 like managers are kind of in a pretty messed up situation a lot of times because you could if you don't have any ownership in the business you know you put in all that work and then it's just a rap once the artist once you say something that the artist don't like or people change too as as success comes so yeah it's a tough it's a tough position to be in. What's up what's up what's up I'm Brandon Shawn and I'm Cory and we are back with another episode of No Labels necessary podcast you can catch us every Tuesday every Thursday on YouTube Spotify Apple Music wherever you stream your podcast we are here at the intersection of creativity and currency and as you guys know on No Labels necessary we love to bring you guys and gals who are moving differently and Dame Damian Ritter is an amazing example of moving differently moving independently in the creative industry he was somebody who actually spearheaded a lot of creativity and a lot in indie space he was a CEO and co-founder of funk volume artists like Hopson and the like there's a whole other story we might get into that we might not now he's currently the director of communications two lost a fast-growing distributor and he's a manager of he's managed artists in the past but he's actually managing comedians as well which is a whole another thing to get into so I'm excited because we're going to get into not only things in terms of moving independently but we're also getting to the content economy as a whole as a creator which we don't get to get too much into so I would love to even like start there before we get into some of that artist specific stuff but content well thank you for being on my pleasure I didn't even let you do your intro my pleasure I got so much on my head I want to give it to you but like but the content man you managed big draw and I remember one time you were we were having a conversation and you were telling us that through him and having such a massive youtube presence you started to find out that companies were like attempting to buy catalogs for for artists right and this is the first time like I heard that concept where in the same way people are buying catalogs for Spotify music well not Spotify music just music catalogs people are looking to buy your content catalogs on youtube so like what did you learn in that process and why are people looking to buy catalogs what do they do with it if they try to buy your youtube channel or something so I think that a lot of these financial companies they're starting to see the predictable steady cash flows both in you know streaming and now on youtube as well so I think wherever you see predictable steady cash flows I think you're going to see financial companies come in and say okay we can invest here because that might be a better opportunity than some of their other investments or maybe just to diversify right so there's a lot of money coming in you know to purchase you know reliable predictable steady cash cash flow so if your youtube channel has that history I know there's a company called spotter it's been doing there's a few but we didn't we didn't we didn't take any deal you know I think those situations are for creators that like need the money maybe they might have an idea for a big project and they don't have the money to do it on hand so maybe we plan on putting out a feature film this year so if we didn't plan to crowdfund it or if we didn't have the money to finance it ourselves maybe that could have been an option that made sense as opposed to you know getting in bed with an investor that we weren't too comfortable with right so it really just depends on what your situation is what the terms are you know but we didn't we we got the offer but it wasn't something that we that we decided to take but there's you know alternative financing options are out there now for artists which is which is a good thing you know you just have to make sure that you get the right terms and that you have a plan for that money because if you do sell your catalog or anything like that that money's not coming to you no more right you got money that you were getting monthly is not coming to you anymore so that lump sum that you got know that you're going to have to pay taxes on it number one but number two you know have a plan for it so that you know you're quickly investing in something that's going to replace that cash flow that you were getting from your catalog so so from a company standpoint what did you gather that they would actually do when they gained the catalog like am I just going to buy your catalog so and then live off of the accents and take that predictable money in or were they trying to repurpose it on their own channels or sell it to other people as far as I know even with the music stuff like I don't really see too many companies positioned well to like make more money than what it was going to make like you would think that these companies would be staffed with folks that might be able to you know might have an expertise in licensing music or doing something but from what I've seen and maybe there is some companies out there that do plan on you know doing something more with these catalogs because it would be be a good idea right on their behalf but from what I've seen they are just looking at you know prior history you know and just kind of you know putting a discount on on that cash flow and just expecting a 10 to 12 percent return because in the investment world like that's that's great you know so yeah that's interesting yeah I would have thought that people would have tried to kind of grow and expand on that value somehow had a vision maybe like even if I specifically said I want to reach out to all of these specific types of creators and then not only get that cash flow so I'm breaking even from my initial investment or making a little bit on top but then I might create a channel with all their content or something like that it almost sounds like they're not looking to work they're just investing and then that's it yeah I mean that's what that's what I've seen thus far you know because again they're just and a lot of these funds are huge you know it's hundreds of millions of dollars are just looking to park it into something relatively safe and that's what streaming is for a lot of these catalogs like even the catalog that even funk volume catalog has has held up you know way better than I thought it thought it was going to you know these streaming is I know it gets a bad rap you know because it's only you know fractions of a penny per stream but I think it's done some powerful thing for artists and it's