 Find that first person that you trust that believes in you. That's your first manager. You know, stop waiting for these big managers to find you. You can go out and get all the resources and information that you need. But you need to find somebody you trust. You need to find somebody that's willing to do the dirty work. And that was me in Taylor's situation. And that's how I became her manager. What's up? What's up? What's up? I'm Brandon Shawn and I'm Corey. We are back with another episode of No Labels Necessary Podcast, which you can catch us every Thursday and every Tuesday. I said it backwards that time on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music, anywhere that you stream your podcast here at the intersection of creativity and currency. This is No Labels. No labels, no rules. We love, as you know, to bring on people who are following that path, doing things differently their own way, not just on the artist side, but on the behind the scenes side. And today we have somebody who beautifully represents. No labels, no rules. Do it your way and do good business. Rick Barker. What's up, Rick Barker? How you doing? I'm excited because I'm finally on the Brandman Shawn network. You know, I mean, I reached out to you. What was it? Three and a half, four years ago, just as a fan, you know, and just said, Hey, I love what you're doing. You know, keep doing what you're doing. And then one day we end up on the phone and the next thing you know, we're eating burgers in Vegas. And I mean, it's, it's interesting what this internet can do as far as people go. And he bought me dinner, by the way, that night, which was very good. I appreciate it. I'll be doing it, man. I'll be showing good for that man. Pan for a meal. He was, it was funny. He invited Annie pay, which was super cool. We were at, what was it? One of the brothers. Walburgers. Yeah, Walburgers. That's what, yeah, in Vegas. Well, look, everybody, y'all don't take that seriously. You know what I mean? I don't know y'all. But, but Rick is amazing himself for those of you don't know, he's former manager of Taylor Swift, been a marketing advisor, a management advisor, managing artists. Like he's done so many things, but arts are really put into a specific like title because to me, you've been creating a title, moving in a way that's title list, in my opinion, but it's been really great in terms of not only the insights of management and understanding that world, but I actually look at you as someone who has a lot of insight on building community as well, even around yourself. So I want to get into those hacks, those tricks and how you got all how all that came to be, but let's start closer to the beginning. And when you got with Taylor Swift, right, a couple of people on our team, when they found out about you, they're like, well, what's his background? How did he get with Taylor Swift? When did he work with her? Yep. Let's start there to be getting something we can use that as context for where we're going. It's pretty funny that we're having this conversation today because one of my memories that came up on Facebook today was back when my son, I think he was like two and my daughter was four and he's sitting on Taylor's lap and he's given a muscle and she's like this 16 year old frizzy hair little teenager and she had just bought my daughter this little princess outfit. So my daughter sitting on her lap in this princess outfit and I wrote three eras. You know, this was like before the single was even released to radio. We were out on radio tour at the time that she had come through. So I basically built a country radio station in 2001 in the process of doing that. I created the first ever radio tour where artists actually got paid because I asked really good questions. I'm never the smartest dude in the room, but I'm always going to ask questions. And one of the questions that I asked and this is funny that we're talking about record labels. As I said, so what radio tour is for those of you that don't understand is before an artist's song officially seeks to be added to radio stations playlist. They'll spend like six months visiting these regions. Each regional for the record company will take an artist out, they'll play in conference rooms or they'll the promoter will play the music and get people pumped and excited. And then six months later when the song goes out, you want to be added to every radio station possible. So it's a massive cost that goes along with flying the rep, flying the artist, flying a player, you know, hotels playing. So the label, the artist is majorly going into debt at the beginning stages of their record. They, they signed the deal. They're usually in debt because they had to pay for an attorney. Then they get an advance. So that's more debt. Then they go in and produce music. That's debt. Then they go in and go out on radio tour and that's debt. So they're all excited because they're signed to a label, but what they don't understand is that debts only going to be paid back with the 15 cents out of every dollar that they get, not the 85 cents that the label gets. That's one of the biggest misperceptions that they're like, well, I made $250,000. No, you only made 15% of that because the label's not going to pay back your advances out of the money that they get. So I started asking questions like, well, why don't we ever let them see them play? Why don't we put them on stage? So I started hearing things like one, they didn't have enough music and I'm like, you signed an artist to a major label that can't play for 30 minutes. They were like, yeah, this was on the country side and I came from the rock in the hip hop world where these kids will go forever. I said, they said, or they're not familiar enough. No one will show up at these shows. I said, well, wait a minute. If I play the music and I get excited about it, my audience will get excited about it. And then if they hear somebody on the radio and know that they're going to be a club and it's a free show, they'll show up. So I took the idea to a whole bunch of radio stations in California. They all loved it and that's how I got on everyone's radars. I created the Nashville to you radio tour where artists actually got paid, which put me on big machines. Radar and Scott was who had signed Taylor when she was 14 years old to big machine records and he offered me a job as a radio promoter. And the first thing he did was send me Taylor and say teacher the business. She doesn't she's ever done his right song. She I think sang an anthem at like a Philadelphia 76ers game or something because she was from the Pennsylvania area, but she was never on American Idol. She wasn't out trying to chase this thing. All she was doing was focusing on the music. So he wanted me to teach her the business side. I did that. So hold on one second. Yeah, we say radar. Is that Ray Daniels or another radar? What do you mean? There's a guy named Ray Daniels who's pretty. He's a dope music exec, but I didn't know if that was his company or who's radar. He said radar and Scott signed Taylor. No, Scott Borschetta signed Taylor when she was 14. Got it. Yeah. So she had been flying under the radar. Oh, okay. Yeah. So she wasn't out there. They weren't like these kids today. They there wasn't Facebook lives, Instagram lives, TikTok lives. There are a lot of these kids are running around doing contests and singing contest and doing everything. All she did was just focus on her music. She didn't go out and start doing any of this other stuff. So she needed to learn the business. She needed to perform. She needed to play in conference room. She needed to do all those things. So that's when I took her out on that tour and then six months later, her parents called and asked me to be her manager. And I had zero management experience and when they first asked, I said, no. And they're like, well, why? I said, because I'm not a manager. They said, we're not coming to you for your management experience. We're coming to you because you think different. We're coming to you because you trust. She trust you. We're coming to you because you believe in her. And