How to Build a Dance Music Empire w/ John Summit

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0:54John Summit:Study. And play. Come together on a Windows 11 PC. And for a limited time, college students get the best of both worlds. Get the Unreal College Deal. Everything you need to study and play with select Windows 11 PCs. Eligible students get a year of Microsoft 365 Premium and a year of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate with a custom color Xbox wireless controller. Learn more at windows.com slash student offer. While supplies last, ends June 30th. Terms at aka.ms slash college PC. John Summit is one of the biggest stars in dance music today. And not only that, he's also the founder of one of the hottest dance labels today as well.

1:32His company, Experts Only, regularly ranks at number one on Beatport's global label chart, and it releases music from artists like DeVault, Leighton Giordani, Max Steiler, among many others. Between the release of his new album Control Escape, hosting multiple skiing-based music festivals on Whistler and Vail, playing Coachella, and gearing up for the second year of his New York-based festival, also called Experts Only, he's one of the busiest producers in the genre today, and one of the few that's bridged the divide between dance and popular music. So today I'm here with John to ask him about his career journey from accountant to EDM superstar, how he made Experts Only such a success, and what makes the dance music industry so unique to any other genre.

2:22Welcome back to On the Record, a music business podcast from Billboard and Sickbird Productions. I'm your host, Kristen Robinson, and today we have John Summit in the studio to talk about all things electronic music. As y 'all have seen on this show, we love to do a deep dive into what makes different genres so unique. Already this season, we've covered country music and we've covered Christian music, and today we are here to do the same with dance music for John Summit. I can't think of a better person to have on than him. John grew up in the Chicago area and began his music career while attending the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

2:56He split his time DJing frat parties with going to local underground clubs and raves where he got to play much more experimental fare. After school, he went to go work as an accountant at Ernst & Young while continuing to make music on the side. But by 2019, after a couple years of releasing singles through a slew of cool but niche independent dance labels like Defected Records, Build It Records, Repopulate Mars, and This Is Bristol. He was fired, and it ended up being a huge blessing. From then on, John's sole focus was on DJing and making music full-time. Fast forward to 2020, and he had his first breakout hit with Deep End.

3:31And from there, he's done just about everything from Coachella, headlining EDC, touring iconic arenas like O2 and MSG, and he founded his own label, Experts Only in 2022, to help other up-and-coming electronic acts break into the business. Now, Experts Only is a top label in the dance music community, and it's expanded into really an empire. It's a label, but it's also a series of events that continues to grow, including a yearly festival on Randall's Island in New York and a series of ski-themed raves in spots like Whistler and Vail. So enough talking from me. I'm super, super excited to have John on as one of those rare talents who is both an artist and an incredible entrepreneur.

4:14So please welcome to the show, John Summit. All right, John Summit, welcome to On The Record. Thanks for being here. Thank you for having me. Okay, as you guys can see, if you're watching this video, we got switched up today. This is John's good side. So I have to out him for that one. I like being on the right side. This is my comfy spot. Okay, so you always DJ if you're going back to back on that side? Yeah. Okay, fair enough. You know what? We're here to do new things today. Exactly. Okay, so you just came from EDC this weekend? Yes. Okay. I was there at 7 a.m. yesterday, so 24, 28 hours ago.

4:52Wait, how late did the set go? Well, I didn't even play yesterday. I was just there to have fun. Okay, fun. That's great. And a little bit of market research, I like to think, because I try to stop by every stage and see what all the other DJs are playing, and I try to get inspired by other genres because I'm so multi-genre nowadays. Where I used to just be like house and techno, where now, you know, I was checking out like the hard style stage, the hard techno stage, the dubstep stage. So it's fun going to UC and get a little taste of everything. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's actually something I was going to ask you about.

