Speaker 1hello you awesome gorgeous specimen of a fine human how are you doing today i appreciate you checking back and checking out my humble podcast we've got a good one for you guys today this week it's all about the music industry baby but we're not talking about all the bad stuff we've done a few episodes on that now we all know what the bad sides of music industry are this time we're talking to a guy who's been in the business over 40 years who knows the game he knows how to sail the uh the storm and he's going to share with us the inside knowledge and the pearls of wisdom that have led him to be continually successful from 1982 right into 2022 and still going strong and what's more he's not an artist with an axe to grind or a grudge to bear he's actually on the big bad label side of it he's a ceo of a major record company we've done a lot of moaning on this podcast and rightfully so about the music industry so it's going to be really interesting to uh to get their scoop on what they see from this side of the table about the machinery of the record business and to get their scoop on what they see from this side of the table about the advice as well on uh what the rest of us can do to sail these waters so don't tell me i'm not good to you guys in exchange for being so goddamn good to you i want to ask you a favor i want to ask all of you to go to my spotify page or my apple music page or amazon music whatever which whichever big bad horribly exploitative big tech company you listen to my music on if you listen to it at all please go there and follow my page so um for example on spotify it would be james kennedy but i'm not the blonde dj douche from the reality tv show i'm the scowly looking pissed off black haired british guy okay with the heavy music so go and follow that page give me a listen and um hopefully when there's some new releases coming up you'll be the first to know all that shit really is so easy for people to do but it really does help the algorithm which we're all you know slaves to unfortunately these days as content creators so if you could just take a goddamn few seconds to hunt down james kennedy on your music streaming platform of choice give me a follow give me a subscribe whatever you gotta do it would really help me out thank you so much it's a shame we have to live like this but hey what are you gonna do you gotta go with the people our man and hey if there's anybody who's like 90 and wants to actually buy my cd all of that is available on bandcamp as well james kennedy not the dj blonde douche from america the scowly looking pissed off guy with the rock band that's me but look you guys didn't come here to be sold some more shit okay that's you came here to get away from all that shit so let's get down to the good stuff joining us today let's do it brian slagle is the founder and ceo of the iconic metal blade records the label responsible for introducing the world to more legendary metal bands than we've got time to list including slayer and metallica the current roster includes behemoth killswitch engage cannibal corpse gua white chapel and literally pages more an influential and important figure in the history of metal and a man who's been in the industry for 40 years brian slagle thank you so much for taking time out to speak with us today how are you doing sir
Speaker 2good man thank you so much thanks for having me appreciate
Speaker 1it you are welcome anytime brother thank you for joining us um before we kick off then i know this is probably going to be like a really massive ask but um for the three people who don't know who brian slagle is and metal blade records are could you give us like the brief kind of one minute bio on the story so far
Speaker 2brief yeah that's always easy for 40 years right so basically yeah basically uh i was a young dumb kid in uh 1981 and was uh completely obsessed with a scene called the new wave of british heavy metal that was happening over in england uh which of course consisted of iron maiden death leopard and many many other acts uh completely got obsessed with it you know living and i grew up in los angeles california so living in los angeles and you know this is obviously eons before the internet or anything else it was very difficult to get information but somehow i was able to uh to do that i was really heavily into the scene then my dream job became available i started working at a record store which i grew up listening to music i grew up going to record stores until i was like 11 and always the dream job so i worked at this really cool independent record record store started importing all the european heavy metal stuff and that was kind of my i started the first ever u.s heavy metal fanzine called the new heavy metal review r-e-v-u-e i don't know why we did that but uh anyway so i was working at the record store and uh one of my friends who used to come in a lot and buy stuff said you know there's heavy metal bands here in los angeles and i said there are at that point i had no idea so he said yeah so the first show i went to was rat and motley crew at a venue called the troubadour in hollywood on a wednesday night for a dollar wow and then i realized like wow there are heavy metal bands in la so i started realizing there's a whole scene and again you know this is you know 1981 and you know there's the major labels don't care there's no internet there's that these bands would exist so i got the idea kind of based on the new wave of heavy metal and the kind of do-it-yourself attitude that was happening in england to put together a compilation album of la heavy metal bands which i did uh ended up selling a few um you know rat was on there for one um and also this band called metallica was on there as well because i had become friends with lars and he said if i put together a band could it be a record and i said sure and that ended up being metallica and then things kind of just slowed down and i was like okay i'm gonna do this slowly snowball from there where i got a distribution deal because they had no money to do anything which is why we never put out a metallica record right um and you know but this distributor said you know we'll give you a deal where you know if you bring us stuff we can manufacture it and sell it so i started doing that and then just slowly over the years the label has grown into this and it's 40 years later and i'm still talking about
Speaker 1it that is amazing man i mean what a thing to have started and to see grow into this amazing global success story i mean has the um trajectory been very diagonal you know or have there been you know significant dips and hardships that we haven't
Speaker 2seen well you know so so metal in the 90s was a bit difficult because obviously you know grunge came in and kind of wiped it out which quite honestly it needed to do like metal was big and bloated and not my kind of metal that was happening in like the late 80s early 90s so grunge came in which we actually ended up doing a lot of work with all those bands we were with alice in chains and mother love bone and nirvana and uh soundgarden and all those bands but so the mid 90s were a little tough it was honestly for us it wasn't terrible because the underground bands were still i mean we had at the time we had you know six feet under and cannibal corpse and guar and fading king diamond who were all selling a lot of records as independents but the mainstream it was no mainstream stuff at all a lot of people wrote off heavy metal beat dead i remember and i think it was 1997 rock hard which is the big year of the 90s and i think it was the year of the 90s and european uh german heavy metal fanzine or magazine sorry they had the cover was a gravestone that said r.i.p heavy metal born 1969 died 1997 so a lot of people thought that was it and then you know new metal came in which we didn't really get involved with at all and i i just knew that we would survive it because we survived other things and we did and then the early 2000s came and it