that's what I tell independent artists, find that first person that trust that you trust that believes in you. That's your first manager. Stop waiting for Irving A's off to call. He ain't calling, you know, stop waiting for these big managers to find you. You can go out and get all the resources and information that you need. There's people like Sean myself and J. R. McKee and tons of us that will help provide that area of expertise for you. But you need to find somebody you trust. You need to find somebody that's willing to do the dirty work. And that was me. And Taylor's situation. And that's how I became her manager towards the end of two thousand and six. Oh, dope. So. 2006 on that rise that she had because it was funny when we were talking about Taylor last conversation. I think there was a YouTube video on Taylor just talking about the different era. So this guy on my team, he was like, man, I didn't know this much about her. And then he said, Yeah, you know, she's been in the game for like 16 years or something crazy. And I was like, man, I didn't realize she's been around long around that long. So like in that era, like what would you say first? Like popped her off. What was the moment where my space of my space without a doubt? What she did was she realized that there was this place that people were hanging out every night and you could upload songs. So she would upload her demos and then go start having conversations with these people. It's like so for people, if we want to go backwards and talk even as 15 years ago, if you wanted to be heard, you needed to be one of the chosen few to be on the radio. You need to be one of the chosen few that was with a booking agent that could get you gigs or go to Atlanta. All those kids on the street New York, you know, boomboxes play in CDs. You know, that's what they did. They the hip hop artists went straight to the streets. All the internet did was made your street bigger. It made your street worldwide, but that's why everybody's like why are hip hop artists having all the success on Spotify? Because they were always first to the game in technology because they adapted new technology better than anyone because they didn't have the same radio station opportunities because most of the songs had profanity in it and back then you you couldn't get them played or the clubs. Nobody wanted to come to the clubs because back in the eighties and LA and everyone else, most of the people in the clubs had guns. You know, it wasn't so they weren't getting as much performance opportunity. So they were looking at every opportunity they had to share their music. So that's why they adapted to technology. Taylor was not going to out sing carry underwear. She wasn't old enough to be on American Idol. Respectfully, she was signed to a label and when you're signed to a label, you are an employee. So it's not like she could just determine when her single was coming out and determine when she was going to be priority. She had to sit around and wait for all of those things. So she did what she was allowed to do, which was, okay, I'm going to go hang out. There's millions of people from all over the world hanging on this platform. I'm going to get to know them and more importantly, I'm going to let them get to know me. And that's that was the magic. Nice as though because it seems like I kind of picked it up from looking at telling them, but it does feel like she's one of the OGRs is very social media. Like she likes it, right? Like she's always willing to adapt to the landscape and sure keep up with it in a way that we're not really used to seeing like megastar acts do you know what I'm saying? It sounds like that was her superpower early on with being able to adapt to what was kind of happening at the time. It is and one of the things that people make the mistake of is that they want to do it the way Kanye does it or the way Drake does it or the way Rihanna does it or Beyonce does it. If they were starting out today and didn't already have this massive following, they I would be coaching them the same exact way. It's just they came at a different time. Taylor came at a time when she was a teenager. When she was surrounded by adults all day. This was her escape. So I'm one of the few. I just turned 56 last week. I'm one of the few people in my mid fifties who started with my space. And then Instagram and then YouTube and Facebook. I understand social media because that's all I've known. I grew up with it. It's weird to say I'm 56 years old and I grew up with social media. We all did some of us just looked at it in a different way. Some of us looked at it as a way to do nothing but promote and then we got no results. So we're like, oh, shit. It doesn't work. Some of us just used it as a way to try to impress people. And then it didn't work or some of us just used it to front or whatever the case may be. Taylor used it as a vehicle to build relationships. It's not a marketing tool. The marketing gets done just by showing up every day. It's called brand awareness. When people see you show up every day, you're marketing without having to market. You know, and then Taylor and I did some other things that, you know, are now historic to really get the crowds involved and the people involved. But that's the way I still look at it today. Get your music heard by the right people. Most people are just trying to get their music heard by people. No, you've got to get it heard by the right people. And that's when they say, well, I ran ads and it didn't work. Who did you target? The world who liked music. Everyone in the world who liked music. There were 200 billion of them. So I targeted them. I'm like, you're a moron. You know, it's like, let's let's go into where we need to go. Where are the people hanging out that will dig with you and vibe with you? And that's that's what you teach. That's what I teach. You know, that's where we focus our attention at right now. What was one of the early crowd engagement or community building type of campaigns that y'all ran? All right. I'll tell you. So she reached out to me. This was even before I was her manager. She calls me up. Her CD was coming out in October. She reached out to me somewhere probably in August. We'll just say August, for example, 2006. And she said, I said, what are you doing? She says, I'm filling out the liner notes for my CD. I'm like, oh my gosh, that's so exciting. I said, do me a favor. Somewhere in there. Right. Rick is a God. What? I said, just hide it. Just put Rick as a God. She's like, what are you talking about? So I told her the story of the urban legend that if you spin records backwards, there's like hidden messages and stuff. So that's all she heard. She jumps off the phone. She sends me an email a couple hours later. She says, open up the attachment. See what I did to the liner notes. So she took these liner notes and she wrote all lowercase letters and then there would be a capital than lowercase letters and then a capital. And if you took a piece of paper and wrote out the capital letters in order, that was a hidden message in every single song had a hidden message. So there was no iTunes at this point. The only way you could understand what we were talking about was you had to run to Target or Walmart and buy the CD. So they had these things called chat rooms and forums at the time. So we went on the CMT chat room and we started talking about the hidden messages and the next thing you know, people are running to the store. Hold on. Let me go get mine. Oh my gosh. What I think I got one. Everybody started going. So all of a sudden in like three hours, there were 4,000 people in this chat room talking about these hidden messages. So the next day, Billboard, are there hidden secret messages in the Taylor Swift CD? And the only way to know is if you went and bought it and we had the whole world talking about it. She ended up selling 500,000 CDs in 13 weeks, which was a record at the time because just she said to me when you post our magazine did a did a story on us. They said, why did you choose Rick as your manager? He had zero experience. She said because I told