unlocked a lot of opportunities so yeah okay now let's reverse for a quick second and talk about how did you get into the entertainment industry yeah it was like it was nothing that I tried to do or wanted to do this was 2008 I was I got my MBA from Stanford in 2007 I started working at Deloitte Consulting in Chicago in strategy and operations as a as a senior consultant and then I got laid off in 2008 and then that just happened to coincide with a phone call that I got from my brother who's an artist swizz he's going to UC Irvine at the time he was like hey dang you know I'm not really feeling school I want to drop out and do music um he also had a friend of his that was equally as frustrated but in a different situation that was Hopson they went to high school together so it just happened to line up with me getting laid off from Deloitte because at that time the economy was really bad back in 2008 I got laid off and I wasn't like super excited to jump back into what I was doing so I had some time and I had some money saved up and he they were just like hey you know you can figure things out on the business side you know obviously us on the creative side you know let's let's figure this out so it was really just like the plan was just kind of help them out initially and then I could tell that they were going to take it serious so it was something that I started taking more serious and then you know we we started funk volume and started to figure it out and just build it fan by fan essentially back then I was still folks were still on my space yeah um and then making that transition to Facebook but yeah we just started building it fan by fan and started interacting with everybody that responded positively to the music just kept putting out music and then yeah just just eventually started snowballing so what was the what was the the first point you remember that made you think like oh this could actually work out because I'm thinking like 2008 y'all are pretty much coming into it in the other time when like you wasn't even thought about so do you remember what that first moment was when you were like oh no we can make this work this is gonna work out um for me it was just like I constantly saw an increase right like we were always moving sometimes faster than others but it was always progression from month to month so that's kind of what led me to build more confidence like okay if we just eventually these numbers are going to speak for themselves right if we continue to to just increase um but then not only that not only the numbers it was the type of comments as I was interacting with people you know like oh these guys are my favorite artists you know where these guys come like it was the type of comments that I felt like I was like okay if these if these guys are already these people's favorite artists there's more people like this and the numbers are growing like it's a no-brainer to me if the numbers were stagnant or decreasing I would have probably pivoted into something else yeah but you know that's that's kind of what gave me confidence and then it just kept growing and growing and growing so yeah so the success of funk volume at its height right how will you say you guys got revenue-wise as a label like was it multi-million or multi hundreds of thousands and then where do you think you guys could have taken it based on what you know now yeah revenue-wise collectively I know it was you know it was I mean it wasn't tens of millions but it was probably a few million a year but that to me it was like you know 20% of our potential 25% of our potential like we like if we would have killed it in the streaming area we would have killed it in the streaming area because our community and we were so pretty we were so organized in terms of like you know and that's even how we got a double XL cover because that 10th spot was always going to be ours if it really was a vote right because nobody nobody individually was going to be able to compete with like the way we mobilized our community right because I'm managing all the funk volume pages the guys got their pages they got the facebook page so if we need to get a message out collectively like how can you and I mean unless you're a huge artist how could you really compete with hop posting from his page or actually like me posting from hop space uh dizzy post from his page jen post from his page and they all got you know if not millions hundreds of thousands of followers and they got four or five different platforms so that's how I feel like you know if we need to get a message out whether it was double XL or a tour or merch or whatever like it it just was pretty effective the way that we move together um so yeah it's interesting because I know you kind of see artists moving or thinking of themselves as media companies and it sounds like you guys were on that wave early back then like hey let's just build up our own platforms to figure out man we but we have so many ideas even job so job was going to be not part of necessarily funk volume but like he started making sketches I wanted to do like funk volume tv like where the guys could have got involved hops an actor too so hops been in stuff but it would have been dope like just like odd future I think had a show yeah like even if we just did it on youtube like for the folks that are comfortable it was and if it was on brand for them we could have funk volume tv funk volume fitness is something that we were doing we had a community service initiative funk volume in the community like but again it was everything was kind of in its infancy even as we were doing well we shot the documentary we were about to shoot another document we just had so many we always had something to share with people so there was always a reason for us to to post and to keep people informed and just kind of you know just we just continuously stacking wins so that's perfect for this type of environment where you always have to and it and it was never on like any one person's shoulder right like we always maybe dizzy putting out album okay now it's jaren's turn now it's wizard turn now it's hops turn now it's the collective like we would just always have something to share so you know I just felt like we just always had a reason to get in front of people I love that you said that multiple times always has something to share because a lot of times we talk about post the content a lot post content a lot or drop a lot of music but when you just reduce it down to have something to share you know one that means be doing something or providing something and but it doesn't specify where