Speaker 1blew up again well that survival aspect of the genre i think is really interesting because i think it feels to me like metal is is almost the same as metal but it's not the same as metal it's immortal by this point because like you say it survived grunge it survived other things it's always it's always been there have you have you got any thoughts as to why that might be do you think it's ever going to die i don't think it is personally but why do why do you think that is
Speaker 2you know it just speaks to this music speaks to people and you know it spoke to me you know when i was a 17 18 year old kid and so many others of us i mean that was the whole scene back in the early 80s was we never thought you know any of these you know bands would become big metallic would be like one of the biggest bands in the world i mean none of us thought that we're just doing our thing and luckily we found other people that were also into it and over the years through generations you just see like the next generation of kids coming up like you know we're signing so many bands now these kids that are you know anywhere from 19 to 22 and 23 that that love the music love the history of it and you know they want to create their own thing and as long as that keeps happening and i don't see that slowing down anytime in the near future i think that you know this genre is going to continue and and also i think most of the people that work within our industry whether it's you know obviously musicians but obviously the record labels and the booking agents and the managers everybody is a fan we're all fans it's not like there's you know i don't deal with anybody on my level that's not a heavy metal fan at all like everybody like i said everybody from this whole community and that really helps because we're we're all we're all on the same page there's nobody i'm not ever talking to somebody that doesn't know what they're talking about in terms of whether it's the biggest managers or the biggest agents or the biggest labels
Speaker 1yeah it's there's just something really real and primal and raw about it you know i mean if it speaks to you then it really really speaks to you you know like listening to fucking metal music loud it's just it's like therapy it's like catharsis or something it's transcendental it's just um yeah it's primal and it's just it's very difficult to describe but i think for the people that it speaks to they're in for life you know what i mean and i think that's another reason why it's never going to go because it's just it's really it's just it's just it's just real you know a hundred
Speaker 2percent and it's you know and it's i mean look it's it's an angry form of music and i think as long as they're gonna be angry you know there's gonna be a lot of angst growing up there's gonna be a lot of angst in the world so you know those sort of things i guess kind of help the genre a little bit but uh it's just one of those things where it's going so strong now i i don't see it slowing down anytime at least in my lifetime hopefully amen amen man
Speaker 1so do you i'm guessing you don't just exclusively listen to metal and in your in your personal downtime. I mean, what else do you listen to? What other genres?
Speaker 2don't listen to a lot of other stuff i try to open myself up a bit a bit here and there to different things because i i want to experience it probably my all-time favorite non-metal band even though they're they're kind of a little bit you you may or may not know of them because they're a british fan they're called the manic street
Speaker 1preachers no way they're from around here
Speaker 2man i absolutely love them i've been a fan of theirs wow day one so they're kind of my and they're still a rock band so it's not like you know i'm going so far out of my comfort zone but that being said in the last um in the last few months i actually went to a bit of a long story um i'll i'll bump it up but there's an artist there's a country artist in the u.s called morgan wall who nobody outside the country industry knows who he is he sold more records in north america last year than any other artist wow that adele and anybody like by a mile jesus um so so real quick so my girlfriend who's not a country fan wanted to go see him somewhere so i'm like all right so i did the little deep dive turns out all the guys in his band are metal guys and they have a side from project metal band so i was like oh that's kind of interesting so i bought tickets to go see him in treeport louisiana of all places one of my buddies who manages kill switch engage i tell him the story he goes the guy who's tour managing him is a really good friend of mine he's an old school hardcore metal guy totally know who you were so anyway we got hooked up and and hung out with the band and i was like oh my god i'm gonna go see him up and and hung out with those guys and i've seen i've seen morgan wall a few times it was like i wouldn't go listen to his music over and over again the show's great there's fire and all sorts of stuff and the band guys do like a little metal uh uh a little jam session we saw stage the last show he did played a state in the first stadium show he played they did a medley of lincoln park deaf leopard and bon jovi and he played pour some sugar on me by deaf leopard which i hate i've always hated that song but their version was awesome so i really kind of liked it and then another kind of thing and again i wouldn't i wouldn't necessarily listen to his music a lot but um i know he's a big metalhead and he's friends with a lot of friends post malone so i went to see him uh a few weeks ago and i'm friends with the guys from power trip and they were there and i guess they're good friends with him and his photographer so anyway host went up and did the whole show in a power trip shirt
Speaker 1yeah wow that's fucking awesome yeah you see that's the thing man everybody everybody's got their their guilty metal pleasure even in a country band you know
Speaker 2yeah so yeah exactly that's all i i will go venture out a little bit but it's usually when there's metal involved that's so interesting
Speaker 1that you mentioned the manic street preachers because obviously you know here in wales they're like our national treasure and i'm talking to you now from about half an hour away from their hometown of blackwood i've met those guys several times you know they're they're a massive massive band over here and uh you know my partner funny enough has actually sung on a few of their records and has guest vocaled with them you know on live shows and tv shows and things like that so well you know we know those guys very well over here um have you ever seen them live oh gosh
Speaker 2yes when they when they first came over to uh the u.s back with you there was a minute when you know around gold and gold for your soul and and the holy bible where they're trying to kind of make them a big thing over here so they did a few u.s tours so i saw them i don't know four or five years ago and they were like oh my god they're like oh my god they're five times actually got to meet them super nice guys a couple of them were big hockey fans which because you know cardiff has a hockey team and has for a long time so i'd be a hockey fan so we got to uh we got to to bond over that a little bit but yeah i've seen them i think the last time i saw them in la in fact they just played there and i missed it but they played in la and that was when they did the whole the entire holy bible which is my favorite record of theirs and probably in my top 30 records of all time it's one of the most brilliant albums ever so so yeah i've seen them quite a few times never seen them in in uh england though which i would love to do