him I wanted a gold record and he said, great, let's go build relationships with 500,000 people. I just did the math. Figured not bad for a guy who didn't finish college or even high school for that matter. I just said 500,000 people equals a gold record. There's millions of people hanging out on the social platform. If we wait like everyone else, we have to wait for her to get a number one song. We have to wait for her to get invited to be on a tour. Something that a lot of people don't remember is if you go back, she had a gold record before she had a top 20 single at radio, which never happens. And radio had to catch up to her fan demand. All these fans call him begging for her songs because radio didn't know what to do with her. That had a teenager says Lee Ann Rimes and Taylor was no big Lee Ann Rimes voice. She was an OK vocalist at the time, but an amazing songwriter with songs that people connected to. And and and and we knew that the kids controlled the car. So we focused on the kids because back then the kids would say, dad, turn on the radio, turn on the radio, turn on the radio. So now there's all these dads learning these songs and then the moms are learning these songs and now she's selling out three nights in a row. Seventy thousand people each night doing forty four songs in a set and taking no breaks. Love her or hate her. She's a badass. She'll be some as crazy. Funny though, the video that you sent me about Taylor, the guy was like, I learned and deep dive into it into Taylor Swift because my three year old or something like and I'm connected. Yeah. So and all these teenagers now we're our moms themselves. So now their kids are now growing up with her too. So I mean, it's it's brilliant. She's always worked to tail off. She's always stay true to her fans. She's never tried to chase what's popular radio. She just wrote songs for her people. You know, she went from country to pop and you know, she she can do whatever she wants. You know, and here's what's funny. She's going to release a CD here in the next couple of weeks. She's going to sell a couple of million CDs to people that don't even own CD players because of all the little artwork stuff she does because of all that extra stuff she does for her fans. That's what I tell the artists that I work with today. People are going to invest in the relationship they have with you. They can get your music for free. It's not the music. It's the person behind the music that they feel they're connected to. The music's going to introduce you to them. You know, but how many TikTok artists and you guys are the experts on TikTok. Do we know the trend or the dance? But we can't tell you who the artist is a lot. Oh, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. That's the difference right now. You know, that's the difference is that people are connecting to a person with her. People are you're going to go buy a concert ticket not for one song, but because you feel some form of connection and you're going to go buy a t-shirt. I've never bought a t-shirt because I liked one song. I bought a t-shirt because I like Prince. I bought a t-shirt because I like Bruno Mars. I believed in the artist. I wanted to support that artist. You know, that's where this all comes from. And that's all I think about is how do we build these relationships and build community? So some artists and managers are just waiting for lucky moments when the ones who are killing it have systems to consistently take artists to another level over and over again. And if you want to see what that looks like, we just did a collab where we not only show the system that we use that's resulted in Billboard hit some of the biggest viral moments on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. But also we got JR McKee to break down how he took an artist from zero to one of the biggest hit songs of 2022 and getting a Grammy in January of 2023. This is recent stuff. Not old tactics. If you want to check it out, go to www.brandmannetwork.com slash Grammy. Don't forget the www. Or it won't work because JR gets into the details of looking at the data, decisions that got made, how much content got created and how they adjusted the content over time for different parts of the campaign. This is real behind the curtains type of stuff. So again, go to www.brandmannetwork.com slash Grammy. If you want to check this out and apply it to yourself back to the video. Yeah, it's so interesting with artists like what you just said buying the merch believing the artists because even as a marketer and someone who is specific in music. I've been to shows and I've bought merch feeling like I was just supporting the artists like I was going to the merch counter not to look and shop and see if I find a t-shirt or something like I went to the merch counter like I rock with them. Let me go buy something from them and then hopefully find something like there but it's always artists first when I or when I even if it's somebody I didn't know but I love the way they performed. Yes, we truly do feel like you're supporting them. So that's it's an interesting more hats that I didn't need another frickin hat. Yeah, and it's just out of support. I felt okay, what's something that I'll wear you know in order to do this and you know what's interesting too is that we forget that sometimes. You know, we put so much energy and so much effort and it's like I just got off with one of my coaching clients and he's an older gentleman. He's been doing this for a long time and he's like Rick, he says, I just have to be honest with you. He says, you know, this track cost me $7,000 and I put I spent 4,000 just for the live horns and I said, you're a moron. He's like I said unless you're going after the true earth, wind and fire or blues brother. No, the fan does not care that you spent $4,000 on horns. I said, I'm a big fan of slap bass and funky bass and I was with this guy and I said, man, I would love to meet the bass player. He goes, Oh, it was me. I'm the keyboardist. I go, what he goes. Yeah, I did all that on my keyboard. I'm like, wow, even somebody. So the fans don't know everything that the artist puts into it. But if you want to take them on this journey and stuff. But I'm like, sometimes we overthink stuff. It's like, the fans just want to connect with the music first. Then when they can also connect with the artist. I mean, look at back during COVID when John Legend was doing Facebook lives. How much more connected? You're not. I don't feel connected to John Legend. If I'm 300 rows back in section C 118 or whatever, I don't feel connected to him. But when he's one foot away from me on my computer screen, playing songs for me in his living room and his cat walks across the freaking piano. I now feel more connected to John Legend. Now I want to go see him in his show and that's what I would tell independent artists. It's like the relationships that you build online. You're going to profit from offline once these shows start coming back because now people are going to want to come see their friend that they've been zooming with and spending time with and want to be able to support you at that point. But I just I just don't understand why. Let me just say it this way. You will learn and make more money. If you spend more time focusing on psychology and human behavior than $4,000 on a frickin horn section for a CD. You know what I mean or how much production you put into it or what microphone you use or get to nobody cares. Does it connect them? Does it get them right here? Does it emotionally? Do they connect with it emotionally? That's where you're going to win and that's why some of these work tapes and demos and if Eric Clapton walks in with his guitar just him and his guitar. He could be wearing cut off jeans and flip flops but if he sings tears in heaven. I'm connected. I don't care what he looks like. I don't care what guitar he played. I don't I don't care about anything. I feel Did I feel it? Spend more time trying to get people to feel you and you'll you'll win. Just my opinion. Yeah, you touched on something to it. I feel like doesn't get talked about enough