Julie Greenwald

29:52You know, obviously, I answered his phone. I doubled his schedule. He once made me, I gave him his big giant, Jeffy envelope, and he made me walk over to round Avenue A to go give Christopher Williams a package. And I was just like, why does this thing smell so much like weed? I mean, it was a giant jiffy of weed. And he was like, don't look inside. And I was like, am I going to get arrested? He's like, no, no one's going to suspect you. And I was like, I can't wait. I was so scared. And he was like, and you know, he was so cheap. So I couldn't even call a car. I had to walk along housed in back then between Elizabeth to Avenue A, and it was all crackheads back then on Houston Street between that area.

30:35It was needles, and there I was scared, shitless, walking as fast as you were going to be possible, carrying a giant jeffy of weed, thinking to myself, if I get arrested, my parents are gonna kill me. And it was so crazy, Rick, because he gave me a numerical pager, because he was like, I need to be able to call you 24 hours a day, seven days a week. I go home one weekend and I took the pager and I put it on the table and my dad said, what is that? And I said, oh, it's a pager. I have to, because I know it's a pager. Why do you have a pager? And I go, because the guy I'm working for says I have to have one.

31:11He says, daughter, there's only two types of people that carry pagers, doctors and drug dealers. And I know I didn't pay for med school. I was like, dad, I swear to you, I swear to you. It's this guy, I'm working in this music, this rap management company. I mean, I was such a smart student. I had great grades. I did teacher in America. I was going to go to law school. And here I am, all of a sudden, working for a management company. And little did he know I was walking in jiffy with a giant thing of weed.

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33:19What were your first thoughts when you met the artists? You know, it was, you know, Christopher Williams was so handsome and he was so smooth and flavor -flaved was hilarious. He was so much fun, flavor -flaved, although like, flavor -flaved got me so much trouble because I picked them up to take them to the airport and back then you could walk through the airport and I took them to the gate and I left them at the gate and then I went home and then like that night I got called, yeah, everyone yelling at me, he didn't make it to California. He never got on the plane? He didn't get on the plane.

33:56I literally walked them to the gate but I didn't see him get on the plane. I literally like left him at the gate. Yes. Yeah, so that was a good life lesson that you actually make sure the next time that you walked him on the plane and made sure that you stood there and you watched the plane leave after that. That's amazing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, he thought it was hilarious. Yeah, play, yeah. And then how long did you work there? I only worked at Rush Management for... I mean, I guess we are in January. Lee Orr asked me to move over to Deaf Jam. It wasn't as long of a run with him because he was like there was a whole upstairs in the promotion department and he was super excited about Onix and He was like I need to focus on Onix and he was like, you know take this job upstairs learn another side of my business Go into the promotion department and you know god bless him He definitely was like this girl smart.

35:02She's good. Let me like push her out. If you just think that you could do anything, is that why he was putting you in these different situations? You know, ultimately, as we got to know each other and grow more and more, I guess, because, you know, he moved me from promotions and to the GM of the promotion department, he had me start his marketing department, he gave me art video, I mean, as we got to know each other more and more as the years went on, he kept handing me more and more. But even when I was his assistant, and I was so young. First of all, I was there at the crack of dawn in the morning and I would stay till God made me believe.

35:33Yes. And whatever it was like, I mean, literally, I remember I needed to get public enemy, their visas to go to Australia. And I went down to Washington, DC to go get into it with embassy because of flavorfully with his record. And I figured out how to do it. I went down there. I sweet -talked. I actually went down there with some deaf jam bombers and gave some people some bombers at the time to help me get visas move forward. Those deaf jam coats were like, they were like gold back in the day. Yeah, I think the fact that we never had them for sale and they were only for people who either worked at deaf jam or who were down with deaf jam made it very desirable.

36:20Absolutely, but you know, whatever challenge Lee or every gave me to figure out with getting an artist somewhere or whatever it needed to be. Like, I used to figure it out. Describe Deaf Jam at that point in time when you were there. What was it like? I mean, it was very chaotic when I first started. The Promotion Department was super disorganized. And this was the label was being distributed by Columbia. Yeah. Yeah. And how much of the work did Columbia do versus how much of the work did Deaf Jam do with that? So, Colombia was the marketing end. They had the product managers. Def Jam was the promotion and A &R side.

37:01And so it was very disjointed. And so I was working the promotion department and Rhonda would pitch an artist to take him to BET down in DC. And so it wasn't like anybody from Sony would talk to us about it like and be like, oh, you're taking this artist to DC, what else could we be doing and stuff like that. And so I saw an opportunity to be like, all right, like you're taking the artist to DC, call the regional, and be like, hey man, what else could we be doing? And then, and that's when I learned about Howard University being down in DC, and being like, you know what? Like what if I got you a hotel room, and then can we do this and this, and can we set up radio interviews with these stations?

37:41And everybody saw that, like, I was so, I'll do this, I'll do this, I'll take this off the plate. And so I was able to like work my way around the promotion department to be like, all right, let's figure out how to do this in this and because I wasn't asking you to do extra work, but I was like, don't worry, I got it. And then I would write up the... What do you think the drive came from? It was just an exciting new thing for me and I don't know, it was just like being able to afterwards, I'd go downstairs to the second floor, I was on the third floor now, on the second floor and I'd be like, Lear, what about this, this, and this?

38:18And he would get so gassed about the whole, like, yeah, and let's do this. And there was new music kind of coming in. And I knew that deaf people was cold as can be. And like, we needed to become hot. And so I have no idea. You know, I was 22. Was it fun? It was so much fun. It was a lot of work. That's probably part of it, too. Yes. You know, he had said something about rap music wasn't mainstream then. He made it so much of a mission of like driving it and making it become bigger. Like when he talked about the music and the artists, you know, I bought into the fact that like we had a mission on our back and that we were doing something not just for the sake of just selling records, but that like there was this bigger purpose out there, which made me feel so like, here I thought my life was gonna be about helping individuals in politics and being a lobbyist.