there is music whatever lifestyle whatever it is right and y'all are always oh you were doing something for the community that is something to share we're doing so so how did you guys think about building community yeah I mean I it was it was super important because you know I I started to realize like I was never a fan of music the way I saw people be a fan of music I didn't understand fandom like that like coming up coming up like I liked music I didn't care if I ever met them I wasn't trying to be in the VIP lot like I didn't need to meet and greet or anything like that but I and I'm not I'm not dismissing it but I I appreciate and obviously we benefited from it so it really it really drove home the importance of like you know showing our appreciation and really engaging with people because I spent a lot of time in the early days just making sure I responded to comments on the front volume pages and encouraging the guys to do so on their individual pages trying to give back to our community as much as we could we allowed fans to sell and make money from our first album so I would sell so as long as you buy 20 of them you could buy 20 you could buy a box of 20 CDs right and you buy them at $2 so basically the $40 for 20 a hop CDs our fans would turn around and flip them for 10 bucks or whatever they made you know so we made a dollar on it at least but you know more importantly they were spreading awareness of you know of and they were able to sell them pretty successfully because people really rock rocked with the music you know we had we had funk volume basketball jerseys where you can personalize them you get your name in the back so we did a lot of and then the community service efforts like I feel like we did a lot of things to really engage and you know show support for the community show them that you know look we appreciate this because nobody was really rock it took us a minute for people to to to recognize what we were doing for us to get on blogs and things like that so for the industry to recognize what we were doing so we really had to show appreciation for the community that we were building because they you know they they were super supportive do you feel like you guys get your your flowers for the impact I have on any mentality that do you feel like I guess one do you feel like you see the influence of it in today's and then do you think thank you guys get your flowers for it I see it and a lot of a lot of artists that are doing well now they'll be like yeah if I if I come across them or if they come across me through the MEC or now with the work that I'm doing with two laws they'll they'll hit me and be like yo man I looked up to you guys and I appreciate what you guys did do we get our flowers like I don't really feel like we didn't we didn't do what we were supposed to do so I don't feel like we deserve flowers you know I'm saying if I we were on the verge of doing something amazing and we didn't execute so I don't look for flowers I don't you know it's of course I appreciate it if somebody comes up and acknowledges what what we did but um and I think what we did was special but because we only reached a fraction of what I thought we were gonna do like you know we don't deserve flowers you know almost you know this is kind of like got to the to the to the quarter finals if that you know first first round of the playoffs that's where we were at you know so if you give us flowers appreciate it but you know it is what it is okay okay well when you talked about community you also when you talked about those ideas it seemed like a lot of the creative ideas y'all came up with involved making people be involved in the process right they can sell our CDs they can put their name on the back of our jerseys what's your like your approach that you take when you think oh I want to do something for our community is there a specific set of rules or anything that you patting yourself after even if it wasn't super intentional but maybe just over time he's like oh I usually kind of do this or I don't think there's a any structure like that I just try to look for things that are win wins for everybody right so we had we had the don't fuck up our beats contest that we ran probably every year for five years I think there were five of them and essentially because a lot of our fans were artists artists were really looking up to what we were doing because we were moving independently we're letting you know just kind of kind of like the Russell is today just kind of showing people like you know you can do this by yourself um so the don't fuck up our beats contest was a contest where you would come to our site you would buy a beat the beat would be like 10 15 bucks or whatever so obviously we made money when people bought a beat um you take that beat record a song record a video as well and then you post it to the contest site and you know get get voting people have replicated that I don't I can't even say we were the first ones to do it but a lot of people replicated this once we started doing it um but I would make sure that the video because the video that they posted back to the site was essentially a youtube link right but I would always kind of click through to the contestants videos on their actual youtube page and a lot of times I would say eight nine times out of ten that video was viewed more than any other video on their on their page so that let me know we were adding value to them as well yeah yeah they were giving us 15 dollars for the beat or whatever um but they got to use the beat number one they could distribute the song and they were also getting exposure so I was trying to look for opportunities that are win win um because if you can uh because if you can align incentives and look for opportunities where everybody wins then I think that's where you get kind of like the ultimate results yeah that's that's why it's always like talking to people who've been to music for so long because they remind you that like there are certain ideas you see the day that aren't necessarily new just reworked because that to me sounds like the open verse challenge right that's going on now right like the the artist can ride the artist fan base and then the artist might get a viral hit out of it yeah viral video out of it or something like that yeah nah I mean that's you know um I always encourage artists to get involved in contests you know sometimes their ego gets involved because you know it's like only one artist can win or I think we had we had three three winners three cash prize winners for most contests but it ain't even about that right if