and music right? And that's kind of the evolution of the fan base. Right? You said that all the teenagers that were listening to her all the years ago and then adults putting on their kids onto it. I'm looking at like if I make Sean a fan and Sean goes and gets a wife and kids and I say there's a wife and three kids and he plays my music. I've essentially gotten four fans for for the cost of one. It's like I think there are a lot a lot of I don't get to think about that because it's very few and they get to stick it out with someone long enough to to see that right when they come into the game too late. So thinking about where those people may kind of end up and having the experience like are you are you working that type of thinking into your community building programs like is it a long term like I want to get them now why the teenagers so we get them to this point by the time that 25 or is it you know yeah I don't think that we were thinking of it like that. I mean it's just it would it happened by default you know it's like it's one of those things where she just focused on writing songs for teenage girls and because the cool part is is that the world keeps reproducing teenage girls every single year. I mean that's I'm like whoa an audience that never ends you know and girls high school soccer you know that's part of my story. I speak teenage female I don't know if it's a blessing or a curse but I felt that was God preparing me for Taylor because I was going to be given this teenager that was going to go out and change the world and I connected with her better than anybody it's like she used to laugh everybody go you and Rick have this weird relationship she goes he's more like my girlfriend than he is my manager I can talk to him about anything you know and it's like we would have business conversations though people are like what were the conversations you and Taylor would have she wanted to know how much merch we sold that night she wanted to know if we did how much we did ahead she wanted to know what she had to do I mean she was all business and then we would stay after and we would sign autographs every night nobody else was doing it because what I said to her was if we're willing to do what no one else is willing to do we will get results that no one else will get and that happened because while everyone else was hiding from the fans being elusive and secretive we were out there dumping it right in their lap you know it's like Brad Paisley one time he was laughing because you know she had put out her CD but when you're the opening act for a big artist you get five songs and at the time she had what he called half a hit it was like Tim McGraw was just kind of gone up she had another one so he said she had a hit and a half he said how does the audience know all the words to these songs I said because she's online every night playing them he goes and the label doesn't care I said no the labels like counting the money right now the label likes counting the money you know it's like it used to be that we would tease something you remember 30 seconds or a snippet and I'm like cool it's so hard to get their attention now the first time much less hoping they're it's like if Rihanna wants to tease tease at Beyonce Jay-Z Kanye the Rolling Stones Coldplay Insert superstars name here wants to tease something they can do it because people are waiting they're anticipating this average Joe artist who wants to try to think their Coldplay and think they're Beyonce and think they're Jay-Z no you give them your best stuff as soon as you get their attention because you may not ever get their attention again and that's what the labels are starting to do now much better than they did 10 years ago and TikTok taught them that they taught this attention span of 15 seconds 20 seconds a label would have never in the past leaked out anything that wasn't ready or now the biggest artist or they're throwing melodies out there and saying okay audience loved it now let's go write a song Russ and Caitlyn raps that was 45 seconds here's this little white girl from San Diego threw it out fans loved it month later she's in the studio with them a month later or two weeks after that I think they were number one on the iTunes chart and a month after that she's doing 33 sold out dates as an opening act and he found her on TikTok because he said hey open verse challenge show me what you got so then all of a sudden Ryan Tedder showing up show me what you got all these big names I mean I was just watching Ed Sheeran yesterday his little Sunday fun day or whatever he does on Sundays where he goes and plays like the same tools that all of you independent artists have the major label artists are now starting to realize too I don't have to wait anymore yo I don't have to wait yet some of them still have that resistance right and that's okay I always tell people get out just quit please you know it's just so crowded anyway just get out of the way you're taking up space what was that number not too long a 37 million song on Spotify didn't even get one play that means your mama didn't even go play your damn song or you it's like it's like you are you started a restaurant and didn't even eat at your own restaurant that that part right there that's funny good didn't even show yourself love wow oh it's only 31 seconds you couldn't even please yourself for 31 seconds that's a high take right there we definitely grabbing that click Rick but the addition to that there's this transition that where Hayler went from country to pop that you I never really talked to anybody specifically who's like really been on one of those teams that can really give information on like what it looks like on the inside of the channel niche to to pop what does that look like yeah so it wasn't by it wasn't a plan okay so what happened was so now we have to go back and do a little history here so there was a time where radio stations started where we're allowed to acquire other radio stations so clear channel and cumulus so in one building there might be nine radio stations there could be a hip hop station a country station a talk station pop 40 top whatever they were all kind of in the same building songs were starting to cross over because they were being heard inside and then this thing called iTunes came along and people realized that not everyone just listened to one genre of music that they might listen to this song and this song and this song so Taylor's music always lean quote quote a little pop they had poppy melodies hooky catchy melodies but they were story songs through country so she was playing her songs they were up on country music and then without us even trying all of a sudden the pop station started playing it because the fans of Taylor not of country music but the fans of Taylor would just call whatever radio station they were listening to and start asking for these songs so then the pop program director would go over into the country's thing going hey you guys got this Taylor Swift girl we got people all of a sudden calling they're like yeah here and they play they go okay this could work so then all of a sudden it just organically started getting played and then all of a sudden she was having more success chart wise on pop then she was on country so then a conscious effort went into let's pop this stuff up a little bit so country had to play it because of the demand pop started wanting it because of the demand and then the next thing you know after a couple of records she's like look if every song I put out automatically crosses over on the pop chart and goes number one and we're having to spend all this money trying to get songs on the country chart to chart I don't I just go where the people want me why try to force feed somebody who doesn't really want it and country never let her go but pop there's more pop stations there's more this there's the the songs go faster up the pop charts you make more money so it's like country you got a song that takes you 50 weeks you could have three songs that went up the chart and make four times the amount of money because of the churn that was happening at