Where the money is going in music w/ Fred Davis

This is Music Moneyball. The podcast that explores how to unlock the hidden value in music catalogues brought to you by Standard Innovation, the data consultancy for investment funds. Welcome back to the Music Moneyball podcast with me, Emma Griffiths and my co-host Tom Mullin. Today we are joined by one of music's top dealmakers and a partner at the Rain Group Fred Davis. Welcome to the podcast Fred. Good morning everybody, nice to be here. Nice to have you. Yeah, it's really great to have you and we're excited to hear your perspective because typically as our listeners will know we focus very much on music catalog deals on this podcast but you sit very much across a wider spectrum of deals whether that's advising on some of the biggest M&A transactions to the growth equity and venture capital that powers the tech that sits underneath it all and drives the value across the industry. So with that in mind and to kick things off Fred, I think it'd be great just to get your perspective on where the money is actually going in music right now. Well, where the money is going now, you have to divide it up into a few different categories. Let's not forget that the major financial institutions in music historically have been the major labels, Universal Sony and Warner's and they still are aggressive and major investors requires a music in even in 2026 and people forget about them at times. But then you have outside capital coming in, you have venture capital, you have growth equity capital, you have PE capital, you have sovereign wealth capital, there's many, many different sources of capital words coming in. Some are investing in early stage companies, some are investing in growth stage companies, some are acquiring companies, that's a big part of it and then there's a lot of money going into master catalog acquisitions and publishing catalog at positions. So it's spread over many different sources, it's coming from the United States, it's coming from Europe, it's coming from Asia, it's coming from the Middle East, it's coming globally everywhere you look and it's exciting times that way. And is there a specific area that's driving more interest at the moment, is there something that you're noticing in the deals that are coming across your desk where you're saying, no, there's suddenly a lot of interest in this or have you seen any changes recently? Have I seen changes recently, no, but there was a period, let's call it 2008 to 2018, where there was nothing exciting coming from anywhere because nobody wanted to invest in music. It was everybody thought there was the death of the music industry, nobody would buy records, music anymore, the labels were poor, you know, there was private equity hanging out there in the background, very, you know, meekly, there was venture capital that had come into the music industry trying to fix the music industry after Napster broke it. But it wasn't that all that exciting, what would happen was when Spotify came to being and it became successful, it created a new revenue stream for the music industry was predictable subscription revenue. And it's the predictability of subscription revenue versus the ad hoc nature of buying a CD or one-off e-commerce that allowed and unlocked a lot of value for different types of financial investors because it became predictable to a certain extent. And of course, we're always refining the algorithms and the computation and the math that goes into the predictability. But everybody believes that the subscription business model is here to stay and it provides some foundation to unlock more financial investors than typical music investors existed. So that has happened in terms of exciting new opportunities, obviously the advent of AI is allowing for people to dream and speculate in ways that didn't exist 5 or 10 years ago. So that attracting new early stage capital, we haven't seen that much growth capital in the AI space, Suno has taken up a lot of that error and that we can maybe talk about Suno later on, but that's very risk-free growth capital that has come in. But most of it, a lot of it's attracted from the business side to AI-generated oriented businesses. But the growth most of the capital right now is seeking master acquisitions and publishing acquisitions. That's the most of it. Yeah, that's interesting. And as you rightly said, Fred, there is this increased comfort the institutional capital has with music now, which is obviously great. And you actually speak about the fact that there is so much capital that wants to come into music and you play this sort of matchmaking role with your work at the rain group. So how does that work, how do you connect both sides and where do you find where things typically get in the way? Well, let me say the second half, where things mostly get in the way, and I say our biggest challenge we have in our daily job is finding the capital that's sitting on the sidelines of music that wants to get into music at scaled opportunities. There are a lot of small opportunities. But when I say scaled, it's hundreds of millions, multiple billions opportunities. There are billions of dollars out there that want to get into music that's just not happening. It's just not available. The opportunities aren't available. So that is a struggle. In terms of matchmaking, you're right, that is what we do. When I was a young music lawyer, my job was to find artists, up and coming artists, up and coming bands and match them with people who wanted to invest in those bands. They were typically labels, they were independent labels, they were major labels. But the art of matchmaking, whether it was an artist playing in a local club with a major label, an independent label, is the same muscle, the same behavior. If you're finding a young entrepreneur, an experienced entrepreneur