you participate in a contest and you pick up five new fans that's a win right because that's five new people that can potentially purchase a hoodie or you know so you want you know and you get that person to do that every year you know that's and say it's a hoodie right you get five new people and now each one of those each one of those people buy a hoodie every year that's 250 in revenue every year if you keep doing your thing and put out dope merch you know so that's how I would encourage young people to look at it let me take a quick second to tell you about forever fan because many of you know that my agency is responsible for helping multiple artists blow up tens of billions of views and billions of streams but I want to specifically talk about a strategy that we've used to help artists get millions of streams on their very first song and as a matter of fact in the last 12 months an artist got signed to a major label using this specific strategy and you'll never guess what it is pre-saves yeah that's right pre-saves they're extremely powerful when you do them correctly but most people don't understand how to do it see the problem becomes we've been all this effort for this pre-save campaign and then the song finally comes out and then what happens after that nothing you're starting from ground zero again because you're not about to ask people to pre-save every single time you drop a song so I'm here to put you on to our solution for that which is forever fan a platform that removes this massive pain for artists by making it so when a fan pre-saves one of your songs they automatically pre-save every single song that you drop after that so your work doesn't just create a one-time fan of a single song it creates a forever fan and you can take advantage of this same solution go to foreverfanmusic.com so that you can get more streams and a deeper relationship with your fans for the same amount of effort foreverfanmusic.com check it out now there's a lot of artists that are doing well now that participated in the don't fuck up our beats contest or other contests after after that you know I always incur like put your ego aside ain't really about winning the contest if you win that's great but how many fans can you snatch by participating in this that's a good way to see that actually I've never thought about it that way and it makes sense because you talk about reworking old ideas right and clearly you guys have laid a lot of groundwork and then for some reason had never clicked but Kato is basically taking a lot of the formula he probably got being one of the people on y'all's label and he's killing it he's like the go at that right now right is it it's the exact same thing like the don't fuck up our beats content and we branded it in a way that like everybody looked forward to it like even fans that's why even fans are like when are y'all doing the next don't fuck up our beats contest like so you know we made sure not to do it too many times to exhaust it it was only once a year um and we had other stuff going on too like these contests are tough to run like it's very time to say to also run and we didn't have we it was really just me hop in my brother for the longest you know and even at even at our height I probably had only like you know three other people working with us or for us so it was you know the contest and then you start getting people complaining yeah the contests are tough to run at the end of the day it's a net positive and I you know it's great and I'm actually thinking of some contesting ideas to do here at two loss to give people some opportunities and give some money out uh but yeah you got it you got you got to really structure these things right you got to brand them right uh for them to really have like a positive impact and for you to be able to kind of build on it you know year to year make sure it's bigger and better every year it's like how do you structure it what is the timeline like what is what are the prizes going to be what are really what is what's really going to incentivize artists to get involved because artists have gotten a little a lot more like bougie over the years you know I'm saying like cats were really grinding and you know really wanting to get out there now it's now now artists I feel like kind of look back kind of kick back like what can you do for me it's like yo like I've got to get out there and so you got to really figure out okay what's going to incentivize artists to to to make a video because this was before Instagram like you actually had to make a music video you know it wasn't just like remix this or whatever but maybe now we might need to meet artists in the middle a little bit make it a little easier and just allow them to use the remix function and post it back to Instagram or you know TikTok or whatever so so yeah but Contest can be effective for all parties if you do it right so so what made you move more into managing someone like Ja and not managing artists anymore because you don't manage artists at all right now right nah yeah I think that given what I've gone through or even just getting older like you start to have more requirements for what it would take for you to work with another artist right like when you when you a little bit younger and more naive you'll be more open to like working with different artists but as you get older you're gonna learn like okay I don't like this I don't like that they have to have this they have that like the the list so that shortens the list of artists that like tick all the tick all those boxes yeah and I don't know if I'll ever meet an artist again that will that will take all the boxes for me and I've never I don't look for artists to manage like every right management situation that I've been in is just like okay it makes sense for me to do it I feel like I have the skill set to do it so let's rock and then even with Ja Ja was security even when fun when fun volume existed and me and Ja go back to college we went to Cal together so he's only a year he was only a year behind me okay so I've known him for over 20 years and when I used to see and I knew that he's always been a funny cat even on the tour bus I would see him kind of work on his sketches and I would just give him like advice here and there and like I said earlier in this interview we were starting we were going what I thought was going to be fun volume TV where we're going to do sketches and incorporate the music that way him and jaren did a sketch that I think I have on my computer that we never released these are all things that we're about to do like right before the