Welcome to version 2.0 of our series Behind the Blogs, in which we interview the bloggers and thinkers who are following the music business changes that affect us all.
David Rose, the founder of Know the Music Biz, is big on community.
A life-long music lover, Rose understands the importance of putting many heads together to solve big problems, and his site, which has been online since June 2007, is a reflection of that. Experts and amateurs from across the music business all put their two cents in about everything from tour management to royalties. I spoke with Rose about his site and where he thinks the industry is headed.
I read a profile of you and your site that said you went from “big business" to “independent music." Could you be more specific? What prompted you to start this site?
So, I spent about eight years with a fortune 500 company, then I was with three venture-backed start-ups in technology, and wound up, through a mutual friend, meeting one of the owners of Yep Roc Records and Redeye Distribution. And I did some IT projects and initiatives, and some other stuff, started helping them out, and then before long I thought I'd like to work there, and I basically wound up in charge of their new media and e-commerce strategies.
Do you think there was anything you learned at the start-ups or the Fortune 500 company that helped you out with that? What made you decide to move into this space when it was obviously so unsettled? I'm a huge music fan, and have been since college, and wanted to continue, and wanted to help artists that I loved get heard. I got the opportunity to do that, and the owner was really into bringing a lot of technology partners in. And during this period, a lot of labels were very uncertain about this stuff, we launched an MP3 download store in 2005.
Wow. iTunes was just a couple years old at that point. That's right, and a lot of the major labels didn't want MP3s of anything out there. I think the only formats out there were MP3s and FLACC.
That segues into one of the main issues I wanted to talk with you about, which is the knowledge gap that exists between where the industry is headed, and where musicians' minds still are in the industry. A lot of people still wait around and hope an A&R guy is going to walk up to them with his checkbook out and sign them. Do you feel like there's been a lot of progress made in the music community in this regard, in terms of people moving over on that spectrum? You know, I think it's still a pretty wide spectrum. There's still, unfortunately, a large percentage of the musician population that's waiting for that A&R person to show up and catapult them to stardom. I think it's a myth, and I think it's always been a myth. If you look at the statistics of it, you might as well buy a lottery ticket. But I think that the other piece of that that makes it even more challenging is that there was a time where if you signed with the right label, or the right manager, or with the right publisher, you could make a pretty good living out of music. And I think we're in a transitional period where nobody I can think of seems to have the answers for how to create a career making music yet. I think that's a real challenge. And all the publishers, labels, and managers are all sitting around going, “Gosh, how are we going to make this work for the future?" I think it's tough.
I totally agree. I will add, though, that I do believe that there is significant intrinsic value in music. And, again, over time, this is a transitional period, and over time a model will get figured out.
Yeah, because when you think of the centrality it has in so many aspects of our lives, ultimately most people aren't going to abide by the devaluation that's taken place over the last decade. That's right, there's tremendous intrinsic value there. And in any industry that has that kind of value, smart people are going to get together and figure it out. Does that mean it's going to be enough money to pay a label, a distributor, a publisher, a manager, a songwriter and an artist? I don't know. But I think that the artists that do it directly will be okay.
There's a pretty big emphasis on your site on community—you've got message boards, you crowd-source your content—how do you go about cultivating that? Is it all about the content, do you do outreach? Why is that community-centric aspect so important to you? I think the community aspect is important because, as I said before, I don't have all the answers, and I don't think anyone does. The hope is that part of this project will be putting the bits and pieces of the puzzle together and sharing that with the larger group, to make it easier to figure out what might be working. And they can use those tips and tidbits in their own business and music career.
I struggle with that a lot, too. Because one of the central messages that sites like ours preach is specificity: find your fans, find your niche, own and capitalize on things that are unique to your circumstances. And that makes finding advice or insights that are applicable to the entire musician community very difficult. Does that worry you too? Do you think there are a lot of universal truths out there that everyone can use? There's very few universal truths right now. I think experimentation's a big part of a successful equation. If you can find something that works for you, or find out what's working or not working for musicians within your community or even online, then I think that really gives you a leg up. And it's really up to the musician and the people around them to figure that out, because no one else is going to do it for them.
I wish there was more community interaction on our website. I mean, I wish there was more community interaction in my own city. I live in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and there's always traditionally been a strong musician community here, and I wish it was stronger sometimes. If people are really interested in being part of a community or being successful in one, you need to get involved locally. That's where it starts. You need to go out and support your friends' bands regularly.