looking for the right home, the right investor, the right partners, and it's mostly about people, and it's just understanding the buying market and the selling market, no matter how good we are in making deals happen. Most of the time, it doesn't work. If you take a start-up process, you need maybe one, two or three investors, one or two acquires. You may start out reaching out to 25 or 30 targets, 40 targets, and holding it in, it's a numbers game, and you're wrong a lot of the time, but it's ultimately you have to be right at the end, and that's the art of it. And I think Fred, that's an honest segue, actually, into the next question that we wanted to talk about was, you know, you guys have made investments into firebird and duetty who are broadly seen as being very entrepreneurial forward-thinking, and they also represent kind of different types of music companies than maybe what you've seen traditionally before. What made them compelling opportunities for you guys? What did you see in them? We had Leo on the podcast recently, and I think kind of his personal experience speaks for itself, but I'm interested to hear what you saw about, you know, the deeper business. Well, I mean, it's a combination. It's a combination of investing in the human being, and whether it's Nadzelka and Nathan Hubbard at Firebird or Leoar at duetty, we believe in them more than anything in their vision, but it's also matching their vision for what we see dealing holes and needs in the marketplace. And it's somewhat opportunistic, and when you understand the market, hopefully as well as we do, and we see an opportunity that doesn't exist or needs to be scaled or needs to be rolled up or needs to be more capital to invest in, that's what we do. We also, by the way, are investors in SoundCloud, and I know Firebird and duetty are more recent but we believe the same way with soundcloud and it feels a need that doesn't exist still in this market 18 years after it's launched. And I would like to deploy more capital for more opportunities in music. We're limited somewhat by the requirements of our fund because we have to, again, invest a certain amount of a certain stage in the certain returns. But you know, when that happens and we meet people like Nat Nathan or Lear, it's very exciting for us. And then it's a four, five, six, seven year ride with them. And so you really better, you're really better believe in it because then we're on the boards. We're involved in the growth of the company. We don't just write a check and wait until we get a return five years later. We're very actively involved. And when you're looking, obviously with it being people first and you draw this relationship with the A&R that you were doing and identifying and searching for entrepreneurs now, what is it that you're looking for? You know, I think the same question I suppose could be asked for any artist that you're looking at. But what are you specifically looking for in those entrepreneurs that you have invested in? And ultimately that are coming down the track that you see, you know, day in, day out. You know, it, it, I would be misleading anybody if I said that there was a playbook, okay? It's, it's not, it's not clear. It's like, you know, if you see a band or you see an actress or you see what, how do you articulate, you just know, when you meet an entrepreneur, you hope you know, you hope you know that they have the vision, the conviction, the, it's also the, it's not just about vision. It's the ability to execute. It's the ability to stay with it over a long term. There's going to be highs and lows. And, you know, it's, it's often the team they put around them. And it, it, but a lot of it is the hunger, the tenacity, the vision and the belief in what they're doing, because it has to be a full-time, unquestionable commitment. And, and it's a judgment call. We have then an investment committee at our firm, so you'll have to not just convince me, you have to convince a pool of, of people that were, you know, you're right. And it comes to a consensus. And you hopefully you, you know, it, it's obvious enough. But not every, not every deal that I brought to I.C. has gone through. And sometimes we've been right. Sometimes we'd be wrong. I can't, don't ask me which ones those have been, because I can't answer those. But they're, that have been ones that, you know, and they, they cause me to look at it and question and double, you know, double guess yourself. And sometimes, you know, it's a good, it's a good thing in Yang process. And what you think was a right opportunity initially, maybe wasn't. You know, sometimes we're right and sometimes we're wrong. Yes. And, you know, we talk a little bit about kind of predicting the future and using data and insight, but then also instinct to predict the future. And the reality of it is that we just simply can't, you know, we can obviously use experience, we can use data to help put the odds in our favor. But in the end of the day, it is a little bit of an odds game. Is that something going to get right? It is. And the art is refining. How many you get right? It is. It's just like, but, you know, any, any major record label or independent music label, it's eventually better. So you're going to be, yes, wrong, more than you're right. And you just hope the times you're right are overcompensate for the times you're wrong. That's just to, it is a numbers game. Yes. And we had a person dean on the podcast, not too long ago. And he was saying exactly that, you know, when he was working for one of the labels, they were venturing investing effectively. You know, they were backing artists and you had a success rate. And actually it was not that brilliant in terms of ratio. But when it paid off, it paid off. And that is venture capital investing right there, isn't it? Exactly. I know we're in London right