blow-up so Josh has been my guy like I love that cat he's been one of my closest partners he was in my wedding is a no-brainer to help him out because he's such a solid cat and he's talented so I want to be if I could be a catalyst in your success then that's what I want to do but it's really more so because of the person he is and number one and the talent potential that he has you know and I'm just genuinely a fan of his stuff like I'll even before I was working with him like I just I like watching his videos and I was just cut up you know because yeah because it's funny cat so yeah I don't look for for anybody to manage like so I'm not competing with any other managers like like I'm cool not managing you know creative folks but I'm not saying that that closes the door because if I do meet you know somebody that I think needs help is a solid person and I think it would be tough for me to start from like ground zero like especially if it's just like a management situation yeah because I've just seen so many times where you put in all that sweat equity and then they pivot you know I'm gonna have to really know this person who they are at the core you know so I have a better idea of like you know what I can expect from them because if you start working with somebody from ground zero and then they start getting a little bit of success you know the same old story somebody gets in their ear or whatever and then you're left with nothing like managers are kind of in a pretty messed up situation a lot of times because you could if you don't have any ownership in the business you know you put in all that work and then it's just a rat once the artist once you say something that the artist don't like or you know people change too as as success comes so yeah it's a tough it's a tough position to be and I'd rather I'd rather be here my position at two loss you know and then be able to work with Ja you know like I said I'm open to it but it's just this is going it's going to take a very unique situation for me to be like okay you know let's do this outside of the fact that a manager can get left behind out after they put in all this sweat equity what else did you learn as a part of being a manager that might be tough for somebody who's aspiring to be a manager or just starting off to be able to see um just how important the communication is like the communication is is crucial right you know to constantly check in with with with the talent and just in terms of where they want to be for example you know when I jumped in and started working with hop he wanted to be as big as he could be right like he wanted to be as and that's what I and when I that's what we were driving towards it's like okay if I start working with the artists and say okay I want to I want to try to be the biggest artist in the world all right cool that's what we're that's what we're mobilizing for like that's what all of our decisions are driving towards all right if at any point you decide that that's not what you want to do which is fair right like once you start getting a little bit of fame or whatever people start to recognize you maybe you don't like that maybe you want to be able to go to the store or whatever but you got to be able to communicate that as soon as possible so we can pivot right and we can set our pieces up differently you know because the other people that are supporting your career are expecting that growth too right like your tour manager is expecting though these shows are eventually going to get bigger so I'm going to start getting more money because I want to start a family everybody else on your team same thing like we're all driving towards the same goal but if somebody if the top decides that we're pivoting you know and you didn't tell you didn't say anything right like it it could really mess things up so basically long story short it's important to just stay tapped in and make sure everybody's on the same page driving towards the same direct driving the same direction towards the same goal I think that is the communication piece is probably you know have weekly calls and then if anything doesn't feel right just make sure you check in yeah the one the one mistake that I the biggest mistake that I think I made whole funk volume is that I never hired like a a more senior like number two right because even if I because I don't think I was wrong I don't think I was wrong about much if anything in terms of like what we should do right but you don't even want to hear the same voice being right all the time and I'm and people might hear what I just said but oh he's full of shit like how is he not like like I studied this like I feel like we made a lot of the right moves business wise you know I don't I don't regret signing the Warner I don't regret a lot of the things that we did because we did the right thing just that I don't think the guys liked hearing it from me every time you know I mean I feel like there should have been another voice in the room so that it wasn't always it created like a me versus them dynamic right so that that's probably the thing that I learned like you know bring in somebody else to have some of the conversations so that I don't have to have all the conversations so yeah I'm trying to think of something that I that I like a business move that we did do wrong just so I could be like I'm not saying that was 100 percent but we did a lot we did a lot we did a lot of things right you know saying like we did a lot of things right I probably probably should have spent more just in terms of like marketing probably should have been more aggressive with like Facebook ads out the gate because that was something that I was still like learning and getting comfortable with because everything was so organic with what we did like it wasn't like we didn't really that's a perfect thing to say actually because so Ninja Corey always talk about one of the tough parts about listening to artists is they only know their path right so you'll have an artist that goes crazy with Facebook ads and love Facebook ads and they'll like yeah that posting content shit don't work and do you have another artist that we have as a client or something that will go crazy with content and they're like Facebook ads don't work or they just don't see the incentive to do these other things and they always dismiss other tools or other ways of getting it when we know right it all works right so like what was someone who was in that and you kind of even alluded to maybe having that moment yourself when you're going doing so well organically what makes it what made it so hard to like