5:23How do you make time for artist discovery and making sure you're still on the cutting edge when you have so much going on all the time? It's very tough and it's easier said than done. but I try to do a couple hours every day of going through demos and going through promos and try and listen to new mix and then you know I kind of just during the day when I'm just doing like normal day to day tasks I'm always trying to find new music and then when in the studio that's when I kind of make my own music make new so it's either half the day finding new stuff half the day making new stuff is the goal I love it I love it well do you feel like having experts only and constantly like going through all of these kind of inbound requests to be on the label does that help you find new stuff too yes um and we work with so many artists nowadays that i get sent so many so much new music every day and i'm super backlogged which is tough um but there's also being so many new labels every single day too that's cool that i think we're like on the forefront of electronic music but uh just awesome seeing all these different artists inspired in so many different ways but uh yeah i get sent like hundreds of demos every single day though experts only has been around since what like 2022?

6:272022, yes. Okay, yeah. So I'm curious, like, were you inspired by any other artist labels to start your own? Yeah, so it was big time inspired by Lee Foss's Repopulate Mars. He really put me on. I mean, one of my first big parties ever was during 2020. We did a 10-hour set back-to-back out here in LA when parties weren't really supposed to be happening. So that was definitely a legendary one. And he's a Chicago guy, too, so he helped put me on. Same thing with Gene Farris, with Ferris wheel um Defected was huge for me putting me on yeah that was an artist run label but um it was just a very artist friendly label and like you know an institution for house music so yeah well that's something that I find really interesting about the dance music industry is that it's like very singles driven and also people kind of hop around to different places so can you talk to me about um how you came up and like what was your strategy in aligning with these different labels if there was a strategy at the time so i mean a lot of labels throw events too which experts only does as well and if you wanted to play like i always wanted to play in europe and the only way to really do that is by playing like defected croatia and their events in the uk and everything like that too so but to get on these parties and get to get you know the their community to know you you kind of have to release music with them so um it's just a i mean like circle local of course is the same way there's so many label i guess event run labels um But yeah, and then I think Experts Only has its own community now.

7:56We have a festival that's like 60 ,000 people in New York this year. So yeah, it's becoming a huge thing, which is awesome. That's crazy. And is your next festival on Randall's Island? Yep. Yeah, so we did the first one last year, and then we're doing again this year, a little bit bigger, and just expanding it a little bit more, adding an extra stage, having a big list of talent there. So yeah, and we do the Ski Weekenders in February as well, too. So we did Veil and Whistler this year and we're going to start going international with it. I can't say anything yet, but there's a lot more to come.

8:26Okay. Okay. I'm interested to hear what you do next. That's really exciting stuff. And I feel like the ski angle feels very unique to you. Was this just like born out of your own personal desire to go to a party like this? Yes. Yes. Because I used to ski every year growing up and then I started touring so much. I started doing like 250 shows a year that I had to like get that out of my life and it was sad. and I'm like, well, what if we had best of both worlds is skiing and house music and partying and turns out all the fans like doing that as well too because you ski by day, party by night. It's kind of the ideal scenario for me.

9:01Yeah, where did you ski growing up? We went out to Colorado. We did kind of just everything really. So we're trying to look into other ski resorts to work with as well too. But the ones we've been working with have been amazing so we'll see. Well, why not do a festival in Chicago, your hometown? Is that coming? Because Chicago already has such amazing festivals. I'm one of the headliners in Law Palooza this year. And then there's ARK, which is my homies that run that. And it's a true house and techno festival. There's North Coast, which I've played as well, which is awesome growing up. So I guess that is the dream one day.

9:35But I don't think there's the biggest demand. I mean, we're going to be doing huge shows in Chicago for sure. But festival is a little tough. whereas New York never had had EZOOB and then that like went out of business and there was a huge demand for electronic music festival so it worked out great so yeah okay so you are headlining Lollapalooza I'm wondering do you feel like as a dance artist you kind of like have to prove yourself even more than a pop artist to earn that headliner slot in a multi-genre and you still see the comments of all the pop fans being like who the fuck is John Summit blah blah blah I'm Like, damn, like, I thought I was, like, doing pretty well, but I still have a lot of heads to turn still, which is awesome, though.