So what do you think it is that's holding things back? Is it the economy? Do people maybe not have the money to plunk down the $5 to $8 every night anymore? Did something maybe poison the well? Because sometimes you read things about how in certain cities, the scenes aren't so positive. What do you attribute that to in Chapel Hill? I don't know. I think there's a couple things that are hard to grasp that are certainly in play. It's funny because I'm a businessperson, and so I feel weird giving advice to musicians. But back when I was working at Yep Roc, there were some records we put out that I thought were going to set the world on fire, and I thought that because I thought it was all about the art. But there's something more that's needed for an artist to take off, and I call it magic pixie dust. You can't buy it, you can't find it, you can't hire it, it has to find you. And there's something that has to happen. I think people in local scenes are trying to get immediately to their final destination, and they forget that the scene gets you part of the way there. I think that's a strange thing, but it's also kind of a reality, one of those things that makes you scratch your head and go, “Really?"
Because I've seen tons of hugely talented artists that have never gotten famous, or even gotten part of the way there, and I don't have an explanation for it.
The thing that's worrisome for me is that is that it seems like nobody gets a second chance. Once upon a time, if a band didn't make it on their first go round, there was at least an outside chance that a journalist who believed in them would champion them, and a small cult audience would grow around them, and maybe people would come to appreciate the band later. But nowadays, there's so much media and so many outlets that are all trying to move as quickly as they can, that people aren't willing to listen to things a second time; if a certain kind of blog posts a song that came out eight months ago, people will say, “Oh, that's old." Well, one of the great things about the music business right now is that there are no barriers to entry. And one of the toughest things about the music business is that there are no barriers to entry. And so even if someone's extremely talented and extremely worthy, and they work really hard, it's really tough to get heard over all the music out there.
Any exciting announcements coming up for the site? We're actually in the process of launching a new site, it should be up in the next few weeks. One of the challenges we have with our current site is how difficult it is to comment on it. It just happened to be the content management system that we used and the way it was designed just limited things. So we're launching a new site where the commenting features will be much more accessible, and easy to use, and hopefully that will get a broader discussion going. We get one comment for every 10,000 views or whatever, [laughs] so hopefully this will improve on that when it gets kicked off.
David Rose, the founder of Know the Music Biz, is big on community.
A life-long music lover, Rose understands the importance of putting many heads together to solve big problems, and his site, which has been online since June 2007, is a reflection of that. Experts and amateurs from across the music business all put their two cents in about everything from tour management to royalties. I spoke with Rose about his site and where he thinks the industry is headed.
I read a profile of you and your site that said you went from “big business" to “independent music." Could you be more specific? What prompted you to start this site?
So, I spent about eight years with a fortune 500 company, then I was with three venture-backed start-ups in technology, and wound up, through a mutual friend, meeting one of the owners of Yep Roc Records and Redeye Distribution. And I did some IT projects and initiatives, and some other stuff, started helping them out, and then before long I thought I'd like to work there, and I basically wound up in charge of their new media and e-commerce strategies.
Do you think there was anything you learned at the start-ups or the Fortune 500 company that helped you out with that? What made you decide to move into this space when it was obviously so unsettled? I'm a huge music fan, and have been since college, and wanted to continue, and wanted to help artists that I loved get heard. I got the opportunity to do that, and the owner was really into bringing a lot of technology partners in. And during this period, a lot of labels were very uncertain about this stuff, we launched an MP3 download store in 2005.
Wow. iTunes was just a couple years old at that point. That's right, and a lot of the major labels didn't want MP3s of anything out there. I think the only formats out there were MP3s and FLACC.
That segues into one of the main issues I wanted to talk with you about, which is the knowledge gap that exists between where the industry is headed, and where musicians' minds still are in the industry. A lot of people still wait around and hope an A&R guy is going to walk up to them with his checkbook out and sign them. Do you feel like there's been a lot of progress made in the music community in this regard, in terms of people moving over on that spectrum? You know, I think it's still a pretty wide spectrum. There's still, unfortunately, a large percentage of the musician population that's waiting for that A&R person to show up and catapult them to stardom. I think it's a myth, and I think it's always been a myth. If you look at the statistics of it, you might as well buy a lottery ticket. But I think that the other piece of that that makes it even more challenging is that there was a time where if you signed with the right label, or the right manager, or with the right publisher, you could make a pretty good living out of music. And I think we're in a transitional period where nobody I can think of seems to have the answers for how to create a career making music yet. I think that's a real challenge. And all the publishers, labels, and managers are all sitting around going, “Gosh, how are we going to make this work for the future?" I think it's tough.