39:24He kind of appealed to my sense of like, oh my God, I'm gonna be an advocate for artists and I'm gonna help work in hip hop and make this big and awesome and drive something bigger than me. Where did you experience resistance about hip hop from the mainstream? Well, you know because our songs and videos weren't necessary the cleanest at Def Jam, you weren't getting on MTV during regular hours if on MTV at all. He had to be clean to kind of get on the MTV Raps. And BET, the rules were even tougher. And so the only place we were really seeing our music videos was the box. I literally used to go home from work.

40:12I'd go to Leo's house. He had two phone lines. And I'd sit at his house from 8 o 'clock at night to midnight with two phone lines requesting our own videos in certain markets where I know we were getting, I had the list from the box of every localized region in the country, and where I was seeing the spins from the DJs, from the mixed show DJs, like Babito was our mixed show DJ guy, and so he'd let us know where we were like first catching like heat, and then I would like bang the video in the marketplace, and literally I used to sit there and call the phone numbers from the box. And then it occurred to me at some point, we were going to be at interns to do this.

41:00That's when I started the intern program because I used to sit there and literally at his house all my time and call. So the interns was like a phone bank? Yes. That's amazing. Yes, because initially it was me, like a knucklehead sitting at his house. No, but you cracked the code, then you realized you didn't have to do it yourself. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Necessities and mother fucker. Did you have any people that you could talk to either at other record companies or like do you have any mentors? It was all I mean it was Lea were so there 24 7 and He was always available and he was so interested in making the company better Yeah, cuz all the sun and now he was focused on it where before he was doing rush management And now he was like I'm going full tilt in And he wanted to know like what is it you need?

41:51What can we do? How do we make this better? And I suggested to his office and throw ideas, I just had huge throw ideas at my head and then I'd go upstairs and then start trying to execute on the plan. It was him and we just, we were really close and he gave me so much confidence to believe I could like do anything upstairs. Great. We were a cast of characters working upstairs. You know, Ronda ran video and she was a fighter and she was a tough woman and she just was like, I'm gonna fight to get my artist on BET and then and soul train and the things that were important to us and we had Babito who was, you know, handling all the DJs and and then we had like on their forget going to see deaf comedy jam and thinking, this is the funniest experience.

42:41And then I had the idea, hey man, what if I was able to get a ton of tickets because I saw that they would hand out free tickets. And Kaiser would give people tickets in New York to fill the audience. And so then when they came back around to do another taping, I was like, wait a second. Can I have the tickets? Can I have a bunch of tickets? And then I started using them for radio and doing flyaways. And then flying in winners when they heard our call. And then I got the idea, wait a second, the programmers would probably love to see this too. So let me not only do contest, and then I start flying in radio programmers, and then I keep them for the weekend, and then take them to see Deaf Comedy Jam.

43:28And then the next day, have a hotel suite where we played them all our upcoming music, presented them with the new artists, taken Malford Dinner, and then send them home on a plane. Like, I started realizing the power of what we had with the deaf jam brand and Russell, and I'd go to Lear, and I'd be like, it's gonna cost us $50 ,000, but like, every PD's gonna fly in, and then we get to present and because I was able to go right to the top, he would be like, this is great, let's do it. And there were no other labels doing anything like this. Absolutely not. No. You know, we were in the culture, man.

44:07We were in the streets. And we also had this incredible brand that meant something. We always knew our vinyl, like people were opening up our vinyl. That's why we printed Deaf Jam on the outside envelope. The white sleeve had the Deaf Jam logo on it, because that Deaf Jam logo was so powerful. meant something. Tell me in typical day in the office back then. Oh my God. I get there like eight in the morning. There was this one old computer that like was probably from like the early 80s that like I would pull BDS to understand where our records were playing. And then I go sit with Wes Johnson who ran our promotion department.

44:52God bless him. And we just talk about like where records are at and what do we need and you'd have to leave the building at some point to go over to Broadway to talk to the A &R folks to try to understand when records are coming, where's our music, you know, what's the timing and stuff like that, come back. It was so disjointed because our conversations with the people at Columbia were so not every day, not in it with us. I'll never forget the day we were allowed to start making up the sampler tapes. And then once we were able to start convincing artists to let us put their music out early on the sampler tapes, then we started hiring the localized teams to start putting our tapes in barbershops, sneaker shops, lifestyle shops, handing them out at concerts and stuff like that.

45:43And that was like a whole nother wave of marketing, of just like taking our music and being like, our best promotion is our music. I mean, that's why we needed Leor, because he was so good at convincing the artist, who looked at us like we were crazy to say, you're gonna give away my music. And we're like, yeah. Like, we're just gonna go away a few songs. And that's what got the street teams going, was we needed someone to distribute the cassette tapes for us. in all these different markets and handing them out. And then we'd hand out posters and flyers. And I mean, these days we're always like, how do we get to the kids?

46:24And anything you could do to go direct you would do? Yes. How do I get to the DJ? How do I get to the kids? How do I get to the kids on college campuses? Like, we didn't have enough money to just go far and wide. You had to really be about where is the audience? And how do we make sure it's going specifically to that audience. How would you know when it was working? What's an example of feedback you would get where like this worked? I remember you could feel the energy on Onyx, even though through your guns in the air it wasn't programmed on MTV and BET, it started to have its natural pickup on the box and it started getting requested and then like those cassette sampler tapes were moving fast And people were like, oh my God, like the feedback from our different DJs were like, yo, this shit is so hot, this shit is so hot.

47:20And he just had your group of people that would give you the feedback of like, yo, shit's cooking, shit's working. Like, Funk Master Flex. God bless him. You know what I mean? DJ enough. Like, there were the hot DJs that would be like, yo, this shit is so dope, this shit is fire. And then it'd be like, I'm gonna book them to play. Yeah, you know come through Sunday night on the tunnel. Yeah, you know, it's just like you could feel the energy Yeah in New York City and then it was like all right, we got to go knock down Philly and we got to go knock down You know DC and Virginia and we always start with like places you could drive to first Absolutely, so you build the East Coast first Northeast before we move down Yeah, and then would it typically be south or would you go west coast?