10:14And it's like, you know, I've kind of touched the pop realm, but not – I still think I'm just fully in dance music, though, because I still haven't had, like, a Billboard Top 100 track or anything. Wait, really? Yeah. Yeah, like, they chart in dance music, in the dance charts. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's just, like, it's just a different world, so. Yeah. Maybe I have. I don't even check the charts myself, to be honest. Well, add a correction if you're, like, actually, he had a Top 10. Yeah, yeah. I checked the dance charts, though, so we do well there. Well, is that something that's an aspiration of yours that you want to break into that Hot 100 realm of pop music?

10:49Or are you having anything in that dance? It's one of those things that's like, if it happens, it happens. And I don't really have any control of that at all. And I'm going to try to make the best music possible and try to reach as many people as possible, of course. I try not to have too many goals like that because then it causes too much disappointment. It's only so much. I don't know. It's like one of my favorite acts of all time is Rufus, and they're doing so well, and they're doing full arena stadium tours, and they've never really had a crazy chart-topping track, but they've had culturally incredibly impactful records like Inner Bloom.

11:18So that's more my inspiration, I guess, is making records that are more timeless, I guess. But a mix of both would be awesome. Yeah, yeah, of course. I feel like there's probably endless demand for you to DJ at various events, I mean, across the world. you're doing like what did you say 250 shows last year well that was a few years ago because that's when i'm in more clubs where this year i'm being more manageable with 100 150 which is still a fuck ton but that is still a ton well yeah i'm wondering like where do you draw the line for yourself because you don't want to burn out and not be able to you know make your own music label all that stuff that is something we try to figure out every single day and i i mean I burned out not this past weekend, but the weekend before, and I canceled my first ever shows.

12:06And I still feel bad about it. But I got sick. I fucking sprained my ankle. And I was fully just mentally exhausted. And I just came off this Asia tour that went into South Africa. And it was like, because I literally went from Red Rock's five-hour set to Coachella, then dropped my album, then Bali, Bangkok, Singapore, China, South Africa. And then I had to go to South America. But then I just did four shows in Miami. So, yeah, it was too much going at once. Yeah, and your suitcase. Yeah, yeah. And then if you guys saw, I had a full-on crash out during that. So I was like, yeah, maybe I should take a chill pill for a second.

12:43You know what? You said what everyone was thinking about it. Exactly, exactly. I've had a lot of people with issues with those suitcases. It's so tough. I mean, I come back from tour and my whole suitcase has exploded and I lost half my clothes. Next, so I have this arena tour in the fall for Control Escape, the new album. And I think after that, I'm going to chill out for a little bit. Fair enough. Go on a little vacation. Yeah. Knowing me, though, I take five days off and I'm like, okay, I'm fine. Let's go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. One of the things I find so interesting about dance music is it technically could be one of the lowest costs of production for a show possible because it's a person with portable equipment.

13:20Yeah, which is funny, though, because I just came from EDC, which has to be the highest cost festival in the world. But go on. Yeah, yeah. No, that's exactly what I was going to get to, though. It's like you can have like up to like animal level visuals that costs tons and tons of money. So much cost, so much staff to have that put on. Like where do you find your sweet spot is and when do you decide to bring out the big visuals and the big production value? And when do you decide to do more of an intimate set? I think it's just a balance because, I mean, this year I did a pop up set, the Doolab, which is like a perfect example where the production is still amazing there.

13:54and of course they spend money on it all but as the artist I just showed up ripped it and left all I needed literally was my USB so we added just like a little control escape blocks on the stage which is kind of nice it's a really fun doing that because I can be fully I guess improvisational in my sets because there's no visuals no lighting and then but even when I have that the team knows how to punt and how to follow like when I go fully off script but then I'm doing the arena tour and that's going to be full on production, you know, like, you know, what an arena tour is kind of like where I don't, we're still figuring out the visuals and figuring out how minimal I want to be.