Speaker 1oh dude they play stadiums over here man you know if you get a chance to come and see the manics uh on their home turf then definitely do it um one thing i wanted to ask you and staying off metal then just for a second and looping back to something you mentioned earlier grunge what did you think about grunge at the time i loved
Speaker 2it i absolutely loved it i thought it was amazing and so my first kind of foray into that a little bit i mean obviously you know i heard and all that stuff but a really good friend of mine uh who worked at columbia records signed allison chains and this is pretty early on he sent me the demo tape that he got and said hey i just signed this band what do you think and i said oh my gosh this is amazing so you know i loved it and i was a i went up and uh there was a band called mother love bone that was early on and i went up to see them in seattle because we were we had a partnership with capital records at the time and and the anr person wanted me to go up and see them so i went up and saw them uh and i i was blown away i don't know if i've ever seen a singer that incredible in about a you know 50 seat bar whatever it was i mean he was just unbelievable and that i thought that band this band's gonna be the biggest thing ever they were gonna be amazing and then of course he uh passed away due to an overdose and of course the two guys stone agos from uh from mother love one went on to form some band called pearl jam oh i've heard they're kind of okay so yeah um but yeah i was i was into it i mean i love the pumpkins i love soundboard all of those bands to me were just an another version of metal and they're all huge metal heads yeah i remember i was uh when i favorite allison chain stories uh so the clash of the titans tour which was slayer megadeth anthrax uh we're doing this big tour but that allison chains open kind of before anybody knew who allison chains were really and they're playing in toronto and fate's warning one of our bands were playing in toronto and they were playing in toronto and i was recording their record in toronto so i took those guys to the show so afterwards we go backstage and we're talking to the guys and and lane comes up to me and lane was like one of the sweetest people ever by the way came up to me and whispered here he's like you think it's okay if i get an autograph at fate's morning like my my buddy and i back back home are huge fans wow but yeah they were all all those bands were influenced by metal but they couldn't say it at the time i mean dave grohl who i've since met since then i mean i i was told that his when one of my friends was out on the road and i was like oh my god i'm gonna go to toronto and i was like oh my god i'm gonna go to toronto and i was like oh my god i'm gonna go to toronto first foo fighters tour and he he sent us an email and said dude i'm out with grohl on this foo fighters tour every cd in his cd case is all metal blade i was like oh wow cool they're all they were all metal heads and it was just like i said it was just another version of metal to me and i i loved it i thought it was fresh and new and different and i thought all that stuff was great i loved all that was
Speaker 1interesting man you that you would see it that way as somebody on the metal side of the industry you know at that time because i know that you know grunge scared the shit out of pretty much every other genre that's i mean none more so the metal but as you mentioned earlier i think it was it was a good thing because your metal was becoming a kind of cliche of itself in many ways at that point it was becoming quite generic and lazy in many ways um so i think grunge certainly raised the bar for everything else whereby you know everyone had to start up in their game again
Speaker 2well yeah what happened was the major labels got involved and they just kind of made everything pop and you know had that terrible look with the you know whole hair metal thing and it just that wasn't my version of metal what i liked about metal so i even thought it was awful and it it needed to it needed to be reset and that's what happened you know we went through the 90s where you know it had to get reset and it reset itself and you know here we are
Speaker 1yeah stronger than ever again man it's back i mean one thing that really interests me that i'd love to ask you we've had several music industry sort of specials on the podcast so far but i mean you've been in the game now for 40 years right and and you and you're still here now top of the game so what is your opinion on the the the monumental shift that's happened within the music industry now obviously i'm of a generation that when i sort of came on the scene i was pretty much just one toe left in the old model you know for me it was very much my space you know you still made cds and things like that but then within a space of a few years it was social media and you know apple and you know streaming and all that sort of stuff so i didn't spend too much time in the old model but you've seen you've spent about 20 years in both now so what's your opinion on that and what's your opinion on the change is it better is it just different what's your thoughts well
Speaker 2you know that's the one thing i've learned over all these years is you have to be adapted to change uh and i learned that very early on because in the 80s you know i grew up in the 70s and i was a vinyl fanatic i i have tons of vinyl i kept on my vinyl you know i was the idiot at the record company we were saying like hey uh you might want to stop pressing vinyl because cd is the new thing now nobody's going to want vinyl anymore i go no vinyl's never going to die and sure enough uh you know i'm not going to stop at literally at one point all the stores not only the u.s but in europe just decided like okay that's it we're done with vinyl they shipped all of it back and uh that almost bankrupted the company because all of a sudden i owed our distributor like 250 000 i didn't have that money to pay them so we somehow survived but i learned okay i'm not going to be resistant to change any anymore and we're going to get out in front of it next time and you know kind of where this all came from was really the whole file sharing thing and you know everybody was going on and on about that and how horrible it wasn't look at it it wasn't great and it you know but i get it i get it i understand it from a from a fan i'm still a fan first and foremost i understand from a fan's point of view like i don't want to go spend 20 to buy a record have to be one good song on it this is ridiculous so i kind of got the vibe but it just became too much obviously um but what that did was it forced the music industry to go okay we should have a different business model here because clearly what we were doing isn't working and now we're being decimated by this this file sharing thing that really led into the whole streaming thing so look as a as a business model i think we should have a different business model this model it's it's kind of hard to explain but i'll give you i'll give you the rough thing so a lot of people complain about streaming a lot of artists complain about