48:06Once the Northeast was really locked and loaded, it was an easier drive to go down to Florida. I see. You know, and we had Virginia, we had, wow, we had the right stations that were just always like our support stations going down the East Coast that you could do the drive to Florida. You could every spot along the way. Absolutely. It was an easier drive than you never asked anyone to drive all the way to California. One of the reasons why Kaiser and Kevin became so close is Kaiser didn't know how to drive and Kevin would come. He would rent the 15 passenger van and Kevin would do the drives for Kaiser to take our artists around, you know, not only the Tri -State area, but the Mid -Atlantic region.

48:48Because like, you know, we weren't necessarily hiring cars and vans and stuff like that, like, Dev Jam again. Leore, you know, used to manage us with the money. So we used to have to like rent the 15 passenger van ourselves and drive people around. It's great. You know, it was really interesting how much like Onyx gave us so much energy because not only did we, because after three guns in the air, Slam was such a big record for us. And Slam really gave us this ability to be big and to get on some mainstream looks at that point. And I remember, and then even like there was a remix with biohazard.

49:34All the sun and gave this electricity upstairs in depth jam. Like, okay, we're not just so ice cold anymore. And you know, momentum breeds momentum. It just takes one, you know? And then after them, like, then all of a sudden there was red man. And then it just started. And what was after that? What what happened is we left Columbia and right when we were leaving Columbia Baby Chris got rest his soul signed Warren G

50:11Tell me what you remember about leaving Columbia was that Columbia's choice or deaf Gamps choice? We were Wanted to wanted to leave yeah, and was that when the company was sold or was that just a distribution deal with he? He paid out Sony. He bought back his half. Him and Russell bought back their half and then sold to... At the same time. Yeah. So the marketing department came in when you went to Polygram. Yes. Any difference between the way it worked with distribution of a relationship or similar? You know, all of a sudden we were partnered up with Island. That happened right away. At Polygram?

50:49Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. At first, it was great. And was Island new to Polygram or no? No, Island had been there before us, and it was great because now all of a sudden there was these partners on the other side that were like, hey, we want to help you cross -worn G. So all of a sudden now, when Regulate came out, it was a big song for us on MTV, and we only had Urban Radio Promotion. We did not have pop promotion, and they leaned into us and were like, we could take this to top 40 radio. And they made it a big hit for us at Top 40 Radio. That's great. And we sold a lot of Warren G albums. And that was our first like album in with Polygram.

51:34It was Warren G. And so our first thing was super successful. And then from there, we caught Montel Jordan. This is how you do it. And they leaned into us and they did the Top 40 for us. And so, you know, it was great at the beginning. It was great having a partner, but then at some point they decided that they were going to start signing urban music at Island. And now we were competing. And Lear was like, I don't understand this. Like I'm giving you all this stuff when he trying to compete with me. And so eventually he spoke to somebody at Polygram and we moved over to Mercury. But even then, he just needed to be in control of everything.

52:19But we went on a great run. The 90s were fantastic for Def Jam. After Redman, you know, Tape Method Man, eventually, obviously, JZ, DMX, Jal, Ludapur, Skany, I mean, it was a great run. How far in the advance did the idea of selling the other 50 % of the company when was that on the radar? That happened in 1998 going into 99 was when Leorn Russell decided it's time to sell and merge and then Universal acquired Polygram and then Doug offered Leor the ability to now merge Island and Mercury together with Def Jam and acquire the other 50 % of Def Jam. that will happen together. Yeah, I was bummed.

53:16I was just like, why? Why are we selling? I was just like, you were how does it can be? You weren't muscle wanted to sell, so. Yeah, and how different was it after selling? Very different because now all of a sudden we merged and now we were part of this thing called Island Deaf Gym. Were you guys running Island Deaf Gym from the beginning? Jim Caparo was the chairman and it was Jim. There was John Reed. There was Leo or there were a bunch of people. There were a lot of chiefs in the beginning of the merger. Yes. And you know what Leo said to me, I want you to go upstairs and you should run the marketing department for the pop rock side.

54:00And I'll never forget because I was just like, wait, what? I'm the queen of hip hop. What do you mean? You want me to go do pop rock? And he was like, no, he's gonna be really big. Until this time, you had only worked on hip hop music. Only hip hop music. Yeah. And how many years in is this? Six, go month seven. But unbelievable years. Like crazy good years of hip hop. Yeah. You know, like the fun years, the scary years, Jack the rapper, the BRE's, the impact. So just, I mean, it was full. you know, in the mid -90s, hip hop's exploding. I mean, we're selling five million albums on J .Z., we're selling five million albums on DMX.

54:41I mean, we are, we're cooking. Yes. Like, really cooking. And I mean, and bad boy was happening coming up and, you know, all of a sudden, you know, obviously, death row, hip hop was on fire. We were banging against the instincts and the Britney Spears. We were there. We're big. We're getting on MTV. We're playing the MTV Awards. We're winning a Grammy. It was now like instead of urban radio playing two rap records in all R &B, they're now playing a lot of rap music. I mean, there was a whole station called Hot 97, a switch got turned on. And now it's only playing hip -hop music. Like a whole station committed to hip -hop music.

55:25And how radical was that when that happened? Oh my God. We were there when the switch got turned on. and we committed right away to all this advertising because we were like, oh my God, we're here. We have a whole station that is gonna play us. It was exciting. I mean, it was the most exciting time because we finally, we made it. That was when hip -hop broke, really broke through. It broke through. And it was still dangerous and it was sexy and it was exciting. Def Jam just felt so good. And that logo was everything. I mean, my job was the keeper of that logo. and I was supposed to, if artwork wasn't great, you didn't put it out.

56:05That you were not going to do anything to diminish that logo. And when I had a call here and say, we shot this video and it's not great, but I think it's gonna hurt the logo. All I had to say, it's gonna hurt the logo, we'd eat the budget. He knew exactly what I meant. Yeah. Yeah. What was it like moving over to the pop side? You know, at that point, you're just like, Who are all these artists? There were so many artists signed. That was the other thing that was like 14 -AXIT deaf jam. And everybody was gold platinum or multi -platinum. All of a sudden, we take over these two companies that we've emerged in this hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of artists signed to these two labels.

56:49We did the hard part, which was going through listening to all the music, meeting artists, and doing what we thought which was right, which is letting them go and not just being a part of something if no one cared. And we brought that roster all the way down to just make sure that we could focus on the acts. And that's when I was just like, you cannot sign an act unless you really want to keep them because dropping in act is the worst conversation you could have. Yeah, the merger taught me that, you know, I was 28, 29 and I was like, wow, this is the worst you could do is tell an artist, you know, unfortunately, we have to part ways.