14:28If we want to be more of a lighting show, like when four strokes and Fred again, did that last second headline set at Coachella, they like used like Frank Ocean's like leftover production and kind of just DJ in the middle. And it was just about the music. And that was so well received because I think dance fans truly are music first and then everything else is just bells and whistles. So. Yeah. Well, I mean, if you think about it, like in the club setting, like there's definitely a reality where there's some djs where you're not even they're not the main event you're not looking towards the stage it's just when you get to like the festival setting and trying to shoehorn yeah dance culture into it it's it's interesting because you go to like fabric in london and you can't even see the dj and i played there before myself too and the ducks are in front of my face like they're really like this so like i literally can't even see the crowd i'm like going like this and then the whole crowd is facing away from the dj too so you see people like living their best lives it's really cool but then it's like then i'll play you know like an arena show and stuff and then i'm kind of like the center of attention which is kind of weird because that's not where i come from but uh i've gotten used to and i've gotten used to the spotlight by now of course but um i think it's just a fun blend of both because as soon as i get bored of one thing i do the other but yeah it's definitely a weird space in dance music right now where the artists are becoming huge brands themselves, you know.

15:44So I listened to this other interview that you did and you were talking about your Madison Square Garden shows and how you ultimately, I think you ended up losing money on it because of the amount of production you put in. Lost a million dollars. I invested a million dollars, so I'm correcting that. Invested a million dollars yourself. Yes, yeah. Yeah, so I'm curious though, like, why did you decide that that was a moment where it was worth, you know, that expense? I mean, that was a huge flagpole moment for me. It was, you know, like one of the first DJs to really do Madison Square Garden. There's been a few others, of course, but from no one really from my world, from the tech house world, has gone to the stage like that before.

16:25And it was kind of a proof of concept that I always knew I wanted to do a full arena tour. So we're doing 20 plus dates, you know, in the fall now. But I didn't even know if an arena was possible. And you can't start with doing 20 dates where now I can, if I want to go full business right now, I can amortize the production over 20 dates and the whole team and everything too so we can actually make money, which is why someone like a Harry Styles has 30 Madison Square Gardens. Totally. Because if you just do a one-off, you spend so much time, money, and energy just for one show, you really got to take it on tour.

16:55But then I did that and I realized it was possible and all the fans loved it. Because so many people didn't think club music could work in an arena setting because of the seats and everything. But then we did three nights at Kia Forum in LA in the end of 2024 and that went fucking awesome and I broke even nice congratulations so uh but now I just know that arenas are a lot of fun and now I can take it across the whole country and hit a lot of markets like Charlotte and stuff like that where I've never hit before really on my own production show so yeah I mean it's interesting you bring up Harry Styles I think it's really interesting to see how many people are doing the residency kind of model where it's Like you stick around somewhere for a few nights.

17:36I think for him, though, it's like he just wants to train for marathons and live a normal life and have a normal sleep schedule where some people like me are kind of more road junkies and like to be in a different city every night. Yeah. But it's interesting. But, yeah, I guess for someone like Harry Sosley, he's obviously so big and so popular that people fly in from all over for that. And MSG is just so iconic and everything, too. Yeah. Like this year we're doing two nights at Barclays instead of MSG, which is where the Nets play. Yeah. so uh but i've seen really good reviews from that i mean tim and paul had a big arena show there friends that went and stuff so i think it'll be a good time yeah yeah well okay do you have any travel tips given you're on the road so much travel tips uh how do you stay healthy like i have no idea i mean i try to get a workout in and uh just have to power through and uh luckily i can sleep in planes very well um there's people i know that don't do that so well so you have to be built different you get used to though it's like anything i mean i was like training for a marathon while doing touring and all that i don't know try to have some sense of routine in your life i guess do you think that the visuals and dance music these days are almost kind of like an arms race like it feels like it keeps getting bigger and bigger but you you know the space yes which is why i kind of want to do the antithesis of visuals we've never been quite a visual show i mean we we've had you know uh we use a lot of imac to show show me on screen and so i can really connect to the crowd better and then we have abstract ways of doing it where we get creative with the filtering and then the camera cutting and stuff and we like to show the crowd as well too stuff too but uh i don't know i need it for like the arena tour i need to plan out how we do the visuals and how we incorporate the crowd i mean i saw like jamie's xx sun tour and he did a really good job of abstract showing people dancing because when you show people dancing and gets them dancing themselves too which is why I had a bunch of dancers on stage if you saw me when I played at Boulder and ACL too so um we're gonna get very creative with it but I think the vision I I don't want to tease it too much but we're gonna bring that Control Escape kind of office world to life yeah is the goal yeah well okay I loved all the visuals that you're doing for Control Escape it felt like such a gigantic rollout for you I know this is your second album it feels like it was an even bigger event than the first one um so can you walk me through like how you approach the rollout for this album differently it feels like it was just you know times 10.