I totally agree. I will add, though, that I do believe that there is significant intrinsic value in music. And, again, over time, this is a transitional period, and over time a model will get figured out.
Yeah, because when you think of the centrality it has in so many aspects of our lives, ultimately most people aren't going to abide by the devaluation that's taken place over the last decade. That's right, there's tremendous intrinsic value there. And in any industry that has that kind of value, smart people are going to get together and figure it out. Does that mean it's going to be enough money to pay a label, a distributor, a publisher, a manager, a songwriter and an artist? I don't know. But I think that the artists that do it directly will be okay.
There's a pretty big emphasis on your site on community—you've got message boards, you crowd-source your content—how do you go about cultivating that? Is it all about the content, do you do outreach? Why is that community-centric aspect so important to you? I think the community aspect is important because, as I said before, I don't have all the answers, and I don't think anyone does. The hope is that part of this project will be putting the bits and pieces of the puzzle together and sharing that with the larger group, to make it easier to figure out what might be working. And they can use those tips and tidbits in their own business and music career.
I struggle with that a lot, too. Because one of the central messages that sites like ours preach is specificity: find your fans, find your niche, own and capitalize on things that are unique to your circumstances. And that makes finding advice or insights that are applicable to the entire musician community very difficult. Does that worry you too? Do you think there are a lot of universal truths out there that everyone can use? There's very few universal truths right now. I think experimentation's a big part of a successful equation. If you can find something that works for you, or find out what's working or not working for musicians within your community or even online, then I think that really gives you a leg up. And it's really up to the musician and the people around them to figure that out, because no one else is going to do it for them.
I wish there was more community interaction on our website. I mean, I wish there was more community interaction in my own city. I live in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and there's always traditionally been a strong musician community here, and I wish it was stronger sometimes. If people are really interested in being part of a community or being successful in one, you need to get involved locally. That's where it starts. You need to go out and support your friends' bands regularly.
So what do you think it is that's holding things back? Is it the economy? Do people maybe not have the money to plunk down the $5 to $8 every night anymore? Did something maybe poison the well? Because sometimes you read things about how in certain cities, the scenes aren't so positive. What do you attribute that to in Chapel Hill? I don't know. I think there's a couple things that are hard to grasp that are certainly in play. It's funny because I'm a businessperson, and so I feel weird giving advice to musicians. But back when I was working at Yep Roc, there were some records we put out that I thought were going to set the world on fire, and I thought that because I thought it was all about the art. But there's something more that's needed for an artist to take off, and I call it magic pixie dust. You can't buy it, you can't find it, you can't hire it, it has to find you. And there's something that has to happen. I think people in local scenes are trying to get immediately to their final destination, and they forget that the scene gets you part of the way there. I think that's a strange thing, but it's also kind of a reality, one of those things that makes you scratch your head and go, “Really?"
Because I've seen tons of hugely talented artists that have never gotten famous, or even gotten part of the way there, and I don't have an explanation for it.
The thing that's worrisome for me is that is that it seems like nobody gets a second chance. Once upon a time, if a band didn't make it on their first go round, there was at least an outside chance that a journalist who believed in them would champion them, and a small cult audience would grow around them, and maybe people would come to appreciate the band later. But nowadays, there's so much media and so many outlets that are all trying to move as quickly as they can, that people aren't willing to listen to things a second time; if a certain kind of blog posts a song that came out eight months ago, people will say, “Oh, that's old." Well, one of the great things about the music business right now is that there are no barriers to entry. And one of the toughest things about the music business is that there are no barriers to entry. And so even if someone's extremely talented and extremely worthy, and they work really hard, it's really tough to get heard over all the music out there.
Any exciting announcements coming up for the site? We're actually in the process of launching a new site, it should be up in the next few weeks. One of the challenges we have with our current site is how difficult it is to comment on it. It just happened to be the content management system that we used and the way it was designed just limited things. So we're launching a new site where the commenting features will be much more accessible, and easy to use, and hopefully that will get a broader discussion going. We get one comment for every 10,000 views or whatever, [laughs] so hopefully this will improve on that when it gets kicked off.