pop so there are some people that would they would try to make a plan to make it go but we just kind of I think what happened in the beginning stages is we just kind of went where the trends sent us it said hey if it's already working there and pop out the banjo and put in something else and you go back in and open up and nowadays I mean everything on country on rock on pop on hip hop it's all tracks most of stuff's being made in the house right now though yeah but it was never a conscious conscious plan it just kind of organically happened and we just kind of went with it that's interesting because like you said many people have a plan to build that bridge go pop or figure out larger ways to expand but because y'all one built so strongly with the user base the fan base are you had this relationship and once you have the fan relationship it's a tell tell sign that the fans will tell you where you belong yes man you guys actually listen though some people wouldn't wouldn't listen so that was yeah well the cool part too is because big machine was distributed by universal that's how the Republic relationship came into place is we needed a radio promotion team at pop radio and Republic became a partner with big machine records and Monty Lipman and Avery Lipman and them ended up having their staff work her to pop so we had a pop radio promotion team a country radio promotion team and then let's just be honest the rich guy richer it's like now when you've got one song that's blowing up two charts all of a sudden things are changing at that point and you know she recouped her investment which 98% of artists that get signed to major labels never recoup the original investment that's why they get dropped and that's why they fail but she was recouping real good he's recouped well enough to keep re redoing these records the Taylor versions yeah real point because you can't re-record unless they've been recouped hmm right right I know that yeah yeah I forgot that till you just noted that yeah it's so it's after recoupment and then five years so usually they want a chance so it's like so as as these all these new records are now becoming because she's paid the label off years ago with this stuff now she's able contractually to go re-record and then of course what's she doing she's adding a whole bunch of extra song she's adding a whole bunch of artwork people are re-buying CDs they bought before I mean it's it's crazy how this is happening and then the deal that she structured this time around with Universal is she owns all her own masters think about that not only as she get releasing all these brand new records but she owns them 100% her money too but because by the time up some artists most artists get to that phase if they actually get to that phase but the most who do they're creating new music that doesn't real take out of the prime so she's so this is how by what she's doing and so crazy but I love the idea of her reselling this old work not just re-releasing but yet she record record everything think about like her first album she was 15 when she recorded a lot of those vocals 16 she's 30 something now three I saw it this morning yeah yeah well I think it sounds like well what how can you get somebody to buy this old stuff if they've already bought it again but we think about it people have already shown that they have this type of behavior where there's been a lot VHS this right and then DVDs happen you buy a DVD of something that you had on VHS right well this is a new vocal it's new songs a new production she's adding a lot of it's not like she just went in and said okay let's just sing at the exact same way no that's all changed up and then that she adds like a half a dozen new songs and that that only just makes it sweeter right yeah people will already support something because well you know people lose stuff right they never know they might have lost the old CDs or moved on in this case they just want to go tell their friends they got it yeah exactly it's all ego a lot of it's just ego she made it that and so this goes back to something Corey talks about a lot is like allowing fans to flex on other things right yes I can say I got this and you don't have this right and I can show you how much of a Taylor's fan I am I could show you how much of a you know J. Cole or whoever fan that I am by saying I have this item or I attended people bought that damn monkey that damn monkey that ain't worth shit now the board apes you know what I mean just to say they had one got about them that's funny then you think about it everybody wanted to say I own something that these famous people are a part of these people were buying the monkey that didn't want a picture of a monkey they just wanted to say that they were part of a club and where they now you know you know what we haven't talked about in a long time NFTs you know it's like it was a hot topic for a long time and every artist chased it that's another thing that stop here's the thing write music write people give them an opportunity to buy use the technology that's made available stop chasing you don't like tiktok then don't do tiktok you don't need to have an NFT so you can charge somebody $50,000 for some if you don't have an audience it'll spend $5 why are you going to put all your money into something where there's been 50,000 they won't but then you go NFTs don't work no you don't work you know it's like do do you you know those of you that try to chase the superstars weren't chasing you know there were people they Katy Perry tried to be forced into a box that didn't work Lady Gaga tried to get forced into a box that didn't too often you guys are trying to be somebody you're not stop it or stop complaining about it that it ain't working so basically quit using all the tools just because they're there all right yes I'm going to see you yeah find what you love doing it's like I tell people I said look I'm present on tiktok and I haven't done a tiktok post in a year but I run ads on tiktok because tiktok unless I did something with Taylor it didn't get views and when I did something with Taylor I couldn't find the people that wanted to be the next Taylor I found people that thought I was there in to get to meet Taylor and they drove me crazy them damn Swifties so I ran I left tiktok but I'm still present I'm present on Facebook I'm active on Instagram I'm present on Twitter it's like I'm like stop I know you've got cancer I know you're dying I know you're her biggest fan you know I had a guy that reached out to me on messenger just a second ago funniest thing I didn't know who this guy was it says he goes it's so funny this guy hi Rick this was at 11 33 a.m. today hi Rick I would love to meet Taylor and wonder when she's coming to California I said you and the rest of the world I don't know Google to her tour and see when she's coming great July 28 and 29 awesome then go by tickets I've not been not sure why you're reaching out to me I saw your recent post sorry who are you with now I said no one bye-bye people are weird man people are but I put that being said beyond Taylor you spent quite a bit of time you know being hired by labels for your insights your approach to marketing and things like that you speak more on I want I really want to get into like somebody in a workings at that time and and today yeah so let's just say that it takes they were way behind the curve so a lot of what I was sharing with them when it comes to internet and marketing and digital marketing and stuff like that it was like it was just kind of glass glossing over their eyes it's like it just they didn't quite understand it they still felt that radio was most important you got to get on the radio in order to have success so all the energy all the money all the effort would go there what I started seeing was artists that were told what songs to record were told what single was going to be released went out on radio tour shot the video they were told they needed to shoot did everything that they were asked of being let go because the song didn't connect at radio and it was because some old guy didn't think it was worthy enough to