double down on expanding a new way was it more capacity just a team or where you just so locked in you didn't think you should ever have to pay money because it was coming in organically right I think that's I mean I think that's that's part of what it is right like you're doing well like why and like initially it's hard to justify like spending thousands of dollars when you know our posts do well but a lot a lot of the money that we spend ads was around touring no to sell to sell it was never it was never just to like drive additional views or you know get additional fans it was always around touring or when an album came out or something like that now I know that there's artists today that like once a piece of content goes viral organically like they'll put more fuel on the fire and I think that's something that we probably could have explored more but a lot of again we're talking about time where this was like relatively new though yeah you know this isn't like last year it's been a minute now it's been you know we're talking 2014 2015 and that's a cheap now it feels like you were wasting money but now you know you're like yeah yeah so I've learned I mean I've learned so much since then yeah it'll be a totally different ballgame you know and I we were just we were like Ryan Leslie's first guinea pigs of superfoam maybe not the first but in that first batch so I recognize how important like phone numbers and the power of text marketing could be and I still don't feel like artists use it correctly or yeah but uh but yeah we were on it I feel like we were ahead of we were ahead of a lot of things and that's why I feel like we could have like murdered it in this in this streaming era um but you know it is what it is man so much one of the things that I heard you mention and doing all these cool ideas a lot of the tech wasn't really in place or clean right to get that stuff done I remember talking with LaRussell and him mentioning that he was doing the what is it to pay what you want yeah all right and before now he's using a service because he's been connected with a service that allows you to do that before he was just using a shit sales sheets writing it down doing it all manually where you pretty much kind of having to do something similar and so like what because you mentioned organization being like one of y'all's big things right what does building a system look like for indy yeah I mean everything I mean we would I mean I come from the consulting world so everything was you know powerpoint excel I had a bunch of excel I know so another thing we did was um on Facebook you know we created groups for each we had like an internet street team essentially so we had we had a we had a funk volume facebook group but then we had a different group for each city right so funk volume Los Angeles funk volume Cincinnati funk volume Pittsburgh whatever and then we would just have a volunteer to be the street team lead um so they were response so I would have them on an email and anytime we sent anytime we dropped a video or something I'll email the video to the street team leads and then they would post them in their respective groups so that was another thing but that I mean I'd probably do it the same way today I don't think there's a I don't know if there's a piece of technology that can help me do that more efficiently it was it was fairly efficient just doing that but that I think was pretty because we like facebook is one of the top five reasons that funk volume became what it was especially in the early days where the algorithm wasn't as restrictive and the fact that we had like multiple pages and we had our street team our internet street team and all these groups and stuff like we killed it on facebook and it was but it was tough to get the artist on facebook initially it was tough to hop on facebook initially because my space just kind of looked more creative it was cooler facebook was boring it was just blue and white it was boxy you couldn't put your top five friends on there you couldn't add music you couldn't so it was tough but I was like look man this is where this is where people are this is where this is the platform is growing we gotta we gotta make a home here and you know facebook even though I got a lot of complaints about facebook today facebook is like I said the top five reasons why funk volume became what it was well can you tell me what's the major difference between managing a creator that's not an artist uh it's not a music artist yeah so well I don't managing like a job or and you've managed for seven years right yeah so you managed two creators but they're both non artists but you've obviously managed artists at some point what's the difference I don't I don't think I've managed enough people to say like like a blanket difference I just think that job per seven years they're just different like they're just more they're older and they're more mature we have different conversations you know yeah that's probably more of the difference more so than like oh this person make music and this person's a comedian um yeah I don't I'd hesitate to make like a blanket a blanket statement of like music artists versus other types of creators because I'm sure there's other types of creators that are just as off as some of the music artists are but I but I tweeted the other day I was like look man like I think that yeah I think some music artists are a little quirky and they might have certain things but that's a that allows them to to be who they are but I also think the industry at large is kind of just kind of giving them a pass like okay kind of just expect artists to be assholes so I think that because that's kind of the default I think more artists lean into being an asshole because I am an artist I'm like you don't have to be an asshole you don't have to be an asshole to be to be an artist you don't have to be a narcissist to be to to be an artist a matter of fact if you are that it's going to take years off of your career if your career even starts I don't think because I've actually talked to some people in the street like yeah we expect that they're an artist like I don't expect that shit like you know that you normally like just because you make music you get you get to be like that nah like but I but because we accept it in the industry you know like I said some some artists are like naturally like a little quirky or whatever it is and that does allow but I think a lot of artists kind of lean into it because we allow them to you know yeah like the level just the label of being an artist allows you to be a little bit more of