57:28And we hadn't even been in the fight with them, but we just knew there's no way we could get into the fight with them. Yeah. OK, so now that phase of learning the pop side, what was that like? You know, it was really interesting, because I started to date this guy with three earrings. He wore these three metal hoop earrings, and he was this rock dude, and he worked at MTV. And our first date was to see Rage Against the Machine. And then he took me to see the prodigy play Irving Plaza. And he took me to see Radiohead. And he took me to see. And this was all out of your wheelhouse at that time. This is all out of my wheelhouse.

58:07I just started dating this guy. And I'm only a deaf jam. And this is in 96. And it was funny when we merged. I kind of felt like, wow, how crazy is it that I've been going to these shows only as his girlfriend and now all of a sudden I'm gonna work on these artists. It's like the universe set the stage. The universe set the stage and I would come home at night and I would ask him about all these bands and talk to him and pick his brain and you know it was incredible having him at home as my boyfriend as I would come back from you know these meetings and these conversations and be like, Lewis, we just, you know, signed this act.

58:53What do you think? And he was so helpful, he was so informative because he knew so much about obviously pop and rock music. And so I had a secret weapon of just trying to really understand like what clubs and what places we needed to market to because I was taking the same approach of like, we can't spend a billion dollars. So we have to be at the right scene and the the right skate parks versus the place would like the dudes with the black t -shirts and understanding where everybody was living so we could be more efficient and more effective, you know, at marketing. Do you remember any of the early breakthroughs in that world that you...

59:31Absolutely, saliva, Josie Scott, and he was a big over -the -top personality and he was fantastic. And then one of the first bands that we had crazy success with, We had American high -fi, we had to hit with them at alternative radio and then I Went to California for a trip and when I was in a leg at a phone call from I called Lewis to talk about something and he says to me Hey, man, Lear just offered me a job to come to Island to do a and R And I was gonna kill Lear as I get crazy. I don't want to work with my guy and Lear was like I need him Like I need a person I can trust I like his and Lewis, you know did Some for you.

1:00:13But you asked him before telling you were asking you. Yeah, yeah, but a knuckle, typical leo. He knew I would be saying no, so he went around me. But some 41. Yeah. Which was massive for us. Yes. Massive for us, big band for us, and super fun and exciting and youth culture. And again, once you catch a few, you know, it just all started. Who's the next step running everything? Yeah, I was still the deaf jam and I was doing all the urban stuff. I was doing the pop rock stuff and then Leore Moved up more at the company and really took the company and then he said you should become be president of Ireland Two more corporate type no, he became chairman of island deaf jam I see and then he made me president of island and I still was running all of the urban marketing for or a deaf jam, but he said, you should run this, Kevin's the president of deaf jam, you still remarketing for deaf jam, but you'll be president of Ireland.

1:01:15Yeah. I mean, he kept just kept pushing me up. Yeah. Did your job change or not really? I'd say they'd change it all. He just gave me the title. You know, with Llor, I never had a contract. It was always a handshake, and it was always like, I never really thought about titles. Hit deaf jam, we didn't really have titles. You know, we didn't care about that kind of stuff. Or at least I didn't. You know, as long as Leo knew what I was doing, that's all that mattered to me. Your job was safe. Yes, yeah. I didn't care about the outside world. You know, it was funny. Leo always wanted me to do press because he thought it was a good story.

1:01:53And he was like, you should do press. You should tell your story. And I was like, no, no, no, no. I liked being very behind the scenes. I always liked being if you knew you knew, and if you didn't know, you didn't know. But he always was like, no, no, no, like tell your story. And especially when I became president of Ireland, he made me do a lot of press. He was like, you're a woman, you're running the company, women have to see that they could become you. And so he definitely kept pushing me out there. You know, he's always been my advocate to be like, but he also saw I earned it. You know, I mean, I rub my hands off and I cared more than, you know, everyone.

1:02:35Yeah. How and when did you decide to leave Def Jam? Leigh or left, Def Jam. I went to Def Jam to go become the chairman of Warner Music Group. I see. And so when he left, I was gonna go, but then I was told I couldn't go because people at Universal didn't want me to leave. And so it kind of got funky in terms of legal issue. So how long did you stay? He didn't come back the first week of January of 2004 and I was there and then until March and then LA Reed came in to become the new boss of Island F .J. And then at some point LA Reed, you know, said okay Told me I could go. Yeah, let me go across the street to go work with Lear and then what was your first job?

1:03:28At the new place President of Atlantic. Atlantic. What was going on at Atlantic at that moment? No bueno. Not good. Not good. No. I literally came over and I had a fire, hundreds of people, and I had an electorate too. And literally they both had staffs of, you know, over 200 folks and I had a lear told me I had to get the place to 185. And I was eight months pregnant, going to nine months, and having to fire a lot of folks. It was brutal. I think the reason why my son is so crazy is because, you know, I was so stressed out for about last month of his.

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1:05:34How did you manage pregnancy and motherhood and being president of a company that needed your full attention. Well, you know what's the interesting part is in 99, 98, 99 when we merged with Ireland and Mercury, I was pregnant with Lulu, my first child. And so when I was meeting everybody at Ireland and really like coming in to take over the marketing, I was this big fat pregnant woman and then sure enough five years later when I'm now merging an electronic, I'm coming in as a big fat pregnant woman. My joke was if you guys, if I get pregnant again, you roll fuck, because I'm obviously merging another company and firing a bunch of people.

1:06:20But it was brutal, I mean, that was brutal. There's nothing, listen, letting go of an artist is the worst conversation. Firing people that again, you haven't even worked with. You know, I literally, I was playing beat the clock from March 17th to April 26th, meeting as many people as I could interviewing them, trying to get as much intel on who's who and then staffing a new company. And I was definitively in the, I'm not trying to be Atlantic, I'm not trying to be a lecturer, I'm trying to create a new company. and I was really trying to understand who was down for the new because you know here's Napster and this new thing called iTunes and the industry was freaking the fuck out that CDs were imploding we needed to change and we needed to become a new company but you know I made my decisions and within four weeks I literally called my doctor and said I need to move my C -section back, give me one more week.