now, but my analogy is baseball, you know, you get into the hall of fame and baseball, if you hit 300, which means you get out 70% of the time, it's a very similar, it's a very similar math. Yes. I think in golf, the professional guys often refer to that, you know, it's a game of misses. Inverely, you just have to refine how well it hurts worse words you use when you play golf. And I think, I mean, I would love to hear a little bit about some of the background, you know, you've been involved in this industry for a significant amount of time. And you've been very involved in some of the key changes, you know, you said from 2008, it wasn't that attractive as an industry. But it was a really kind of period of significant change that Spotify came around and I believe that you were involved with that business very early on. I think you involved heavily with Napster and helping them to actually, you know, license the music effectively. Can you just share some of the anecdotes about that experience and those stories and what you learned from it and what that helped you see in identifying and investing in future entrepreneurs? Yes, sure. There's a few elements of it. So, but I got to take you back to 1999. The story starts in 1999. I'm a music lawyer. I had my own firm at the time. And I'm representing talent, artists, famous artists, Britney Spears and Black IPs. And, you know, we had a law firm representing talent. And it was called Davis Shapiro in Louis still exists today. And 1999, Napster comes out and Napster was the big changing event in the music industry and the music industry. It was the first time the internet had just come out and it was the first time the music was being distributed mostly illegally on the internet. And it just ruptured the entire ecosystem. And I saw the change that it was creating early on. And I really pivoted my practice instead of working with artists. I decided that my future was going to be working with the entrepreneurs who wanted to quote fix the music business. And my first client at the time was Sean Fanon in 2001 coming out of Napster. He had a new business that he wanted to call wanted to get licenses from the labels for called snow cap. And he said, I created the problem. I actually had the vision and had to fix it. And so I went with Sean and a guy named Ron Conway, a very famous early-stage venture capitalist who if you look him up, he's wildly famous in the valley. We went around to the labels and we got licenses for him. And we went around to the venture community raising money for Sean Fanon. And it took about a year, but I said, Jesus, if I can help get licenses for Sean Fanon, who at that time was everybody's enemy. And we can raise money. There's something here. How did you do that? It was because he was convincing. And we had a vision. He was public enemy number ones. We're degrading the number one. But it was a stage where my space was coming up. And there were a lot of different actors. There were people like Suno, like Kazah and BitTorren, who said, let me go rogue and try to solve it later. And there were many people like Daniel Eck had Spotify and others who wanted to do it right from the beginning. And this was an area where three things were happening. There was a lot of money coming in from the venture community, backing entrepreneurs, who had visions and had to make money and fix the music business. It was a fascinating time. There were no business models that were established. I mean, I worked with YouTube before it was owned by Google. We were coming up with video streaming licensing deals that never existed before, yet, on the rates and the barriers and how this was good. It's all unjusted and now subscription deals were like non-existent, interactive advertising, audio deal. They were all a new frontier. And other than Apple, because they had Steve Jobs, I was representing literally everyone, because nobody was in this business at the time, all ventured back. And the other element that was unique, it was mainly out of Europe. You had Apple in the US, but you had Spotify, Deezer, last FM, SoundCloud. There was so much activity in Europe. So it was a combination of learning about venture capital, because you didn't know that as a music player. Seeing the world in Europe and understanding that a lot of the entrepreneurship came out of Europe and then working with these exciting entrepreneurs all had the vision. I must have had 50/60 clients, 70 clients at this time working at licenses. Mainly one or two worked. most everybody else felt. But such an amazing story, and I'm assuming that the network that you would have built through those VCs and obviously you've got to legal background yourself, but having that community must have been able to support future efforts, you know. Yeah, well, it was understanding venture capital, understanding quite frankly the role that the lawyer played in this venture capital back world was not top man in the totem pole like it was in the music industry. It was, we were, you know, we were in second third class citizens at Slife Evolved, but understanding the power of capital, understanding how capital could drive people's vision, and that's why then at literally a 50 years old, I decided to leave my law firm and with a friend of mine, we formed an investment bank called code advisors in 2010. And then we were very fortunate with Daniel Eck, where we had now secured the licensees at Spotify to launch Spotify, you know, around the world, allowed us to help raise different rounds of capital for him. And so I went from being a lawyer to being a banker, and we raised money, a lot of money, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and millions of dollars for Spotify. And that took me on the journey to investment banking. So right back up the totem pole, nice, I like to hear it. Of course, yeah, exactly. There's