20:03Comfort and Chaos was I obviously spent a ton of time on the music but then on the rollout artwork I worked with like Marcus Alvarado and we did this like abstract art with it which is a lot of fun but then I was like for the second album I want to do the opposite because I like to you know if I go left one way I have to go right the next um and I just really wanted to make it more of a personal album really tying my journey i was kind of hiding the fact for a while like my background who i was coming from you know southern chicago being an accountant and then going into this crazy dance world where i really wanted to bring that to life and the whole escaping the matrix kind of thing so i always had this idea but now we we put more time set aside for music videos and for art and making a world out of the music i think this next this next album i do is going to take me probably like the concept i have in my head is going to take me like two three years because it's just like really bringing it to life for the next because i always try to one up myself yeah but uh but even just the music itself takes a year or two as well too so uh yeah it's a it's a super fun process though yeah no i loved the the tie-in of all the like kind of accountant office core kind of stuff yeah it was a fun way to bring it in but And also, yeah, the Matrix tie-in as well.

21:19Yeah, and I think my fan base has kind of grown up over the years too. When I came out with the first album, they might have still been in college or whatever, but there's a lot of people now who are working in the corporate world, who are working nine to fives, who I think can really connect with it. And because I truly come from that life, it's cool that I can be able to comment on it a little bit. Yeah. Well, okay, so like I said before, in dance music, it's super singles driven. And you spent, I think, probably like five years or so releasing just single after single. I guess I would have done.

21:49I've been singing else for eight years. Eight years? Okay. How did you make the transition from singles artist into album artist? So I started just making club records, and then I made some more vocal-driven records. You know, like started probably with What a Life, into Human, into Where You Are. I had to build my songwriting, because I started as just really a producer using samples, and then got into songwriting as well, too. And once I felt like I was complete enough as a producer, as an artist, then I'm like, I can actually make an album that has, you know, has a story, is a bit of a roller coaster, has some album records that aren't meant for the club, meant for home listening.

22:28So, I mean, you could and there are DJs who make full club albums, but that was never my goal because, I mean, like seeing like Kid A right here, like Radiohead is one of my biggest inspirations of all time. And they do a perfect job of that, of, you know, creating like a full proper journey. and I'm still learning as a producer every single day. I still think I have a ton of room to grow, but I felt like it was the right time to, I don't know, take the next step as an artist and make albums. Yeah. Well, okay, so there's like a little bit of like exclusivity gatekeeping culture in dance music and you come from Tech House.

22:59Walk me through the process of deciding that you're going to put vocals on the albums, like a little bit, something that's a little bit more palatable for the general audience. And were you nervous about kind of having people see you differently after that i was very nervous and i got a lot of hate and i still do and then the fans the my like original fans think i almost like cheated on them by starting new vocals and they're like i missed the old summit so i don't know if you saw my like 2024 edc intro where it started off like the i missed the old summit and stuff like that where i kind of like just like making fun of that because i don't know like i mean i'm still there and i still like to make club records time to time but i always had aspirations to making these bigger records i mean one of my favorite records of all time is i remember dead mouse and cascade which i was able to remix um a couple years ago but that was always a goal to get to that point um but you have to you have to start by getting you know your production really good first so uh yeah if i mean if they don't like my vocal records whatever there's plenty of other stuff at At the end of the day, artists, you got to make music for yourself.