streaming they're not making any money and the reason that is is because most of them are signed to major labels and i don't want to disparage all the major labels because not all of them are bad and not all of them do this but you know all of these bands are under agreements they sign you know especially the older bands have been around for a long time but they're getting you know normal royalty rates like 15 or something but this is when you know you're manufacturing product and all this sort of stuff it's changed a lot now where you know a band shouldn't be getting paid 15 on streaming they should be getting paid much more and the independent artists like us do and i mean we write you know we write six-figure checks to our bands all the time now because this streaming thing is huge and just from a fan's perspective but when i grew up right all right i would uh i have 20 to buy maybe two records yeah and that's it so now for 10 a month i can listen to anything i want to anytime i want to anywhere i want to so i mean that that freedom is really made a huge impact for the music business because bands that would normally be smaller because people couldn't listen to them or they didn't have access to them everybody's got access to music for free whether it's youtube or you know free streaming sites or whatever it is so that sort of thing has has done two things number one it's got a whole bunch of smaller bands that never would be as big as they are to have the access to people listening to them and number two it forced bands to make quality albums because before that people like well you know i don't really have to make a really great record i can just do two good songs the rest of it nobody's going to care about but once you could hear everything before paying for it uh you had you had to make good stuff i think that really stepped up the game of you know not only just metal genres but a lot a lot of other genres so so in a way i think kind of where we're at with all this is if it's done right and if the labels are doing things the right way and paying the artists as they should be then it's a great day
Speaker 1that's really interesting that you say that so so would you put your hat in the ring then and say that you actually think it's
Speaker 2better now well better is the whole thing i mean i think look as as a fan from a fan's point of view absolutely i think it's better because you know you can you know like i said you can listen to anything you want to pretty much any time you want to without having spent a lot of money and you know the good news is then you can go out and buy the vinyl versions and the cd versions which thankfully in our world people do that um but yeah i think it's better and i think for the long term it's getting better for the bands too look it's not what it was in the 70s and 80s it probably never will be in terms of of music royalties but compared to the way it was in the in the 90s in the early 2000s this is this is way better i mean you know for a long time i've been listening to a lot of music and i've been listening to a lot of bands made all of their money on touring and merchandise like 90 percent of them yeah and then music was maybe 10 well now that's probably bumped up to again depending upon the deal depending on how bands how well bands stream you know you could be up for anywhere from 25 to 35 percent of a band's overall income which makes you know all this feel a lot better and just another another income source that helps these artists uh making it and in all honesty helped a lot of these artists survive the pandemic
Speaker 1great point yeah 100 i totally agree with you i'm and i've been an evangelist for the new model for a long time quite openly because of my experience as an artist you know i got shafted by so many labels back in the day that when i decided to just commit to being independent you know and embrace technology and social media and all that sort of stuff i found it very empowering like just make the record i want to make put it out any money that was made 100 if it came to me or the band you know and um it was just a lot more freeing and i just felt a lot more validated and rewarded rather than just feeling like i was being rude all the time but the flip side to that is when you're on a level playing field with everybody else on planet earth who's also doing the same thing how do you get heard above the noise well
Speaker 2yeah and that's you know a lot of people could say well you know labels are going to be gone because you know artists can just just do all this themselves well well that's true artists can do it themselves you don't have the infrastructure of you know the label you know our size we've got like 35 employees but then we've got distributors and other people work with you've got only an army of 150 different people that are out there that are that are promoting you and your band so you can't do that on your own you have to hire them or do you know even like big bands that try to do it on their own they really can't but you just but you do have to align yourself with the right label because i'm the first to admit there are a lot of labels that rip off bands all the time i hear stories over and over again that's the one thing that really bums me out about about the industry and it's not not just the metal industry just in general i think it's better i mean you talk so i'm i'm into reading autobiographies now i i wrote a book five years ago the history of heavy metal history of metal late records sorry uh and you know i wanted to read some more autobiographies so i kind of now i'm obsessed with it and man any no matter who what artist it is you read them if they came up in the 70s and 80s they all got ripped off by their managers or labels or whatever it just it is always such a bummer to read that sort of stuff but but that being said you know if you can align yourself with the right people and there are a lot of good people out there you can
Speaker 1do well that's encouraging to hear and i'm it's good to know that there are some good guys out there oftentimes it doesn't feel like there are but do you think that it's possible for a band or an artist to survive and have a successful career without a label or do you think ultimately once you get to a certain point that it's impossible to to continue to function effectively without a
Speaker 2label yeah i think so we haven't seen any artist yet that's really been able to kind of establish something and become a massive artist all on their own eventually there has to be people there you know i think it's interesting you know the whole tiktok world is kind of interesting now where you're seeing you know a lot of people who aren't not on labels but have these crazy you know 35 million tiktok followers and all this sort of stuff i don't know that that can transition to like a regular music career but yeah somebody may end up doing it it's an interesting platform and it's an interesting way of of getting to people and clearly there are people that know how to do it that you know i'm kind of blown away by like wow that that guy's you know that band or guy whatever has all these followers but i think it's possible but still the the kind of you know look i you know i don't want to sound old school and old fuddy-duddy but that's still business model of you know the record label and that you know it's got to be the record label the management the agent you know everybody all working together to really get an artist to to that next level you know you've seen with some of the pop artists like they can start on their own but eventually they got to go somewhere