be on his playlist that this artist who did everything right so imagine going to your job every day doing exactly what you were told and then one day saying hey sorry it's just not working out you got to go that's what was happening and it was destroying me inside seeing this and I was managing artist at the time so finally I just said look I'm I'm out it's like it was there was so dysfunction it was like your rewards were not in direct proportion to the work that you put in in most businesses you can throw money at it and fix it or you can throw manpower at it and fix it or we couldn't do that in the music space and I was just like I'm done you know it's like this is heartbreaking as hell to go tell somebody you did everything right and because you didn't have a fanbase because there was no demand for you but what I started noticing at that point were labels the thing you got to understand and if you don't hear anything else that I said is know this anymore they're in the small business acquisition mode that's what they're looking to do right now you have all the tools available to you to start your business and to build your buzz if there is not a buzz they have no need for you at this particular point in time they're just waiting for if you're popping they'll know your popping and they'll come to you so I started focusing on teaching artists how to create their own buzz I started focusing with artists to say look you don't need millions of people in order to be successful I said if you make 50 grand a year doing what you love you're making more than most people go into a job doing what they hate so let's start there all of you if I don't want to grab me I didn't sit there screw it that doesn't you know if I don't hit this it's like manage expectations this stuff so that's where I focus my attention at right now as you are your first record label you are your first manager publisher booking agent so I equip artists with how to basically start and run their own labels to make it attractive to where an art where a label a major label will come along as they look you can keep your masters we're going to license it for the next seven years and we're going to give you as a a signing bonus that hasn't been heard of in the last 10 years now these bonuses are getting bigger because they're acquiring something that's already working you know publishing deals they're they're going to an artist who has something going on tiktok why because they've already that they would have had to have done that would have cost a fortune they're able to give some of that fortune now back to the artist because that money wasn't spent and it's proven they're not building buzzes anymore there the label is not designed to build a fanbase for an artist that's why if you get dropped from a label it's because there was no demand for you so if you were in a position to have bring the demand with you and say hey I just need you for your marketing and to be able to write bigger checks than I can faster than I can let's do this thing that's a lot of the businesses that are being done right now these joint ventures these partnerships when you get signed to a label when you look for the label and you get signed you're an employee when the label looks for you because you have a buzz going on you're now a partner and partners have better decision making power and make more money well said well said it was a bar for sure I want to I still got a couple other questions but here before I get into the community side of things the community that you have and I call it a community because of just the way you treat your people and though the way that those people appreciate working with you the artists the managers who work with you the parents who have kids who working with you What are you doing right now at the moment to serve artists on that in first thing as I'm making them aware of the opportunities that are available to them and then I'm teaching them what it is that they should be doing you know it's like I'm not for everybody I always tell people I'm like sushi I'm an acquired taste you know it's like if you want someone who's I'm one of the few and I say this humbly that has worked on the radio side worked at the major label side worked at the I was a social media mentor for the American idol side managed one of the biggest stars in the world has been on major tours has been on independent tours I and consulted major labels and organizations like Sony and Live Nation so I've seen a lot I've been blessed to have been mentored by some amazing people on the music industry side but I also have been blessed to have been mentored by some people on the digital marketing side because artists need to understand I remember first time I spoke at the CD baby music conference as a raise your hand or repeat after me I I am a digital marketer say it you know and I yell them you guys got to say it because until you believe that you're not going to understand that it's up to you if you have something that can change the world it's up to you to find that person and get it to them it's not up to them to find you the world's too crowded so seeing all these different things all I did was sit there and say okay how can I create a direct path or the artist to the consumer where you never have to ask permission from anyone again in order to be able to create that's the mindset that I had and I read a book called the millionaire messenger and the premise of the book was make a difference and make a living sharing your knowledge and experience with others and I'm like what should I got over 30 years of experience I got radio I got records I got management I got touring I got this I got that so that's when I went all in I wrote a book and never wrote a single word by somebody came to me and said can I transcribe your YouTube videos and turn them into a book so we called the book the hundred and fifty thousand dollar music degree one because that's what Belmont will charge you or Berkeley for a degree on theory that was my salary managing Taylor what a lot of people aren't aware of they're always like I want you to do for me what you did for Taylor I said great they paid me a hundred fifty thousand dollars a year you're right you good to start there well well you know they because they realize that in the beginning stages of an artist's career there is no money to be made but that's when all the works being done by the manager so they wanted me to focus on her so they gave me a salary and I agreed to that so and it was a hundred fifty grand a year so that's why I call my book the hundred fifty thousand dollar music degree is that I understood all that stuff and I'm also not afraid I usually I tell people I usually will when somebody asked me a question I'll usually answer it with a question and I don't do that to be a smart ass I do it because I need it to be you that comes up with the answer now I'm going to guide you to that answer but what I've learned with artists is that until you figure it out for yourself you won't ever do it you won't do it because Rick Barker tells you to do it or brandman Sean tells you to do it but once I can make it your idea and you go oh my god that's so simple now we start having some success because if I want it more than you we got a problem if I'm working harder than my artist we got a problem it's your business I'm going to help you with your business and I'm going to get paid for helping you with your business I'm sick and tired of people expecting me to work for free and I said something the other day I said how many of you would go to work every day at the end of the week just walk out and your boss says listen really appreciate you being here this week you're like but wait where's my check oh no I just I just really appreciate you you know I appreciate everything you do I appreciate all that all that energy that you put into that that's what people are doing to me I show up every day they want and then at the end when I'm like hey here's my business they're like whoa I'm a starving artist oh screw you then you know it's like first if you label yourself that you'll always be