1:07:32So I had one more week to do all the fireings. So I could kind of get that thing started. I wanted one more week, so I could like quickly assemble everybody and then say bye -bye. And then Leore literally called me maybe four weeks into my maternity leave and said I need you back. He's like this place is a mess. Like you got to come back. I was like, cried. I was just like, because my first child, I had just merged and like, I had no maternity leave on the first kid because he was like, I need you. And then on the second number two, like I think he gave me at least eight weeks on kid number one.

1:08:11On kid number two, he started calling me four weeks in, like this place is a shit show, you have to come back. And I didn't even know any better to be like, wait, like there's a law, wait, I was supposed to have like a lie, I was supposed to, and I came back and... Did you bring the baby to the office? Not really. When I was in the office, I was so focused on really trying to figure out, okay, what is this new company going to be? Would you say it was from the ashes or was it just totally new? Well, this was the honest answer is, because there was Craig and Jason, there were parts of it that couldn't be totally new.

1:08:50And I needed to work really hard to assert that we needed to know. And Craig and Jason were more on the A &R side? Yes, they were 100 % the A &R side. So you were dealing with everything other than A &R essentially? Absolutely. And I knew that I had right on my side that we needed a new culture. Yeah. I even had Amit who was like, we need a new company. And so I was just like, guys, we cannot be in thinking that whatever work yesterday is going to work. Like we need to be in the man, like we got to do things differently. We have to be smarter. We have to be more nimble of a company and we can't just be about running radio.

1:09:42like we need to be about marketing and we need to be about touring. It's an interesting thing that you were coming from a culture that was about marketing and building artists from the bottom up and at that point in time Atlantic was a company that was about radio promotion and throwing it against wall see if it sticks like opposite vision of the business. Absolutely. You know we used to say in our meetings at DeafJM you know we would bang against everybody. And I'll never forget we'd say, hey, we're not going to outspend Columbia. We can't out cloud Atlantic, but man, we can out taste them and out hustle them.

1:10:23And that used to be our rap later on in the mid 90s when all of a sudden everybody was getting into signing hip hop. You know when the majors were like, oh shit, we need to be in this. And it was really funny that like that was part of a wrap and no here I am like running at Lanark and being like oh well well we're not going to just go top down. We got to go build shit from the bottom up. How did bringing that aesthetic to the non hip hop acts work? You know I'll tell you the first one of the first alternative acts we signed was death of Cap for Cutie. And they loved it. They loved the whole conversation of understanding that we're about building.

1:11:07And we're also about culture. And we're about taste. And we're about the logo and things that were really important at Dev Jam. They were about to, about their brand, their logo, touring, touring, touring, and making sure that everything is aesthetic. And their world. Also interesting that even though the styles had changed, the original meaning of the Atlantic logo and the original meaning of the Dev Jam logo were fairly similar. Yeah. They were both culturally significant, tasty from the street, the realest of the real. Just different time periods. Yeah. Absolutely. So you were really bringing Atlantic back to its roots even though that wasn't really the mission, but it's just the nature of how you came up.

1:12:00And then how long did it take to make a difference at Atlantic? I came over in 2004. I'll never forget 2007. We were having a end of the year breakfast. I'm it was there and I'm it stood up and he talked about how he couldn't believe how great the company was doing and You know Rob Thomas gone solo James Blahn. We had the work in La Palo in a teeny Ti We had Norris Barkley. I think was that year it was it we had just a whole bunch of beautiful interesting types of artists from all different genres all working and and he gave a speech about how he was so proud of the company and just he was so glad to see that he saw his company turn around and how long it had been since it was hot would you say it definitely had been a while because that's why in years eight years a while I you know it's like I was so knee deep I was never looked at when anybody else was doing so I can't really tell you that's really and unusual thing in the music business.

1:13:10Many people in the business are really watching everyone else. I was always so focused on my own garden. Yeah. I don't know what another people were doing, but... That's great. But because I'm, it was in the building every day. Yes. I called Jack Holtzman and I said, Jack, I'm so focused on building a great company. I can't build two logos at once. I believe in a logo so much. Please forgive me. I'm going to retire the logo until I can get it landing up and running. And until I find someone who can really help me give it vision, I hope you'll be okay with me. It's just going to be, it's just going to be temporary.

1:13:53I promise you you have my word. As soon as I get this place cooking, I will bring back the electro logo. And - And that's because you cared about it enough to do that. Oh, absolutely. And he was so cool about it. he wrote a note to the staff about it because he just was like, the logo needs a champion. Yes. And it needs somebody. Yes. And at the right time, I know it will be back. And he was super supportive of that because he wasn't in the building. He had left. And Omnit was still here. You know, I don't know if it would have been the other way around what I put. You know what I mean? It was just literally, he was showing up to work every day, Omnit.

1:14:30What was Omnit's days like in the office? Omnit's days like in the office. Omnit's days like in the office. Omnit's days like in the office. Omnit's days like in the office. You could walk downstairs and play music. You could whip them out for an artist. Any time an artist performed in the, he'd come. He'd come to shows. He would come see, you know, Narls Barkley playing their first show at a Webster Hall. He'd come see, Paolo Noutini. He'd come see, he really came out. And it was great because like, he would watch him watching our artists and be tapping his feet. And like I always was just like, you know what?

1:15:05If I could get this guy to like tap his feet and be into the music. Like this is the George Washington of the music business. And if he's getting super excited, like, yeah. Amazing. And he's good stories to tell. He had funny men was hit so many funny stories. Oh my god. Oh my god, his life was insane. And so I was telling you that Friday he gave the speech thinking us about Atlantic being turned around. That Saturday night was when he went to the Rolling Stones concert and accidentally fell and hit his head and died. Wow. But I tell you, we had closure. Yeah. He said, yo, my company is back. Yeah.