Speaker 1yeah from my own experience it was kind of like i went from the feeling of wow this is fucking awesome i can just make the record i want now i can put it out i can play everything produce it myself doesn't cost a penny i can distribute it you know digitally and use bandcamp or whatever and social media to promote myself this is fucking awesome but the first place that it then falls down is touring because touring is so fucking expensive that most bands on the sort of money that they're realistically going to be making from things like that can't afford to put on a nationwide tour you just can't do it it's too expensive and there are other things you know like promotion and marketing and stuff but i think touring i mean that obviously any musical artist wants to be out there touring that's what they should be doing right that's what we live that's that's why we do this you know unless you just want to exist on the internet or something but i mean you know most of us want to be out there playing and that i think is the first real big hurdle that most independent artists come up against when they're trying to do this
Speaker 2without a label yeah 100 100 we see that now i think the thing about you know being able to to make records you know on your own and make them for free and and get them out there that starts the ball rolling because you know we i don't think we sign any i don't want to say any but rarely do we sign a band these days that just was coming they've not put anything out they've not done anything before like usually these bands put out you know an ep or something on their own they've gained some traction and there's stuff going on and then you know we kind of pick it up from there you know any other label can kind of pick it up from there and and get it to the next that next level that's a great thing to do and i think to really help artists to to start on their own but start with their vision too so that they you know because sometimes labels and management can mess up your vision yeah which it should not ever by the way don't by the way all the bands out there don't ever listen to anybody make whatever music you guys want to make don't listen to anybody don't listen to to spouses or friends or labels or managers don't listen to anybody period never
Speaker 1that's great advice but but definitely brian well you can
Speaker 2listen to what i'm saying about his other stuff but don't if i i'm not gonna i'm not gonna tell you what you shouldn't should not be doing music that's
Speaker 1for sure well well amen to that man because yeah that's that's few and far between these days there's a lot of noise out there these days man i was gonna ask you like with regards to touring how have you seen that side of the industry change because i mean certainly at the sort of level that i operate at over here with my band at the club level obviously small clubs are closing down left right and center they're not keeping their doors open for various reasons but i think it's a good thing that you're making a difference what's your experience of that within within
Speaker 2the metal world yeah well you know the pandemic was scary obviously because like you just mentioned a lot of smaller clubs could didn't survive but it seems like other people are kind of coming up and and uh filling in the gaps a little bit now but touring is really weird so when you know when i first started out and you know even going back to i don't know 20 some odd years ago like artists to get out on the road because like you said it's not easy it's not easy you're especially your first stories you're not gonna be making any money you're gonna have to to you know quote unquote pay your dues and you know back in our days i mean bands were just i mean slayer's first tour they did in a in a in a station wagon it just slipped on people's floors They didn't care because they loved the music and they're out there to promote their own music. And I've seen that that doesn't exist a lot anymore, where a lot of bands now, younger bands come in and go, well, we don't want to do a tour in a band. We want to be in a bus and all sorts of things. Well, that's not going to work. You kind of got to go out and pay your dues a little bit more. That being said, there are still other bands that are out there kind of doing what they need to do to make it happen. And that's super important to begin with, because, you know, it's going to take a while for you to have anything, especially on a touring front out there. But then again, that's you know, and this is also, you know, it's I feel bad saying this, but, you know, again, having the label, the management people around you gets you on those good tours and gets you a little bit more money than you would normally have gotten. Because you've got people surrounding them who, especially the agents and the venues, trust you a little bit because they know, OK. Well, they're these people. So, OK, they might be good.
Speaker 1Yeah, that makes sense. And what do you think then about the power of luck? How important is the power of luck in a band's success? Because, you know, it doesn't mean that they're not good. Doesn't mean that they haven't worked their ass off. But the music industry is not a meritocracy. Most things aren't. So how important in your experience of what you've seen of bands over the years has the power of luck been in their success or lack of?
Speaker 2Absolutely, it's important. There's so many bands out there, so many artists, and there's so many people vying for something that, yeah, luck absolutely plays a big role in it. I think that being said, you still, what's the old saying? You got to be lucky to be good. You got to be good to be lucky, right? Right. So you do have to be good. You do have to be smart. You do have to have to, you know, know what you're doing. But, yeah, I mean, just, you know, sometimes luck plays a huge thing. I mean, there's countless bands that we all can say that. And luck could mean a lot of different things. Luck could mean, you know, being in the right place at the right time to have the right, you know, manager or agent or, you know, whatever that may be. Because we all know there's tons of bands that we love. Why did that band never make it big? They were so great. There's always a, you know, there's always a story, you know, involved with the wrong people or, you know, somebody, you know, the main, the singers, you know, girlfriends or parents said, no, you got to go to school or whatever it is. And, you know, people just don't take the chance. So, you know, there's all that sort of stuff. And, yeah, luck, luck can just be, luck can play a major role in all this sort of stuff because there's a million great artists and not all of them are going to make it.
Speaker 1Yeah, I agree. And I'm glad to hear you say that, man, because that's just not been my experience as someone that's been around musicians and very talented, creative people now for, you know, several decades. And, you know, you hear all these things all the time from, you know, music seminars and books and, you know, industry advice and stuff like that, that, you know, if you're just professional, you work hard. And you pay your dues and, you know, you're nice to everybody and all that sort of stuff that, you know, success will be forthcoming. But it's just not true, I don't think, because I know so many people who are so talented. They write such great music and they bust their ass. They do everything that you're supposed to do. They make all the sacrifices year after year after year. And they just, for some reason or another, just cannot catch a break, you know?