obviously some clear parallels between what you saw there with Napster and everybody else, and what we're seeing with AI right now. Do you have like a line of sight where it might be going, or is it still very much just a lot of activity and it's a watch this space? How are you guys thinking about that? Listen, it is the question to sure, so to speak. Yes. There are so many parallels to what happened 25 years ago, with entrepreneurs having vision, with let's call it confusion about where copyright ends and fair use begins. I'm being very kind when I use the word confusion. Let's say a debate about the sanctity and the value of the copyright, both from a defensive point of view and from a offensive monetization point of view, what is the value of copyright? What is the use of copyright? What's the value of copyright? And then most importantly, what is the offering to the consumer that will benefit everybody? I know where have we yet seen, and for the fall of 2026, we said I'm aware of, I come fairly aware of this, a post-licensed model that the consumers have voted for yet and there's money. Remember I cited a few minutes ago, there were 50, 60, 70 companies that I represented back in the 2000s, all had different ideas on how to monetize copyright, 98% of them were gone. Soundcloud, which was a company I was not involved with from the beginning, were forced to license music by the labels, the licenses that the labels required soundcloud to launch with were not acceptable to the consumer. Soundcloud almost weren't at a business. So there's many, many debates going on here simultaneously. Can you direct your technology to my copyright and use it without compensating me? Can you offer a license service that pays me, protects me for the use of my copyrights in a way that both properly monetize my copyrights in a way that I feel they should be, allows you the license order to have a business model that's successful and see offers offering to the consumer that they like and they want to pay for and vote for and say, hey, this is, this is fantastic at scale around the world at the same time. It's a herculean task. The labels don't get enough credit for trying to manage all of these constituents, fighting with litigation, licensing, having vision and simultaneously weith in the public eye. Every time people sneeze, move, it's an article, it's an analysis, it's a criticism and you have to do this live where the whole world is watching. Very complicated. Yeah, and more than any other time in history really and that level of exposure and scrutiny is absolutely massive right now, isn't it? And I think the parallels that you draw there between obviously what we saw at the.com boom and with Napster and it wasn't just focused on music, you know, there's lots and lots of stories that came out of the.com bubble where people were investing in a new ecosystem, a new way of doing business that they didn't really know how it was going to pan out and some of the bets paid off and some of them historically did not and I, you know, my own feeling is that the AI trend as a whole, again, not just related to music is probably going to pan out the same way. I think the winners that we see today may well not be the winners that we see in the future and really only time will tell and I think you're absolutely right that maybe people have a little bit of a pessimistic view or, you know, maybe a bit critical of what some of these doing or what they're not doing. It is incredibly difficult. There are so many unknowns and the scale of change and the pace of change and then lacking regulation. There's just a lot going on so it's particularly turbulent times. I think it'd be really fascinating to see how it pans out but I think as well, you know, it's also quite noisy and I think you and you Collie Geo pointed out and there was an article recently in Billboard that you're talking about some of the largest opportunities in music, actually in more traditional avenues but in the kind of global independent system so outside of AI. Can you just talk us a little bit through that how you guys are looking at that and how you expect those opportunities to develop? Yeah, so if you look back, let's call it 10 years. The music industry was basically divided between major label artists, artisan to major labels and artisan to independent labels. It's a major change in music that has happened over the last 10 years which is the area that we both as investing and as advising have spent most of our time is the development of the world of the artists without a label, the independent, independent artists that's not signed to an independent label. So there's this three categories, major label artists, independent label artists, independent artists. And these are the artists that have made the distribution industry in the spear a multi-billion dollar industry with Fuga, CD Baby, Tune Corps, recently District, there's one RPM Symphonic and there's a plethora of distribution companies around the world because all these artists don't have a label to go to to get their music to Spotify and Apple and YouTube. They have to go directly. So that's one area that it's been a huge development. The next area is they all want help. They all want marketing promotion help and so there's an artist services layer that's being added on top of this. Then they all want financing. So there's now a financing element. If an artist or writer does a deal with Duetty for an early stage, you're using that money to probably reinvest in their craft and their businesses. So you have financing developments, you have artist services, you have distribution developments and then it creates the next layer then of success and touring and merchandising and all of the ways to monetize the success. So this is a multi-billion dollar industry when you aggregate it in companies like