that just so you know but it's like I spend hundreds of thousands of dollars every year to put out information to build the opportunity for me to be able to ask it's like here let me prove my worth and then here's what it is and that's what I started doing I found people that say hey I would love to know what you know Rick I would love to be taught by you and I do it in a way that's very affordable because my goal has never been to make 30 million dollars a year you know my goal is to help as many people as I can and be able to provide for my family I've created a business model that allows me to do that but I also say to them how much money do you want to make with your music as much as I can then why am I a bad guy for also wanting to make as much as I can I mean people will tell me I can't believe you charge people for that information I didn't get it for free they either had to pay with time or with money you're paying for something I choose to buy courses so I can learn faster you know I mean I'm going to buy a TikTok course from you because I don't want to go learn it you already know it why wouldn't I invest to know what you already know it's like these people who create these courses are taking advantage of us I see that all the time all these musicians it's like you give guitar lessons because it's a skill that you have I'm teaching you marketing it's a skill I have what's the difference none except my attitude is different you think the world is out to get you I'm here to help the world it's your only difference yeah man you know I love that and reminding people of that mindset because it's a prevalent thing in every business right consulting right yes meaning like certifications all these things exist in every area of business because that's just a smart way to be able to go about business of course you're going to learn some things doing it through experience but especially as you start to build momentum you want to shortcut as much as possible not shortcut the process right but learning of learning in the process right even us we recently are looking at trying out some marketing on some different platforms and then we started the process of like filling it out ground zero and then after a while I was like wait what are we doing let's find somebody who's already doing this in either higher agency to start us out or do a consultation because like we're not you know maybe if we were like zero just starting out in high school or something we would do that had like and just bump our heads but we already know better by now right so so yeah because we know how to build websites doesn't mean we're going to build our website every time I built one the first time I built one the second time now I pay for it exactly because I bragged about the fact that it totally took me 25 hours to do this and somebody came to me they said Rick what do you charge for an hour of your time I said 300 bucks he said okay so you got like a website that cost you over $6,000 I'm like I said and he goes and this kid over here who could have done it for better yet would have done it for 500 bucks I'm like damn now I'm going to stop bragging about I built my own website I'm like I think I'm stupid but because smart business people he didn't ask me how good my website looked he all he asked me was how much are you an hour I said 300 bucks he said okay so your website cost you he said would you pay $6,000 for a website I'm like yeah I'll know he goes you just did I'm like damn it all right that's I learned a long time ago I mean but the cool part to is we don't know till we don't know you know until we know we don't know and and that's the thing with artists it's like we're not for everyone you know what I mean it's like if somebody comes to us with one song no budget wants to be we can't help them it's like no go bring go write a hundred songs you know go play a hundred shows goes do we're not good for you yet you know what I mean because if we bring eyeballs to you it's like we live in a Netflix world how many people do you know went and said yeah I turned on Netflix watch one show no you're like damn it's four o'clock in the morning I just watched eight shows and eight episodes of that thing once people find you they want to indulge with you so that's why I tell people it's like I refer people to contra brand all the time when they're ready I would never send somebody who has one TikTok video that went viral and only wrote one song even though I know what they're capable of doing because it would have been a waste of money because they're going to get a eyeballs that that audience can't handle and they're going to be grand opening grand closing it's like starting a restaurant with one steak once that steak has been eaten you have no business you're out of business some of you are trying to start businesses with one steak and wondering why it didn't work because the one person who loved the steak loved it now they want more and you're not giving them more and that's all I'm trying to teach people every day it's just I wish that the website commonfonsense.com was available because that's all I teach I say something about that oh my God that's yeah it's true that's why I said it you know it's like it makes wow that makes a lot of sense it's business what doesn't make sense is what some people are trying to do see that's going to love you that right there a lot of times people try to be too creative yes like no don't be creative with the principles it doesn't mean that there's things that some people aren't taking advantage of you can rework opportunities and how you can but there's some things that are just very straightforward principles follow those principles and then once you get to a certain level right like now we can start getting a little bit here's the thing I tell this to people the strategies of business has never changed it's the tactics and the technology right that changes get the right product in front of the right person and make offers and be able to fill on those offers right and your offer may only be to watch a video an offer doesn't mean it's something that has to be sold you know but it's like if you tell somebody something deliver on it that's just good good being a good person you know if you if you drive somebody I always tell people don't be a push-up bro a push-up bro yeah looks really attractive up front but once she gets opened up you're very disappointed with what you see that's like my drives in golf everybody goes oh my god Rick they're beautiful I said they're like a push-up bro they look sexy up close but once you get out they're like can't believe you never heard that analogy before maybe that's just me you're a push-up bro oh man now you're spreading the good gospel on push-up bras apparently you're evangelizing over here but that's interesting because the concept of having a business and having too much demand is actually and being able to break a business by having too much abandon not being able to fulfill is something that's very prevalent outside of music right people know oh shit I go in Shark Tank and I get all these orders but then I can't fulfill on these orders and people try to pay me they think I'm a scammer or their attention just goes somewhere else right same thing with music they might not think you're a scammer but they're just like okay that was all it was my attention moves on right so I think building the content out is something that we're really we're really just serious about we always stress okay don't just build one piece of content the same way they talk about building a music music catalog build your content catalog so people can consume you just like they do a TV show it sounds depressing sometimes but the reality is all that content that you built over six months somebody can discover you seven months in and consume all that shit in a few hours right but the good side is they can become a super fan in seven hours damn near but that's the giving taking that's the beauty of the world that we live in and that content is brand new to somebody every day so every new person that finds you has a whole bunch of stuff so