Speaker 2Yeah. And it's, you know, that's all over all the genres. I live in Las Vegas and I see all these incredibly. Talented people that, you know, work at lounges and shows and stuff that are unbelievably talented, but they never got the big break because they just, they weren't right place, wrong time. Or, you know, they were from Omaha and nothing ever happened in Omaha. You know, there's a lot of stuff like that for sure.
Speaker 1And so then do you see in the successful bands any commonalities? I mean, do you see any characteristics that the bands that stick, the ones that stick around, not the ones who managed to catch a lucky break, but then, you know, they're gone this time next year. You know, the one hit wonders or whatever. What do you see as the common traits in those bands, whether you've worked with them directly or not? Those bands that stick, what traits do they share?
Speaker 2They're smart. Right. They're smart. And they understand the business. And what I tell every band is, it's just got to be one guy. It doesn't have to be a whole band. You know, you guys don't all have to learn about the music industry. But one guy, at least one guy in the band has to do the business. Right. And has to understand the business and has to do it. And that's no matter what. Right. Right. Right. Right. No matter what successful band that is or on any level, you've got that one guy, whether it's Lars and Metallica or, you know, Steve Harris and Iron Maiden or, you know, you go on and on and on. But there's always one guy that understands the business, that knows what they're doing, and they work with all the team around them to make it. And it's the same thing with all of our bands. Like every band's got at least one guy that understands the business part of it. He controls the business part. And that's the one thing I can say for every band. Every single popular band I've ever dealt with, there's always at least one person, if not more, but at least one. Because you've got to be smart. It's a difficult business. Everybody's going to try to rip you off. If you don't know what you're talking about, what you're doing and fight for your band, then, yeah, you can let the pitfalls happen easily.
Speaker 1That's great advice. Yeah, I didn't see that one coming, man. Yeah, but that makes a lot of sense, actually. I mean, as you were speaking there, I could think of countless examples of my own, you know, like the Rolling Stones or Queen. You know, they've got. They've all got that one guy in the band that is the business guy, you know, so that makes a lot of sense. Absolutely. So, do you have any thoughts on. I mean, you mentioned earlier that, you know, one of the main things that you have to have in this business on your side of the table is to be easily adaptable to change because there's going to be a lot of it. Have you got any theories as to what the future of the music industry might look like, say, in 10 years' time? I know that's probably impossible these days because everything changes so fast because it's now based. So, so much on technology. But have you got any feeling, seeing the patterns as you have over the past four years as to where things might be headed? Do you think streaming is here to stay or do you think something else is around the corner?
Speaker 2Well, you know, you never know, right? You know, I'm not going to tell you right now that I think in 10 years that streaming is going to still be as strong as it is now because some other platform could come into play. You certainly see, you know, social media, which I'm a big fan of and honestly has played a massive. A massive role in the success of our label and the other labels just because we have this amazing platform. We can reach out to our fans directly from us, you know, between our, you know, Twitter and Facebook and Instagram, all these different pages. You know, there's like 3 million people that, you know, you can reach to, which is, you know, kind of mind boggling when you think about it for, you know, an independent label. But all that being said, you know, who knows? I mean, I think for the next few years, the model that we have now is going to continue to grow. Yeah. But we also, you don't know, you know, look at what's happening with Twitter now, you know, I mean, Twitter is, which I love Twitter. I've always been a big fan. I've always had great experiences there. You know, now it's, I mean, for now, it seems like it's surviving, but who knows? So who knows what could happen? You know, Spotify or Apple could, you know, do something crazy and, you know, not become what they were before. But then again, somebody else could come in and do something too. But I do think you're going to see, you know, these. Things like TikTok and stuff where, you know, once you can properly monetize things, I guess, you know, Twitch is another good one where you can actually monetize things there. So once you can kind of monetize stuff there, I think that's going to be a bit of a game changer, especially for artists. Like we have some artists that, and not everybody can get into Twitch and not everybody's got that mentality to get in there. And it's, you know, it's gone beyond, I think, from even being just a gaming thing now. But, you know, we've got a couple artists that, you know. You know, that do a bunch of really cool stuff on Twitch and they make a bunch of money every month just for themselves. So I think if, you know, artists can kind of get into those sort of things and create interesting things that can give them extra money, that's going to help. But I think from our point of view, from a label point of view, I think, yeah, it's just the next few years is going to be kind of where it is now. I hope that the physical product continues to exist because I love that. And certainly vinyl's been, I mean, vinyl's bigger now than it's ever been. I don't see that slowing down anytime soon, but you just, you can't ever know.
Speaker 1Yeah, it's impossible to predict. And also, you know, predictions have been proven to be wrong more than they're right anyway. So best we just wait and see. But one thing, you know, we can guarantee is safe. And I think that's the most important thing is music. You know, music is not going anywhere. The format will clearly change in ways that we can't even imagine yet. But people's love and need for music is not going anywhere. And I think that's the important thing.
Speaker 2Yeah. And you see, you know, I go to so many shows and just see so many young kids. I just saw Iron Maiden in New York a couple months ago. And, you know, think about Iron Maiden, they're in their, you know, 60s and Nico's 70. But the crowd is like, I'd say half the crowd is under 30. It's just amazing to see these generational things happen now. It's the same, you know, I saw Modern Mark two weeks ago, it's the same thing. Like that. The crowd is probably, you know, 20 to 40 is probably the main demographic there. You know, they've been around for a minute. So I like that because that means there's the next generation coming in that is enjoying the music. So that makes me feel good about the long haul. But yeah, the formats, who knows?