24:05I mean, you see what people like Rick Rubin and stuff say, where it's like, I can only please the fans so much, I guess. At the end of the day, you got to do it for yourself a little bit. Yeah. Well, okay. So I'm curious with like kind of the pre-release strategy and dance music is really interesting to me, like trying to tease things out at your shows and then maybe giving it to some friends so maybe they can incorporate that into their sets. How do you typically go about that when you're trying to tease out a song before you fully do the drop so i used to send my records to everybody and i always made sure i was number one on beatport with everything and i sent like but now i've gotten to this position where it's like i kind of make music that's so john summit it's hard for other artists who aren't john summit to play it interesting and so the only way other artists really do is i guess when they do their own remixes and their own spins of it i'll play other people's club records and stuff like that too but it is i stop i don't really send my music out to other people anymore i kind of keep it under wraps but then people end up remixing it's like lights go out for example if you saw that was a huge record for me and then i did a remix competition and there's like thousands of producers started doing their own remixes which was really fun but then yeah the big big vocal ones that are very song driven i think are almost a little too personal for others to play well okay so i'm wondering how that process works though is it truly just like word of mouth I'm reaching out to my friend and seeing if they want to play it or kind of like spam email DM WhatsApp everyone um I mean I used to send like hundreds of emails a day when I was first sending out demos and then I got like come I really talked to other artists do like basically just WhatsApp and Instagram really and um you just DM it out to everybody really and you say make a personal message of course and I only sent it to the DJs I think that would actually fit their set because I don't want to like legit spam people.

26:00But yeah, nowadays I'm kind of on the other side of the coin now where other DJs and artists are doing that to me because obviously I have Experts Only. So it's interesting switching positions in the industry, but it's very cool that I can be on the very tastemaker side. Yeah. Yeah. Well, so what was the inspiration behind founding Experts Only? Was definitely that I wanted to have a platform for other artists and build kind of my own community and really have full artistic and creative freedom with what records we put out and yeah and then have fun with it I mean now we're doing more than just house and techno like I just signed a couple like hard groove records and getting up to 150 bpm of course we do a little bit dubstep and ukg now and uh at the end of the day the goal is I guess to be like just one of the biggest and best dance music labels yeah well i mean i feel like with dance labels including yours the curation is like such a key part of it when i compare that to pop music it's like i don't really know if olivia rodrigo is on well i i do i know where olivia rodrigo is i found that out yesterday but like she could have been on atlantic and you wouldn't think no i'd have no idea i'm still figuring out what these labels are i gotta even know i'm gonna sound like such an idiot right now but i do like just figuring out like what republic is i guess that's like a big a label and taylor swift and whatever but i don't read the bottom line on things yeah and so it's very industry i guess right um it is so and it hasn't really affected me at all like i work with darkroom records for releasing music which is kind of is like an indie label themselves um with the umg tie exactly exactly like using yeah because then you use their be able to have their resources but also still have kind of full creative freedom a little bit um yeah but i do like in dance music like it sounds like you were really studying what defector was putting out yes and like that was a really i could list you every single label in dance music like probably up to like a thousand plus labels and i know every label is sub label and i know they're sub label but you just get so entrenched in the dance music world but like i was saying with pop music people are seeing me on the lalapalooza lineup and half the lalapalooza comments are like who the hell is john summit and then it's like the dance music fans are like well what are you talking about like yeah so it's just funny we're just totally in our own world which is i think it's pretty awesome yeah yeah well i'm i'm wondering like what does a like kind of independent dance label tend to do and this kind of i'm saying this more broadly than i guess experts only like what do you usually expect when you partner with one of these other labels that you partner with do they just distribute the single and then you get to move on and you get to sign to a different label?