1:15:46I am so glad and so any, any thing me. Maybe he was ready. I don't know. I know is that like we had this breakfast. He made us. He saw his company return to health and then Saturday night he fell. Wow. Yeah, yeah, and what a place to go out at a rolling stone. Oh my god. We should all fucking die at a Rolling Stones concert, right? Perfect. But that was yeah, so that's when I knew we like We were cooking Who are the current crop at Atlantic that are really moving the needle? Oh my god. So now Obviously Bruno Mars is one of our big guys Cardi B It's amazing. Is one of our big women Coldplay, who, you know, I just adore Ed Sheeran.

1:16:30We've got Lil' Lucy Vert, who's, you know, fantastic, Roddy Rich, we've got Jack Harlow, we've got Charlie Pooth, Janelle Monet, we've got Lizzo. I mean, it's really... Company is healthy now. Yeah, yeah, yeah, the company's healthy. And how do you feel about success of the company, based on the way you measure success? I mean, you know, this is the thing I have at Lannick and I gave birth back to Electra. Great. And Electra has a bunch of fantastic artists. When did that happen? About five years ago, I gave birth to back to Electra with Regne Del running it. We took FBR road runner and Electra and put them and said, hey, here are fantastic brands at each other, fantastic logo, house under you.

1:17:21And so, you know, we've 21 pilots. He's got Bailey Zimmerman, Brandy Carlisle is there. She's amazing. No, she's, oh my goodness, she's brilliant. Ban Camino, Rainbow Kintin Surprise, you know, Fall Out Boy came back, you know, you know, Turnstile is that road runner. You know, there's just so many fantastic artists and I'm in a different point in my career. It's so interesting because You sound as detail oriented and as excited as ever. No, I am. I am and I'm in the weed still. I'm so in the weed because. Yeah, so what's different about this point? In this point, even though we get paid off of market share and you're supposed to really chase market share, like I'm chasing just great artists.

1:18:08And I just feel like it's gonna take care of itself. Like I feel like I've accomplished a lot in my life And I'm just like, you know what? Like, I just want to love the artist we have and help them get to the place that they want to go. And I'm in the same way with my staff. Like, I'll end up in that place where I'm like, how do I just help all these young people grow into better young executives? How do you find new people to be on the staff? My senior staff, it looks for younger folks. How much have you seen your staff have been around you for a long time? A lot. I have very little turnover, very little turnover.

1:18:47No one ever wants to leave. You know, we move as such a unit. You know, we go out a lot. We're in it with each other. You know, I still go to see shows like four or five nights a week. Right. Yeah. And the route is packed. Last weekend, like I had a seven o 'clock show at Mercury Lounge. I was seeing an artist named Nolan Taylor. Then I had a 930 show at the Hammerstein. I saw a Bailey Zimmerman. That was Friday night. Saturday night, I went to Brooklyn Steele. You know, it's just, that was a weekend. You know, we've been leaning into all this like, all country stuff now. So that's a new crew of artists.

1:19:28And you do that based out of Nashville? Or you do that all based out of New York? New York and LA. New York and LA. Mm -hmm. And when we need help from Nashville, they help us.

1:19:40When you see an artist come in, excited, fresh -faced, signing, and then they have great success, how do they tend to change or what are the different ways that they might change? This is the interesting thing. Artists that have success always change. They always say, oh, I'm not going to change. They all change. There's no way they don't. Some of them, you see the people around them get way more scared to tell them the truth. Dangerous. I always find that regardless of how big they get, you know, I still feel like, you know, my responsibility is always to be as honest as possible, good, bad, and, you know, ugly.

1:20:24So it's not just the artist that changes with success. If you find it's the artist and the whole camp changes with success. Yeah, and sometimes the camp can change more and the impact of that is really bad for the artist. Correct. And that's something that no one really talks about. It's not only the artist that changes the success, it's all of their immediate circle that all of a sudden changes. So you're not just dealing with an artist by themselves and that personality that all of a son and might be thinking they're right. And again, the music business, I always say, it's not about being right or wrong.

1:21:05It's your gut, it's your opinion, but like, then you gotta live with the decision you're gonna make. And I'm never afraid to live with the decisions I make. But I don't then turn around and accuse people of it didn't work, and it was your fault. And I always say, this is the problem with the music business. saying it didn't work is a bad thing. It should always be, hey, if the music didn't connect in a large scale way, it doesn't mean it's not going to connect tomorrow. It could be connected in four years, but it's your catalog that you're building. But, you know, part of the problem with the business right now is everyone wants instant success and everyone thinks they can create a viral moment.

1:21:50And none of us can create it. Yeah, it happens when it happens. It happens when it happens. Make great music, stand behind it. And don't be afraid to play it. Don't be afraid to share it. Don't be afraid to promote it. Do you think that the artist and the label's goals are aligned? We're always aligned in that. We don't get paid if your shit doesn't work. We're always in alignment, but for some reason, Listen, the PR job of the music labels has never been a good, you know that for a hundred years. We're always been the big bad label, right? And by the way, you know the music isn't as big and as successful.

1:22:33It's never, well, maybe the song just didn't resonate with your audience. You know, it just didn't resonate the same way that the other songs you made resonated. But you know, artists don't want to accept that. It's always well, you didn't do a good enough job promoting or whatever. And so, I've always learned that, you know what, for the sake of the relationship, I just take it. Just take it and say, you know what, how do we move forward? What does our just manager do today, 2024? It depends on the manager. Some managers are so good and luck arms and we plan and we plot and we scheme together.

1:23:14and some managers are so proactive in the conversations and the planning process and really like understanding that there's a global view. And how do we talk about not just here but the globe and what do we need to do to operate on a bigger level. And then you have some managers that we're in the right place at the right time and just answer a phone and wait to be told like, K, this is what's going to happen. How does global work for London? So we have an incredible team of people that work with the global marketing team. So when you put content up in music up, it's everywhere at that moment. So the opportunity is really globally.

1:24:01And we don't care where the spark starts. If the spark starts in Brazil, the spark starts in Brazil, if it starts in Taiwan, if it starts in Berlin or the UK, like wherever it's gonna start, it starts. We have to be ready to meet the moment and fan it and connect this global audience because the community that's listening to Charlie Pooh in Korea is so important to exactly, it's like the community that's in America. And it's just like when content comes out for Charlie, it's just like he is such a voracious audience in Korea, we need to serve them just as much as we serve the audience in America.