you can just drive new eyeballs that's the difference in before it's like don't worry about what happens on day one of your release worry about what happens on year one and year two and year three and year four people are always going to be finding your good stuff yeah yeah so the way you look at the music business I only have two particular questions to end this out one you aren't in the major side of the music business the things you did early in your career you had the ability to take a completely different trajectory than what you have taken right yes what you're doing now is a lot more on the outskirts for the most part right so what I'm doing now is the music business I'm no longer doing the music industry so I think there's a difference between the industry has its own set of rules its own set of guidelines its own entry the music business has we are the point of entry you know what I mean so I kind of kind of break it up I said the industry they play by their style the business you are a music business you can run your business every day the way you want to run your business when you're in the industry you're playing under a different set of rules I'm glad you differentiated that so clearly what made you pursue music business less than the music industry because that's because I'm a control freak because I'm a control freak I got tired to tell an artist that I was managing that they were getting dropped for no reason I got tired of the right thing and I realized as long as people kept having babies that wanted to be singers I never ran out of a potential audience if I could learn how to get my message in front of them having Taylor Swift American Idol Sony music and everything else on the resume so if I could go learn how to talk to people and tell the right stories and solve their problems that I would always be able to provide for my family because I love the fact that you can wake up in the morning create it write it record it distribute it get it out to somebody get paid for it create merchandise on it tour on it without having to ask anyone for permission that's why I love the music business hmm got it I think that's why we love it too yeah speaking my language you know that ain't a lot yeah I get it I get it it all comes together yeah alright and then the other end your your way of navigating the music business building relationships and community and trust within the people you serve I think they're very and that's just watching right this isn't like something that you've laid out that I've seen but that's just why I think it's it represents the common tenets for building community in so many ways I would love to hear just how you basically how you think about your approach to building relationships or building community serving your audience from a standpoint of the customer side or even just business professional to business I mean for me it's for me I had to build a business model that was right for me I think too often we're building business businesses that we see because somebody else built it that way and then we're not happy because we're like oh my God there's a lot of this so there's a lot of work or there I said something to you before we started I said I've created a model for myself that allows me to be able to serve the community that I want to serve and golf five days a week now I have never I grew up poor I grew up on the free lunch program I've worked my ass off my whole entire life I don't wear a watch I don't have fancy watches I drive a 2017 cars and that's just me I like to vacation I like to eat well you know I know where I like I spend my money on golf you know so I built a business and I don't have expectations of having a $10 million a year business if I'm not doing the work necessary and making the investments to have a $10 million a year business that's where I see artists make the mistake is that their desire and their work ethic don't match or their desire and their talent don't match so I've matched my desire and my work ethic to say okay I'm going to make a couple hundred thousand dollars a year doing what I love serving the community that I want to serve in the way that I want to serve them and I'm also going to be able to vacation when I want to vacation and golf when it is that I want to golf so I built the right business model for me now many people will come to me and say and you could yeah sure but I don't want the headaches that come along with that as an artist ask yourself the same questions as you're building your business your business is only going to go as high as you want it and are willing to put in the work and the money because someone's going to have to pay for it when you go to a label they'll fund it you're going to be on the hook for it but money was put up if you're doing it yourself and you say I wanted this well unless you can write a couple million a couple hundred thousand dollar check that's probably not going to happen but that's okay your business could only be where it's at right now so why don't we start with so many people I'll ask them I'll say so how much would you like to make with your music this year they'll say a hundred thousand dollars it's a very common answer again I'd like to make a hundred thousand dollars I'm like great how much did you make with your music last year well I'm just getting started yet I said okay count me to one hundred thousand times your current income in one year that's unrealistic if you made zero money and now you want a hundred thousand dollars I'm going to have I'm a hundred thousand times why don't we start with making our first hundred then why don't we start with making our first thousand then why don't we start with making our first five thousand and ten thousand and once you start getting to the ten thousand and the twenty you'll see that you can get to six figures much faster with that type of mentality but you're going to have to invest more the more you want to make the more you're going to have to invest everybody needs to understand that in any business the more you want to make the more you're going to have to invest either in manpower people I hire people I focus on what I'm good at I outsource everything else too often I see artists trying to be good at everything and then they wonder why nothing gets done I'm like because you're not thinking like a business person think like the smart business people you want to have a good business think like good business people and that's what I try to teach my community is I'm very upfront with them I'm very direct I'm very honest with them whatever they did to spend a dollar with me I tell them the process that I went through I provided some value invited them to learn more provided more value and then I made an offer that's kind of my business model that's what I teach for fans get some music out there invite them to get to know about you get to know more about them make them an offer to bring them into your world get an email address get them to your Spotify and then we'll start working on selling them other stuff later too often I think we're trying to sell too early with that being said Rick one appreciate the value providing this interview and two I know you always have some value to provide artists I don't know if you have any openings any availability or something that you can provide to people who are listening to this you know the best way to connect with me is follow me on Instagram at Rick Barker Music DM me the word book and I'll send you a free digital copy of my book which will then let's be full transparency will then put you on my email list and then I will start inviting you to learn more you know different trainings and things like that but hey let's date you know and then down the road you know who knows maybe we'll get married but right now I would love to just offer you a free copy of my book and get some resources in your hands to kind of help guide you on your journey of yours Oh so love that well thank you for all the value again that you brought today it's always a good time talking to you this is yet another episode of No Labels Necessary I'm Brian Manishan Peace