28:38Well, so, yeah, so I only did sing, like, sign for singles. Okay. Um, like, I've released through Insomniac Records as well, too, and that was, like, the first time I played EDC, I dropped this record called Make Me Feel, which ended up being this huge record in the EDC world, which is awesome, um, and they really crush it, too. It's just cool to be able to have a taste of everything, and then every label has their own community, like I was saying before, so I didn't have a fan base in the UK until I dropped the record Undefected, and then played their parties and everything there too so it's very interesting in that regard yeah I mean is it a guarantee when you sign to one of these labels that like you will be on the lineup no there's no guarantees I mean because then in all but yeah I mean I guess you couldn't negotiate that in the contract if you want but I never really did that I mean I always just thought that like if the record does very well and then the fans receive it very well then there's gonna be the demand for you to be on the lineup and then so you naturally will be on the lineup yeah yeah yeah that makes sense well okay so what's uh one of your highlights of one of those early festivals that you got to play through one of the record labels that you released through so that that was the first time ever played in europe was defected croatia and then i did like they have these boat parties i did the boat parties i played their main stage and then of course that was when i was playing like five sets a night and then i played in some guys kitchen afters as well too and then it was a really fun time i mean do you like this might sound like a dumb question but i've never dj'd before do you just ever run out of material or you like have to loop back around and hope that no one notices um the goal is no i mean my usb has like over 4 000 songs on it at all times and uh whenever i mean when i play club space i'll go up for eight hours i'll play to 3 p.m and i won't play the same record twice unless i get a little too tipsy and i forget if i played a track once it'll be like six hours on my set and I'm like did I play this record I have no idea man well okay this is more of a philosophical question but like we talked about like how many shows you played like you're just talking about like five back-to-back sets and you know I I'm I'm wondering do you think there's such a thing as overexposure nowadays given everyone's you know attention spans are so scattered like is there a way to play too many shows release too many songs I mean a thousand and so we're we're narrowing down the amount of vegas dates i do we're narrowing i mean i think after this arena tour in america like i don't know when i'm gonna play america next at all i'm gonna take a long break and um yeah it's definitely getting to that point i mean i think things are expanding so rapidly and it's like this that uh it's kind of wild um so i mean especially i mean I just did EDC this past weekend and there was over a hundred thousand people at the stage and it was just so crazy and so nuts that uh yeah I really need to figure out where I I think it's it's getting to the point I need to take a break yeah yeah well yeah I think I've been thinking a lot about the idea of if overexposure is possible these days because um I mean it just feels like you can you'll see artists do this all the time they'll tease a song like 50 times on TikTok for example before it comes out but it works though no no it totally works what i'm saying is crazy i might see and have on my fyp page one of those 50 yeah so those 50 are worth it yeah because it's a shotgun approach really yeah yeah and so i could also see someone taking that same approach to releasing singles like um oh my gosh there's been a few artists who've done like the single a week kind of model where they're trying i mean i did i did every other week for the singles leading up for the album wow so that was manageable i think because it gives you time to you know do a little music video and stuff like that every week is tough i mean you have drake who just did three albums in one day so true and i'm like i look at this and no offense to drake but i'm like this feels like homework i'm like it's so many songs how the hell like do i have to skim through like it's hard it's hard it's it's hard to keep up yeah no i'm uh i'm still working on the first album i'm still working through the first one and i'll get to the other ones but there's there's one of the songs on one of the other three or one of the other two that I haven't hit yet that's like named after my hometown I'm like why did no one tell me about this like so interesting I'm from Fort Worth Texas like no one no one ever wrote it he wrote it for you he wrote it for me obviously he listens to the podcast and he definitely wrote it for me but um it turns out none of my friends had gotten to that next album oh really that's funny well each album is a different genre too so maybe maybe his thought is that like that'd be like if I dropped like an underground like club album a pop-leaning album and like something else i guess that all at the same time so there's a little something for everyone i don't know if that's the thought process it's interesting but there's just there's so much content in all media or entertainment every single day like you go on netflix there's three new shows they have a full season drop at the same time so then there's also the whole loss of monoculture right now because it used to be that everyone would tune in game of thrones every single week everyone would listen to the same album when it out and whatever we're now it's interesting it's just there's so much stuff out there i get overwhelmed i almost watch nothing yeah yeah no sometimes you're like okay i have this or at least i do in my notes app like an entire list of all these like books i need to read yeah yeah i've been recommended and i just get stressed out and i just do yeah yeah that was like this whole idea of kind of like oversaturation and music was the subject of my last episode of the podcast actually um because yeah there's like over 100 000 songs that are being released every day at this point and that's like not including like your kind of soundcloud type like official releases so yeah anyways i i think it's really fascinating and i have been toying with the idea of like whether or not i think there's ever such a thing as too much material in that kind of environment i mean there is there a thousand percent is but then there's the thought that uh the cream will always rise to the top yeah and i mean like a lot of like talking about billboard top 100 i i forget what the stat is but it's like a large percentage is like records that came out like 10 plus years ago or something like that now there's an increasingly large you know percentage of listening going to older tracks yeah yeah which just shows that like i think just these true great songs do last forever and there used to be was more gatekeeping of getting music because on the radio and on you know these dsps now or anyone from anywhere can upload any song which is awesome i mean it gives full creative freedom to like the whole world but yeah it is just way tougher to break through i guess well how do you feel like the music industry has changed since you got started it has changed so much i mean well it's interesting though because i got in to dance music started touring when it was kind of after the whole bubble of the edm bubble you know 2012 2013 which just blew up so much and everyone was all over the radio from you know calvin to avici to Zed where I mean that was full-on mainstream mainstream I mean they're doing collabs with Justin Bieber they're like you know shit like beauty like Zed produced Beauty and a Beat and let alone like Where Are You Now and stuff like that um so but then it kind of got more underground again and that's where I really thrived and now we're kind of blown up again now too but not as commercial it's like like I said like my stuff is really not on the radio radio so it's on like Sirius XM and stuff.