1:24:42So that team has to know when he's putting out music, when he's putting out content. So therefore they can do the right job of amplifying it in Korea. So we're way better organized than we've ever been. It used to be used to wait and go market by market. Now we all go and then you start to see where things are cooking and then you know, we add the gas. And the flavor they're working and then spread it. Absolutely. And it doesn't matter where that is. I got this kid right now named Alex Warren. He's got a song cooking in the Nordics, the Swedes, Denmark, and it's cooking. And like it's going. And as soon as we saw the flame, like they started pouring more, we started giving them more, and then we shipped the artist over there.

1:25:28And so then all of a sudden, he's now doing promotoring in all of those markets, connecting, making local content with the local influencers over there. and now the song is doing a million streams a day because we saw it, we felt it, we bounced on it. Great. And now it's gonna spread into Germany and now it's spreading into the UK, and it's here in America. But you need people everywhere ready to go. Everyone's legs moving. No one standing still. And then that way that batons get moved back and forth. How important is radio in 2020 for? You know, it's part of the making of a star. You know, all of a sudden, when you're connecting the song and you're going not just online, but it's also on radio and part of the promos and it's new music from Cardi B or new music from Jack Carlow or whatever.

1:26:24It just adds to the overall marketing of not just being one of many. It adds to the connection of the dots when you're playing on a more mainstream level. Would you say the artist that's playing on mainstream level is taken more seriously in some way? No, absolutely not, because you could be a serious, credible rapper and not necessarily go to Urban Radio. You take the shots at the right time when you know you have a song that's going to work, that you can build a whole audience with kids. It took us a long time to put a record of Lil Uzi's on radio. We never played the radio game with Lil Uzi.

1:27:13He was building the kids with his music and his content. So just consistent releases and videos and on shows? And from a very early start, he started touring. He did it the old fashioned way. He started in the small clubs and he worked. And I'll never forget, we did. We saw we were sniffing him and Kodak black at the same time and they both were cooking and we were both like Oh my god like look at this we got sparks going on and we said yo Can we put a tour together great and we said we'll promote it Atlantic will be the promoter great and we put oozy and Kodak and we convinced everybody to do a co -headline go out and Just as the tour was about to go out on the road Unfortunately, Kodak got arrested it.

1:28:06And so then Oosie stayed on the tour without codec, but he went out and grinded it out and kids saw a rock star. And he gave everybody a rock star performance and he toured and he toured. And he'd not only toured here, but he went across the pond and he toured globally. And he built themselves into a real proper touring act and made us incredible music. And I think by yes, not going to radio. At that time, it was just always about the kids and the young kids. This was their artist. Yeah, it's like an underground secret, but a really big one. But a really big one. Yeah. And then at some point, he gave us exo -tour life.

1:28:50And the song was so massive. We had to go to radio. And did you decide to go to radio or did radio decide for you? It was so big that it was just like we would have looked like cheap motherfuckers if we didn't take it to radio. Yeah, yeah, because it was streaming 30 million times a week back then when nothing was streaming those kind of numbers. And so we had to do it. And then we put them on the MTV Music Awards. There was a moment where it was like, okay, it's time to like just put them in some bigger places. But for him, it was just always about the music and touring. You know, he still feels that way.

1:29:30I don't know if you can answer this question because of where you sit in the music business, but how would you say the music business is different from other businesses? You know, our business is a hard business because you know, you sign these magical creatures and you work with these people that are artists. And you ask them to make product that you then want to try to commercialize as big as possible. And real artists make art for art's sake. We ask musicians to make music and then go out on the road and tour it and promoted and make content and do a lot of work to be part of it. And we want so badly for artists to be big.

1:30:23And we want them to expose their lives and do interviews and tell their story. And but artists make music. They're not necessarily making music to share their lives. And so it's a different kind of business in the sense of like the movie business with celebrities. You kind of know what it is with a celebrity. And you know, for us, you want quality control, but you also want people to be prolific. And you're constantly balancing the, hey, how do I get the most out of an artist, but also you want to preserve their sanity so they can stay also being artists and you want them to love it. Like I always say to them like I need you to love the road.

1:31:12You know, I want you to love the road. I need this experience to be great because if you don't like touring, then I don't know how we can really be super successful together. So I always try to figure out what is the happy medium when they're on the road touring, how much promo I can get out of them versus the job that's really important, which is to be great at night for the paying customer. But I also want to maximize the opportunity of them being in that local marketplace. And so you're just constantly trying to find the right balance. And it's different for every artist based on their temperament.

1:31:45Yes, and their vocal ability. I mean, if they're a singer, you can't have them talk too much. It's just such a unique business that in order to really be a big label, you have to have a decent roster. and you need music and you need a lot of it and you need a lot of content and you need to be pushing on other human beings output, you know, hey, when's your album, when's your album? You're picking the ones who really want to do that. That's part of the process, but sometimes it turns out not to be the case. Yeah, you're meeting people, you're falling in love with their music and you have a very short time to get married because your engagement process with discovering and acting, signing it, is a very, very short period of time.

1:32:40And so how well do you really get to know the artist before you're signing them? And really at the end of the day, you don't know if the shit's gonna work. You never know. And then when it does work, and everyone's like, oh my god, it's so excited, how do we get more? and then the artist goes and tours for two years, and then they need a break. All of a sudden, everything you've built, now it's a four -year hiatus. Yeah. You lose momentum. You're all of a sudden, if you are 14, that person's now 18. If you're 18, that person's now 22. They've grown up, they're in a different place. But also, it's just like, the corporation is like, yo, where's my next album?

1:33:21Because they're so excited. Yeah. And so, it's the wonky's business. How has streaming changed the music business? Well, the good news is everybody gets every album. So you don't have to compete anymore for 12 bucks or 13 bucks for an album. We saw in the 2000s when people were pushing for streaming to come in. You know, you'd see the reports that people only bought three albums a year or four albums a year. I mean, now people can't listen to as many albums as they want. So that's been the greatest thing ever because it doesn't cost you anything to listen to my album. But the only thing is that streaming has now allowed everybody, all these companies to come in to distribute music, right?