Speaker 1Do you think social media plays a part in that? Because I've often been, I've noticed that myself. I've got a concert and I'm expecting to see a certain demographic. And I'm like, shit, man, it's full of teenagers. I didn't see that coming. How do they even know this band? Do you know what I mean? Do you think that is, you know, to do a TikTok and social media?
Speaker 2Oh, 100%. I think social media drives so much stuff these days. for for people that that i mean that's how we get our information out from us as a record label and you know you get so many people that you know that use social media to learn to learn something that's what i do too i mean i've found fans on social media somebody just sent me some tiktok artists the other day i'm not a huge fan of it but the guys have got like already i don't know five million followers some crazy amount of followers it's really interesting but but that's how it works and you know you see you know some kid will see a band and they'll they'll tag their friend you know or snapchat or whatever it is um but yeah that's 100 it's all it's all social media because how else would you know about these bands
Speaker 1right yeah yeah yeah for sure and do you think a band can survive without that these days i mean i know so many friends of mine who they might be insane musicians and amazing bands but they're like oh i'm not very good with us i don't want to be on camera i don't i don't really like dancing on tiktok and doing some shit like that you know i mean so they just don't bother but if you're not on the phone everyone's staring at their phone people are looking at their phone when they're driving these days if you're not on there essentially you don't exist i mean do you think it's possible for a band to exist and survive or even climb the ladder starting out from scratch without social media or do you think it's absolutely essential i
Speaker 2would never say never but it would be extremely difficult because you're just losing an outlet look you don't have to do a dumb dance on tiktok but you do have to be part of you know facebook and instagram and twitter all these accounts you know if you don't as a band have all those pages going then yeah nobody's going to know who you are like how in this day and age how would somebody find out about a band if it's if you're not on social media anyway it's just i mean that's it's just impossible there's no other way unless you know you became the band was on a reality show or something yeah no out of nowhere but yeah i mean unfortunately that's that's the game you got to play now but i i think it's great because this way with social media you learn about things and you find out about bands and there's so many like people i never would have met or i mean you know you and i might not be talking now but yeah 100 yeah do
Speaker 1you think there's any space left embracing social media as well simultaneously but do you think there's that there's there's still space left for the old punk rock model of hitting the streets and flyers and posters on lampposts and all that sort
Speaker 2of stuff yeah i i think that that still is a component of what's happening and i encourage like people ask me like you know what what should bands do you know i'm a band in whatever city it's like and they all want to get a record deal quickly i was just talking to a friend of mine the other day who's who's like yeah these guys have this this artist they want to get really big and you know they want me to ask you i'm like so we'll tell them this like you know you're not gonna you're not gonna cold call or cold email a record label or something and have them sign it just not gonna happen right so what you do is we're at whatever city you're in make that city your town go out and play shows like you said fly or pat but make that city yours because jack generally is what happens where all of a sudden you know because we've got people all over the world right so we signed a band for knoxville tennessee this band white shell knoxville tennessee is a little tiny town the middle of nowhere tennessee no one's ever come from there um but you know they became this big artist in knoxville and one of the clubs there said hey you know you should check out this band they've been playing here and they're doing really well and we did and it's like oh my gosh this band's amazing we ended up signing them that that's kind of the way you have to do it so you i don't know if you could become like a huge artist without again playing the the game that we have to play now that we talked about but certainly starting out that's the number one way if you're starting out you got to just take where you're at and be as big as you can in that market and get as much buzz and noise going as you can there and i guess
Speaker 1in many ways it's the same as it always was you know back in the day i suppose uh you know that's all you had you know
Speaker 2what i mean yeah for for the artists that we deal with a hundred
Speaker 1percent so how does a bank get on a on a labels radar what do you what do you what do you look for i know that's probably a stupid question that you're you've answered loads of times before and and every case is probably different but i mean you mentioned cold calling with emails and stuff like that yeah we know that's redundant now so what is that what is a kick-ass band that's paid their dues it's out there you know that they've got their hometown in their pocket but brian slagle still has never heard of him what does a band do to get on your radar
Speaker 2well usually if that's happening you know it'll get on our radar like i said we get enough people around the world that we deal with and you know all of our bands tour and you know that half the time you'll get one of our bands they go into a city and you know they hear about a band that the club owner said hey you guys should check these guys out there's their demo or whatever so it'll eventually like if there's a really good band it'll eventually get to somebody that being said the other the other advice that i that i think is really really important for bands especially in our world is don't sound like anybody else yeah because that's not what we're looking for like we have white chapel we have a monomark we have all these bands but i don't want another band that sounds like that i want to sign a band that sounds different and i want to sign a band that sounds different and i want to sign a band that sounds different so what i try to tell these guys is it's great to have your influences it's great you know you can be a fan of all those bands but don't sound like them take those influences do something that first and foremost you as a band like again by don't listen to anybody else nonsense um but you know something that you guys like but make it different make your own unique sound because that's what's going to get if if you're going to be a big band in in this genre really any genre if you if you're not doing something different you're not going to be a big different and unique nobody people are more than likely not they'll care to a certain degree but it's like i'd rather listen to a monomark than a band that sounds like
Speaker 1yeah definitely and i think the the need for that is so much more these days because you're not just competing with the five other bands in your hometown now you know you're essentially in competition with the rest of the world you know the gazillion of the bands who are also you know online in in the you know the collective social media space so i think the risk of sounding like another band is so much higher and i think therefore the need to be to carve out your own sound is so much more important so that you stand out above that noise
