who are your mentors? Who's
your club? Who's your club today? I had I had
the good fortune, you know, to be around David Geffen
and Elliott Roberts in the early days. Okay, Um, I

(01:39:06):
had Barry Diller in my life. I had Scott Spurgwing
and Teach Lee in my life. I had John Alone
in my life. Right that that at Live Nation, those
are those are there's some Lou Wasserman and Sid Sheiberg
were amazing, right. So, you know, I've been around some
of the most you know, famous corporate minds in the

(01:39:27):
business and you pick up stuff and you learn stuff,
but you know, eventually you turn it into your own. Okay,
So when you're in a quandary, who do you call Shelley? Okay?
And what does she tell you? Work harder? But how
about business insight? In terms of decisions? Who do you call? Um?

(01:39:49):
Who are my mentors these days? Who do I call
business insights? Um? You know I have some really close
personal friends, some of whom I'm in business with and
not but um, David Bonderman, tpg uh Egon Durban at
silver Lake, Eddie Q at Apple. Um. You know, there's

(01:40:11):
a there's a lot of a lot of great people around.
Rapino and I talk regularly. I think he is brilliant
and strategic and I learned a lot from him. I
can't tell you how much I learned from the Lye
Wicky brothers, from Tim and Todd uh Tim and Todd Lwicky.
So I got a lot of people around to bounce
stuff off. And you still talk to Don Henley every day? Yes?

(01:40:35):
And how long a conversation about what well it can be?
You know, it can be some texting, but but you know,
you know, we either talk on the phone or multiple
texts every day and personal or business both. Okay, So
the music business, what do we know? Sixties and seventies
drove the culture If you were a musician who as

(01:40:56):
rich as anybody in America today we literally have billionaire
it's okay, most almost none of them made their money
a former etcetera. In addition, once you start in the
sixties to seventy five, it's a new business with evolution, okay,
the switching and the deals from the Sid Bernstein deals
to the Peter Grant deals, etcetera. Where's music place in

(01:41:20):
the firmament now? And what is the future? Um? Music
and is still a very important part of culture, probably
more influential, um then it's ever been. It may not,
it may not be throwing off the economics in terms
of other people are making more money, but it's certainly
as important to lifestyle and culture as as it's ever been.

(01:41:43):
So you know, for you know, if you want to
be I guess, if you're thinking how am I going
to become a multibillionaire, you've got to think of some
crazy company to start that you can sell as to know,
anything related to tech. But um, but if you want
to influence culture, I would still say that a musician
influences more than a than an actor or you know

(01:42:04):
any of that stuff. Okay, you have a million stories,
tell us one or two of your favorite stories. I'll
close with one great one. Okay. Um it is and
and it's no secret that it has to be Joe Wallace, right,
who is another one of my closest running mates for many, many,
many many years. Um, which Joe Walls story? Do you want?

(01:42:31):
You want a Keith Moon story or oh I got
a good one. So we were on the road tour
pre joining the Eagles, Joe Wah, Marshall, Tucker, Leonard Skinners, um.
And in those days, Um, Joe would hallucinate, and so
we would get adjoining rooms and I'd leave the door open,
so in the middle of the night when the Martians

(01:42:52):
came to take him, he'd run in my room yelling,
the Martians are coming, the Martians are coming. And I
would just say, no, Joe, They're not go back to bed. Right.
So we get it. We're an upstate New York I
think it was like Syracuse or Albany or one of those.
And uh, And we were in one of those round
holiday inns and we check in at the and they go,

(01:43:15):
we don't have any adjoining rooms. And you know, and
that's the first thing that travel agent, the tour manager
had because Joe couldn't couldn't sleep. He wasn't in the
joining room of me. And they said, but we have
rooms next door to each other. There physically isn't two
rooms in the hotel that you know where the door
opens and it connects, I says, Joe, you'll be fine

(01:43:35):
for one night. And you know, I said, you'll be
fine for one night. What what I'll do is I
won't double lock my door. I got two keys to
my room. And when the Martians come in the middle
of the night, you go out in the hallway, you
take one step to the right, you unlock my door.
You come in and and and you kept me And
he says, I'm fine, that's great, no problem. Um. And
these are the days. So you know, you land at

(01:43:56):
an airport, I'd call the office and I'd scribble on
the back of a piece of paper thirty calls or
so that I have to call back. So I'm sitting
in my hotel room, chose in the in the room
next door to me, and you're sitting there and you're
you're dialing one after the other and you know, you're
entering your credit card and you remember those days when
you know your course, you know. And I had given

(01:44:18):
Joe it had had this horrible chainsaw on the road
with him to saw things, uh, and it was one
of those dirty ones that had like you had to
put a casoline in it and ship. So I got
him an electric chainsaw and mounted it in a guitar
case and stuff. So he's got out his electric chainsaw, um,
and I hear it start, and I'm going so he

(01:44:40):
saw you know, he's sawing up some furniture, no big deal, uh.
And then the wall, like I hear it, like into
the wall, right. So I just keep making my phone
calls and it's getting louder and louder, and then I
see the thing come through the door. So he's made
an igloe sized cut all, you know, like an opening
to an igloo around like semicircle. And then he and

(01:45:02):
then he's you know, kicking it and pushing it and
you know, the plasters breaking, and the ship comes through,
and I just keep making my calls and he crawls
through the hole in the wall between the two of us,
and he looks up at me and he says, and
I made it just your size, but a big I
just have to ask one more question. You have all

(01:45:23):
the stories and stories on the road. The manager of
the hotel finds out, what do you do? Just have
a huge stack a hundred dollar bills? How do you
get out of this? You pay road manager, tour manager
deals with it and and as long as you have
enough money, it all works. Yeah. Well, you can't do
it these days. First of all, people film ship and
they put it up. You can't get away with this

(01:45:44):
ship anymore. You go to jail for it. Now. Somebody
would have filmed it right right, Okay, thanks Bob Irving.
We we've just you know, hit the surface of the planet.
But we can do it again. You know, wh where's
this air? Where's this air? Where? Yea both where. It's

(01:46:06):
gonna be on literally every podcast service. We are I
Heart products, So it'll be on the i Heart platform,
beyond the Spotify platform, beyond the Stitcher platform, beyond the
Apple platform, beyond the Mzon platform, so it's on all
of the big things. I'm sure you know that everyone
will be scrambling to hear your words of well you

(01:46:28):
keep up the good work Bob. You're doing and by
and by the way, as you know, I'm a big fan,
and you're you're you're hitting it out of the park.
You're doing good. Thanks so much for taking the time irving.
I know you're busy, so until next time. This is
Bob left sets