1:34:12Because it doesn't cost anything to really hit a button. It's a scalable business. And so there's 12 billion distribution companies that are all for a dollar will distribute your song. And so now there's like 400 ,000 songs being delivered every week. And so there's no filter. You know, we've played the role of Curator. We find stuff, we've believed in it, we backed it, and we said, this is the best of what we're seeing. And then we brought it out. And it was us in the Indies. And now, anybody and everybody can just put a song up. And so the marketplace is so saturated and overcrowded. And so...

1:34:57Does the cream still rise to the top though? This is where we have fantastic artists that are playing arenas that may not have giant streaming blow torches, Brandy Carlyle. One of the most magnificent artists to walk the face of this earth. She is like no other. Her voice, she's one of the greatest performers, and her audience loves her. And she has a loyal audience that listens to her. Her audience has day jobs. Her audience might have families. They can't listen to her album every day after school on the way to the school bus 17 times a week. They might listen to her album once a week on a Sunday when they have time.

1:35:52So they listen to her, but are they listening to her every day 70 times a week? No. Doesn't mean she's not hugely successful, but the cream rised. It's there. She's at the top of her game. Yeah, that's why you have to kind of look back and look at the big picture. Yeah. What are you building? Who the artist is who their audiences and how they're connecting to that audience? Absolutely. The audiences are not interchangeable or comparable really. No young kids have all the time in the world to hit the song and hit repeat and play the song over and over and over again. Morning, noon and night because kids don't have necessarily jobs in a family.

1:36:36Is the album a dead format? No way. No way it's not a dead format, not a dead format at all. I just think that each artist, depending on who the audience is, will consume an album or they won't consume them, they'll pick off the singles. But it's artist by artist, genre by genre, it's not the same. Cardi B has been popular for a long time. I feel like she's more, puts out songs more than albums. How many albums has she put out? One. Well, one. How long has she been around? We put the album Mountaine 18, April 18, April of 2018. This is the thing. She had a first kid right after we put out album number one.

1:37:25And then she had a second kid. And so getting back in, making an album, you know, she was a young mom. Like, and so she needed time to be a mom and, you know, to her thing. I'm looking forward to her next album. Hopefully this year. Hopefully this year. But, you know, listen, when you're touring and you're trying to sell tickets, you need a body of work. Yeah. Now, you want to break it up in this new day and age and you think you want to give us an EP and an EP and you want to break it up. Like, you know, some artists are like, I don't want to give you the whole, you know, 12 songs right now. I want to do a track a month for the next 12 months and then at the end compile it.

1:38:13And this is where we're just like, cool. If that's your vision, how you want to roll? Great. And who am I to say? No, and there's no right way to do it. No, but at the end of the day, it all kind of gets compiled. Whether it's on a master playlist, the best of, or this is, you still need songs so people will come by and take it. Are there any jobs in the music business that you haven't done? No. I've done every job, I mean, coming up at DeafJM, I think that's why I am a good leader because I know how hard each job is. And so empathetic to the cause of like it's so hard to do promotion, it's so hard to do marketing, it's hard to come up with insane new video concepts and new art concepts that people haven't seen and really trying to get in with the talent and help push them to be the best that they could be and but at the same time, I know it's all really doable and you can get greatness when you're focused and you give yourself time.

1:39:29And if you're not just flinging shit out and if you're not last minute but you plan and you prepare and you give yourself the times to really dream and get in with talent and also like you can't move talent if you just come in and out. You got to build real relationships with them. They got to trust you. If you want to push them out of their comfort zone, they have to believe that you're in it with them and that there's trust. But trust only comes from time. You've got to put the time in. And you can't put the time in by just showing up because they're in New York City or they're in LA. You got to go to West Virginia or Chicago and Detroit where you've got to spend time with people.

1:40:07And that's the thing. I also know when people are bullshit. Because they didn't put in the time. and they didn't really sit down with talent and get in there. I have empathy, but I also know bullshit when it's bullshit. And so that's the best part about doing every job. You can't tell me like, you don't understand. Man, I had no credit card. I mean, they were put me through it. And that's why I'm saying like, when these kids say anything to me, I'm like, man, you got no idea. We had no cell phones, and then when we did get cell phones, we stopped to itemize the bill. They used to make us write down who every phone call was.

1:40:49Make sure it was work -related that we weren't using the cell phones for personal in like, you know, 93, because, you know, deaf jam. I mean, crazy shit. She was hard, man. We didn't have computers when I first started. We used to sit there with typewriters and white out.

1:41:09To write our reports. What is the state of hip hop today? People want to say that, you know, it's not as good. I feel like I've heard this for 30 years where everybody says the generation before was better, right, or the two generations before were better. But, you know, I learned in my own household when my kids were growing up in my son and daughter. Like, I remember when my daughter was, you know, Oh my God, all about Lil Wayne. And I would talk to her about Jay -Z. And she didn't want to know, you know, that was my music. Lil Wayne was her music. And then Eli was all about, you know, Lil Uzi.

1:41:50You know, everybody likes to look back and think their time was better. But, you know, when I go to shows and icy kids losing their mind, supporting, you know, the Osama songs, Le Tyler, I've got a young female named Cali, I've got set, and you know, Lorraine, I've got to steal with Gucci at 1017, who signed a bunch of fantastic artists. He gave us Poo Shisty. And it's just like, the kids all need to make their rappers theirs. They don't want yester years. And so it's just like, you know, I never said they're gonna go, oh my God, it's not as good. It's different and think on, it's different. And the sounds are changing.

1:42:32And you know, everybody - If it was all the same, it wouldn't keep going. Yeah, absolutely. You would burn out. It would burn out, but it's amazing. It's amazing. I feel like the music business, like, is as much as everybody wants to shit on the majors and complain about it, and I'm always like, why are you so angry? All I'm trying to do is help bring great music to the globe. How do I become the bad guy here? You know, I have a giant piece of art in my office. It's big, giant loose leaf. That's like nine feet tall by this artist Michael Skuggins and he wrote a million times. I'm still a good person I'm still a good person.

1:43:09I'm still a good person and everybody comes in and everybody looks at this giant It's just massive piece and everyone like is like did your kid make this and I'm like no no no this piece art This is my daily affirmation Still a good person. I'm still a good person