an asshole than somebody like nah it's funny you said that yeah because it's almost a caricature of an artist that we've created and I do think people naturally lean into those things as you said it reminds me of when Steve Jobs was popping right a couple of venture capitalists talked about how a lot of the new founders felt like they had to be an asshole like Steve Jobs and you know tyrannical to be a successful um founder right even though he's only one of many prototypes and you know maybe even arguably in some ways not the most successful but obviously he's one of the the modern goats and that but the point is you see this example and then you follow and if anything you shouldn't be able to do that with an artist because they're to me you shouldn't be able to look at somebody and say that's an artist if we truly are talking about true art and creativity there shouldn't be like a costume right or a specific way of behavior because creativity shouldn't have a box right but they do for sure put on that costume yeah I mean I didn't get me wrong like a lot of a lot of you know a lot of creative people have different types of issues but it's like yeah I try to get artists to be professional um because that's what's gonna create more opportunities for you a lot of people work with funk volume because they knew they were showing up on time now they don't know how hard it was for me to to get to like from the outside looking in like we were you know super professional yeah we showed up and if we said something we did it um you know that's why I encourage artists to do the same especially if you are like on the cusp of it being a full time like you need as many opportunities as you can get you know so if you can get an opportunity just because you're a pleasure to work with and because you're responsive because you know especially stuff like landing sink placements and stuff like that you know that stuff needs to be turned around quick if there's an opportunity for you to get your song in a show or something you know the if you don't if you don't have everything ready to go and you're not communicating they're gonna find another song to put right into that show you know so if you miss an opportunity because you're not checking your e-missing opportunities because you're not checking your email like what are we doing here you know I'm saying you don't check your dms yeah um as time and time again like you know the more responsible you can be professional organized you can be the the easier it was not easy like having a career music not easy but it'll be you'll get more opportunities if if you're just a professional person how do you see your career moving forward as someone who's ran a label managed artists work professionally um at like too lost you your podcast got acquired by radio that's the right word right it was acquired partner okay so acquired by radio you've done quite a few things in this um you know music the entertainment industry at this point you're a legitimate entertainment entrepreneur which uh I know you didn't see for yourself when you first started your career so now knowing everything you know where do you see yourself going over the next maybe 10 years fans on a like macro level well I love it at too lost I'm hoping that too lost is a part of that equation you know we continue to grow it's doing well um and I'm enjoying it here and then also you know working with job we plan to shoot a feature film this year yeah I feel like I feel like I've done a few things but I don't feel like I've really done anything amazing yet that's just how I feel personally like this that's I don't feel like I've done anything amazing um you know our stuff's not on tv yet jaw hasn't won the awards that he wants to win you know he hasn't put out the movies that he wants to put out so I think there's just a whole another level to this for me um you know so I still feel like I'm it's like deja vu again like when I was starting from volume trying to figure out music the music space and again only got to 20% of our potential there I'm trying to make sure that doesn't happen with jaw I want jaw to reach 100% of his potential uh persephone the same thing so for me you know I love the structure that I have here with too lost and the things that I'm able to do um and then on the management side of things continuing to be a catalyst and then the growth and success of other creators or just jaw and persephone now but I'm sure I'll meet some other folks that you know I can always reserve some bandwidth to accept additional projects that I find interesting so I don't ever feel like I'm at I'm at capacity I'm always looking for other stuff to to get involved with um so we'll see what that is you know I think you just continue to do good work to continue to be a good person and opportunities open up you know that's just my philosophy and that's that's been what's happened to me and I just hope it you know just gets bigger and better from here what do you like being what do you like about being at too lost like what's what's made you fall in love with the job bro well for me it's kind of like a startup vibe so my role is director of communications but because I'm one of the older people here um and I have experience in the corporate world I have experience in music you know if I see a hole I could plug it you know or try to plug it so that's what I that's what I enjoy about you know about being here um you know and the people people have been super cool uh been well receptive to to me me being in the office here we have an office here in LA an office in New York New York is our headquarters um but yeah I feel like I'm going to be able to to do a lot of different things outside of my actual role as like director of communications I'm looking forward to building community amongst folks that use the two-loss platform and because obviously I've got a lot of experience building community with funk volume help the job build his community perception to build her community two-loss hasn't really done any we have any we don't even send emails out so I'm I'm looking forward to starting some initiative to start building that community within the two-loss platform and getting artists to connect with one another um so yeah it's just I think it's just the energy and the vibe of being at a company so so young and not knowing that I'll be able to do a lot of different things that hopefully contribute to their continued success okay so we talk a lot about it feels like over the last maybe three or four years or so distribution companies have been moving towards almost being the new