Speaker 2correct but but there's a there's a danger to that too because if you're doing something so far out there so different and you're not part of any scene that really hurts you too because we've signed bands that i love that i thought this band's amazing and they're doing something because something completely different but then they they don't exist in a scene so you know people don't really understand them or don't get them because they're not part of you know whatever genre or scene it is so it's a tricky thing because you want to be different and unique but you also still want to somehow be involved in whatever that scene is just so you get those because you know fans fans are not going to immediately go out and listen to something completely different it's going to take them a while and if you're part of a scene and you do have a unique sound that's that's a little bit better
Speaker 1100 and that's a really important point that i hope any bands listening to this are really going to see to see the importance of that of being part of a broader scene whilst having your own unique place within it i think that that's the magical formula right there and so which bands do you currently listening to then are ticking those boxes you know whether you're working with them on metal blade or whether you know you're just on there they're on your radar you know what are you listening to that's getting your blood up what's getting your juices flowing you know what should we be checking
Speaker 2out uh there's a couple things um not on the metal blade uh agenda but and i don't know what's going on with metal and stuff like the first four records were you know some of the best metal records ever and i'm friends with those guys and stuff and you know they over the years you know whatever and i just saw them they opened for judas priest about a year or so ago in vegas and and they were amazing new singer todd's great guy sounds amazing and they were awesome but you know they just played the hits so the new record comes out and you know they've had a couple records out and kind of like yeah whatever so uh one of my really good friends is this guy chris santos who um is a big celebrity chef here in the u.s he's on this tv show called chop he's got a bunch of restaurants but he's a massive metal head and he he usually gets he usually gets to stuff before i do so he texted me and said hey have you heard this new queens record it's really good i said well you know actually the the first song was on one of the you know music choice channels or something i listened to i thought it was actually really good so the record is really good so i went out and bought the record oh my god it's incredible it's like i don't know where 30 years went but this new queens record is phenomenal so i'm completely obsessed with that at the moment which i love love love another band that i'm really kind of obsessed with that's not on metal blade is uh this uh punk rock band called the linda lindas okay they're uh they're 11 to i think 18 now the drummer's 11 the bass player's like 13 guitar players are i think 16 to 18 all girl band and they're incredible they're like they write amazing songs they bring energy they're really really cool so they they put out their debut album came out on my friend's epitaph label a while ago so they're super cool so but it's like old school like i don't know like early go-go's meets like a punk rock it's hard to describe but they're super super fun and really good for these young kids to be that good musically and writing those sort of songs it's kind of crazy um so i love those two bands then metal white wise we signed this band and uh it was a band called 200 stab wounds and like i i'm super old i'm like i'm old right i don't get excited by much you know i see bands all the time and i mean i like a lot of bands but i don't get like oh my god that's amazing like i did with the linda lindas for example um so anyway they played at this festival called psycho fest in vegas over the summer oh my god this band blew me away like live so good like so good like this is i'm super super excited about them they have a new record coming out um and it's kind of like the only way to describe them is they're like part cannibal corpse part power trip i guess really young kids and my my goodness they're doing something really unique and different that we're super excited about. There's a nice buzz on them too, which is really good, but I'm super excited for that thing. That's awesome, man.
Speaker 1Well, there's a couple of suggestions there for people to rush out and check out. And just listening to you talk, man, I can tell that even after all these years in the biz, you know, you're still just as enthusiastic and just as excited and just as passionate about music, you know? And I wonder whether at its core, that's the key to your success and Metal Blade's success is that you're essentially still, you know, that kid with the fanzine. I'm still
Speaker 2just a fan, you know, I think that's what works is I'm still a fan. I still love the music as much as I always have. I still get excited about new stuff like the new Metallica track came out and I thought, Oh my God, this is great. You know, I love it. So yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm just, I'm just a music fan and I look like I'm lucky to get to, to work in the same sort of genres I like to listen to.
Speaker 1Yeah. What a, what a life, man. What a life. And what, what's your, what's your favorite thing about metal? What's coming up at Metal Blade? What can we look out for on the, on the label coming up soon?
Speaker 2Oh gosh, there's so much stuff. So we've got a brand new Cannibal Corpse record coming out sometime in the first part of next year, I think. Then we've got a whole bunch of other stuff coming up. So we should, I don't know, I wish I could give you like dates on these things, but there will be sometime in the next few months, two new Universal Fate songs that are going to be up on the socials. And then the streaming services, then there should be a full King Diamond record sometime in 2023. Nice. And then a full Merciful Fate record in 2024. So we're super excited about that sort of stuff. And then I just, you know, go to the website. There's so much stuff going on. There's, you know, everybody's doing every, all the bands are putting out records and cause you know, we're in this process now where we had two years where nobody could do anything. So everybody's recording in those two years. So now our process is, you know, we're in this process now where we had two years where nobody could do anything. So our problem is, how do we put this stuff out but not, you know, kind of compete with everybody else and fall all over ourselves. So it's a it's a very all this labels now have a very unique thing about how we get all these records out and, and do it properly, right?
Speaker 1Yeah, so this is a good problem to have that we got all this good music in the pipeline.
Speaker 2Yeah. And that's the one thing I've noticed is that there's so many, so almost every new record by whatever band it is, like I just mentioned, Queensryche, you know, the pandemic did one good thing, it's going to create a lot of really amazing music.
Speaker 1There are tons more bangers coming up. So watch this space and I'll be back next week with another episode with another awesome guest. In the meantime, have an awesome week. I love you loads. Take care of yourselves. Take care of each other and I will catch you next time. Take it easy.
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