I'll believe, I create the district kid in the Tune Corps part of believe in this and you aggregate it. It's the fastest growing part of the music industry that's still under a lot of people radar because everybody focuses on the major labels. But that's the air we focus on. It grows 25, 30, 35% year over year right now and there's no end in sight. And then what AI is going to do and has done is it allows more and more people to be creators. I can make a song with that AI. Now I can use you do and I can go in and make a song and I can then market, promote that. I'm not going to do it. But if I'm 15 years old and you have different types of talent, it expands the talent pool of people, of creators who are going to make more music. If it's not going to be good, a lot of it's going to be good. So AI is going to reduce the barriers for entry, it's going to augment the skill sets of people to increase the quality. And as time evolves, AI will help, I think, I hope, the music is ecosystem, make more better music that more and more people will want to listen to. This is the area that's exciting. Yeah. And I think there's a distinct kind of non-traditional market angle there, isn't there? So, you know, if you look at the music industry traditionally, kind of large North America footprint northern Europe, maybe the UK. But now we're really talking about like a proper global market, aren't we, with anybody who has access to tools at relatively low cost distribution is truly global through UGC and everything else, is that how you see it panning out as well and is that how you see kind of future growth in those non-English speaking markets. If you were to look at the top 10, top 20 successful tracks, and let's call it 30 countries 10, 15 years ago, it would be much more highly weighted to English-speaking Western tracks. And now it's local, foreign-speaking tracks, more French tracks on the French, you know, German and German, you play that out. That's been a huge shift in the music industry, which makes it healthier from a local perspective. Yeah. It makes it more challenging for a major label to break global artists because you can't get into it. But then when you do it, they stay up there. I mean, that Ella Langley record has been up number one for 23 weeks now. It's the, or the Sam Fender Olivia Rodrigo, 21 weeks and number one in the UK, you know. But it doesn't, it makes it more difficult globally. But locally, it's been a huge boom. Yeah. And Leo was talking about this when we were speaking to him, you know, obviously he can look at the world through a US lens, but actually, if you look at what's big locally, then the point of view of the superstar changes quite quickly because in those local markets, you can have smaller artists as a portion of the whole who are becoming cultural icons and their legacy will invariably endure and how their music trends will invariably endure, but they're not necessarily like a kind of global globalization icon that we maybe were used to in the mid 2000s. With one exception, there's one non-English speaking country that I can think of that genuinely thinks globally from day one versus all the other territories that think locally from day one, and that's Korea. Yes. And they have a very particular ecosystem, don't they? They have a very particular ecosystem. I go there three, four times a year because I find it fascinating. But it's a combination of genuinely thinking globally from day one and then having this field sets, both musically and training to actually have a successful artist that are appeal around the world. But you think of another territory that thinks that way I don't in music. They may accidentally have a global hit, but not purposely the way the Korean market does. Yeah. That's a very interesting point of view, actually. Yeah. And I think just thinking about everything you're saying on the global scale really makes you think about how much opportunity there is across this market. And we talked about, you know, capital coming in and looking for opportunities and there are just so many. And I think that the independent sector is something that increasingly people are now turning to. A hundred percent, listen, I and my partner, Joe Puntan Vidal, you guys know him, we're based here in London, we're based here for a reason, we're doing it, we're running a global practice, but at a London, now it creates a lot of extra air miles. But the mindset of being here and having access to Europe, Asia and the US equally, it is very important to our practice. Yeah. Amazing. Now Fred, it would be remiss of us not to mention your father, Clive Davis, who very sadly passed away a few months ago, but goes without saying an absolute true music industry icon. And I imagine it was an amazing experience growing up with him as your father. And I loved, we did a little bit of research and I was reading, I was reading some of the lovely things that people had said in the recent months and fascinated by him talking about his love of baseball. And you had mentioned earlier that you, it's obviously kind of been handed down to you, which I love, and specifically that he loved a baseball statistic. And that really helped kind of influence how he looked at the music charts and things like that. So we liked that because we thought that he would probably approve of music moneyball and that's true. That's true. That's true. Yes. So that was great. So we feel like this is, this is approved by, by Clive, but also I think, you know, what the fascinating career and viewpoint he had in music. And I think, you know, yes, he was focused on using data and looking at the charts, but above and, you know, above and beyond and above all else, it was very much the gut and the instinct, right? So you sit in this world where it is, you know, investing spreadsheets. How do you kind of balance that, you