labels like it's it's very rare now that I find a distribution company that doesn't offer at least like 80 to 90 percent of the same services as what a label might offer you so like where do you see that role for distribution or how do you see that role for distribution companies evolving like do you think that you know we'll start to see I guess maybe more artists who are like technically indie but you know maybe partying more so with with these distributors and take another approach or I don't know that you think the distribution company will evolve into just basically being labels at some point yeah I mean I think there'll always be a lane for the for the labels but you know as we've seen I mean I'm introduced to a new artist that's doing really well every day you know they have their little pockets their community it's like you know how does this person have three million monthly listeners I've never heard of him or her you know and you're right you know even with two loss we have you know you have you have the self-service platform is kind of similar to like a district kid or whatever but then we also have some alternative financing options you know beet bread is integrated within our site and we do do direct deals so I would say two loss has the ability currently to service an artist if we're looking at it from zero to ten like any any artist from like zero to seven seven point five you know if you're trying to be Drake or something like that then you probably you're gonna still need the the services of of a major label or have the ability to create those relationships and infrastructure yourself but I feel like you know if you're zero to seven which is ninety eight ninety nine ninety nine point eight percent of artists you know I think there's some there's some good options here to to continue to evolve as an artist for sure but when you were talking about your career and the way you look at it you mentioned projects and I I'm always perplexed that how people navigate the music industry because it took me years to figure it out not starting in the music industry just it's just weird and seems that a lot of people do move more in projects versus necessarily I'm going to work at one company forever I'm going to build a specific company can you explain just like the way you because I know especially coming from outside you've had to at some point say all right this is the way I put pieces together and see navigating the music industry to advance how do you look at even just from advising somebody else standpoint like how you should look to navigate your career music or entertainment yeah I mean I thought funk volume was going to be what I worked on for the rest of my life like I that's what I was was was headed towards um but I feel like I just got so many different interests I got I got so many different interests I can't really just plant my flag in any one thing and be like hey this is what I'm going to do got you like I love doing the stuff that I'm doing with two loss but I also love doing the stuff that I'm working on with job um and I might have another interest in another year or so um you know might want to start my own podcast again you know like I just want to always reserve some room to do anything else that I find interesting that's that same creativity that drives most people in this industry yeah yeah I mean I feel like I'm a creative too um and I'm not just a business person but I got a lot of ideas um so that's the way I look at it and you know so I don't think I'll ever just do one one thing there's just too much stuff Audrey well to close it out um I would love to know through everything you've been through in the music industry the entertainment industry what kept you in the industry I think it's I think you just once you went in for so long it's like it's not like what else can I do but it's like you know I've I've learned so much I've made so many relationships I've so many relationships here like do I really want to if I was to go back to what I was doing before I would probably have to take a step back you know um so I'm just trying to use what I've learned and I don't mind taking a step back if I could see a clear path for taking five steps forward in a relatively short amount of time but but yeah I mean I was I used to ask myself that question too like what am I doing here like this place is weird like it's this is filled with with people that can't communicate and that don't do what they say they're gonna do and and like all these all this negative stuff has happened um but at the same time I think that's that's the industry needs more people like us to kind of you know give whether it's to give artists hope or to try to give some structure to such an unstructured industry or some professionalism to such an unprofessional industry at times um but I think ultimately it's just like like I said first like I got I got so many years in this I know so many people that this is where I'll probably do the best you know and from where I you know from what I've been doing in the past 10 years but yeah it's a wild it's a wild industry you got to find you got to find you got to find those folks you know you know at the end of the day like good people know good people so once you start once you start finding the right people it'll be easier to find the other good people but um but yeah it's tough it's tough sometimes a lot of ups and downs so well man appreciate you hopping on uh we'll put plenty of things in the description just to find the MEC is that the best way to or just is your IG uh yeah my IG is I'm at dame.mc um and sometimes I ran on Twitter to at dame underscore mpc all right might be ranting the threads pretty soon all right all right well this is yet another episode of No Labels Necessary podcast I'm Brandon Shawn and I'm Corey dang here we are peace hey this interview is brought to you by No Labels Necessary and if you like content like this I have great news for you we have a private group where you can get access to more content like this actually influence the people that we interview on the channel and have some interactions with some of the people we interview on the channel and even greater get access to tons of courses and information that we've used to help artists grow to millions of streams our agency is now actually growing artists to achieve over five billion streams at this point and you can get access to this and more for as low as five dollars a month and that small contributions helps us fund doing more interviews like this so you can get as 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