35:51I mean, does anyone listen to the actual radio? I have no idea. Is that a thing? It was when I was in high school. It depends on the demographic, I think. It depends on the demographic. Yeah, no, that's super interesting, and it's funny that you mention Zedd producing Beauty and the Beat because after Justin Bieber performed at Coachella, that song ended up charting again. Yeah, it ended up being the number one song in the world, right? And then he ended up not playing it weekend two, which didn't make any sense to me. Yeah, it's a banger. It's a good song. There's a bunch of artist-led labels in electronic music.

36:22Catch and release is one. I mean, there's a ton of them. How much involvement do artists typically have with their labels? And how do you compare and sit in that landscape? I have a ton of involvement. I mean, I did a few calls before this because I have this new idea for artwork direction. Then we had a call of just an A &R call. And then we have a call of how we want to schedule the releases. and then I have a call later today about um the scenic design for the events and because we're doing a couple nights at Toff Manor and in the UK and how we want to do that so um there are some that are more hands-off on everything but A &R in playing it out um I just it's just a such a passion project for me that I like to be very involved but uh which is also why I want to do less touring and so I have more time for stuff like that and getting creative in that thing but But, yeah, and then we have the whole Universe Residency this summer.

37:17So I'll be there every single week, of course. But, yeah, I'd say on a scale, I'd definitely be on the most involved end. Yeah. Well, okay, so also for your events, is this like an in-house events team that you have? Yeah, yeah. So we have our own events manager, our own booking, and then our own team for creative. And for, you know, we work with other, you know, designers and stuff for, like, flyers and assets and stuff. but it's been all pretty in-house from day one, which is awesome. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I feel like it shows that all the events feel very curated. Yes, exactly. So I think you can't totally get the same thing with a freelance crew.

37:56No, it's just such a family vibe, too, because we're, like, the backstage at the show is not just, like, a bunch of random girls who stood in my DMs. It's, like, truly family. It's, like, truly us who put on this event. And it's, like, once it gets to the part, like, of the music, it's, like, that's, like, the celebration part because all the work is the months leading up to it. How do you feel about generative AI? I didn't use AI in my album whatsoever. I understand the uses of it. I went to Apple's presentation they did about how to use AI in your workflow. I love things like stem splitting, extracting acapellas or drums or synth lines.

38:36People do use things like Suno as idea generators where if you write a song, you can put it in and be like, what does it sound like? It's disco. What does it sound like? It's trap or whatever. And so now would I actually use those stems or actually use that direction? I haven't and I don't like the thought of it. But then, you know, I watch a podcast with Elon Musk today and he says that AI is taking over the world and that nothing will be done by humans within a year. I'm like, is this guy out of his fucking mind or is he being for real? I can't tell. It's so interesting. I always like to ask musicians this, especially musicians in kind of the realms of electronic and in rap, because I feel like those are two genres where these artists tend to be very tech forward.