know, looking at the facts, looking at data? And then when you're looking at the next big thing and trying to find the next sound cloud or Spotify, how much of that is just the gut instinct that your father really kind of used in his own career. Yeah. I mean, you're right with my father's sort of an artist. There was absolutely no financial analysis that went behind signing. It was a hundred percent gut. And, you know, honestly, sometimes I worry that the music business has gotten too far away from trusting one's gut and overanalyze the risk reward elements of it from financial spreadsheet point of view. And we always try to figure out that balance. But one of the beauties of my being at rain is, and one of the things I believe they like about my joining, I don't have any financial background. I was not a trained banker. I was not a trained financial analyst. And so it's part of our checks and balance where rain has the best people to provide that financial analysis to balance my gut instincts. And I have to listen to their analysis and the requirements on risk return. And they have to listen to my crazy vision and, you know, she's got to trust me. This is that they don't have to just trust me. So we kind of come up with that balance and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But it is a nice, it's a balance because I don't, I have a sense of the value and appreciation of the financial analysis. But it's not a hundred percent, it's 50 percent, 60 percent, that's that balance. Creates a really nice tension, let's call it like creative tension. And Jeff Bezos is very famous for understanding that mechanic, you know, obviously Amazon are incredibly data centric, but he's spoken on the record many, many times to say, yes, data is important, but in the end of the day, so as you got, and if the days it can back up, you got, then you're probably on to a winner. If not, you know, you have to have a discussion around it and understand why. And again, it's like, I know he's a big fan of what as well of Nicholas Talab and predicting the future is a fool's errand, but we have to use these things, we have to use our experience, we have to use the data and we have to kind of correlate those two together and come out with the decision, because otherwise we're just not going to move forward either. So I think that that's really nice to hear you guys are doing that and practicing in it and also being kind of honest and humble enough to say, hey, look, you know, that's not necessarily my background, but I have a wealth experience. Otherwise, no data in the world could ever prove out. And sometimes my go absolutely nails it. Yeah, and that I give credit to my partners for having the vision to bring me in, having the patience to listen and having the afforded to challenge and that's, that's a good way, any good partnership works. Yeah, absolutely. Amazing. Well, Fred, it's time for your quick fire round now, which is a few short questions that we finish on. So, first of all, we would love to know, is there a particular song, album, playlist, whatever vehicle you want to put it in that is on repeat at the moment? So, I stay on top of contemporary pop music, you know, that's what I do. My two favorite right now in no particular order are. are the Stella lefty track Boston. Oh, no. And see an Espero track, great expectations. And those are the ones that this week. It's month are my favorites. Amazing, you're far more on top of the latest hits than I am. So it's where you should be. Yeah, we saw Stella lefty at the British summertime in Hyde Park during the summer. And I was lucky enough to acquire a bit of merchandise. So a hat with lefty in huge lessons across the front, which I supported very proudly on my holiday, well, when we're in America in the summer. And I have to say, got some funny looks. Okay. Oh, I get that I understand why you would get funny looks. Yeah, I can understand that too. Back it was written, Stella lefty, but yes, it was evocative. Let's call it that. Oh, it's amazing. And Fred, if there was one opportunity in music investment, you know, across the board, that you think is particularly underrated, what would that be? I want to find the person who wants to start an AI generated only label. So the only the artist or AI generated both visually and audibly. I think that as you trend that everybody still shy about, I want to find people who want to lean into it, keep up demon hunters versus success. There are other AI generated artists that could be success visually and audibly. I'd note a lot of songs, I hear them on the internet that are just hit records, but people don't need to shy away from it. The younger audience, especially, we'll embrace the AI generated music, AI artists as long as they're good. And let's go for that. That's where I want to invest in. Amazing. Fascinating. Anyone listening? I'm sure Fred would welcome your your pitches to your emails. I apologize if you get. Take notes. Start AI label. Okay, yep. Yep. And last but not least, if you could own one song, what would that be? And why? It's the criteria was to make money. I'd like to own yesterday by, you know, Paul McCartney and John Lennon. If it were personal, I'd like to own born to run by Bruce Finx. Cool. Richard, I'm sure it doesn't be too badly itself either. Yeah, exactly. But I think you have to be a big more money over the decades. Yeah. Yes. Fantastic. Well, Fred, what an honor it's been speaking to you today. So fascinating. So many stories. And we are really pleased that you were able to join us. Well, thank you for having me. Yeah, thank you so much, Fred. Great. Okay. Thanks, guys. Thanks for tuning in to music money ball. If you enjoyed the conversation, you can subscribe at standardhypheninnovation.com to get every episode in your inbox. 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