And The Writer Is...with Ross Golan - Ep. 176: Evan Bogart

Episode Date: August 21, 2023

Today’s guest is a multi-talented writer, producer, music publisher and executive! He grew up in an incredibly unique environment, being the son of the legendary founder of Casablanca Records, which brought the world Donna Summer, Village People, Parliament-Funkadelic and Kiss. This musical upbringing prompted him to work in virtually every sector of the music industry— he worked at record labels, agencies and as a manager and rapper. Soon enough his songwriting took off and he began working on hits with Rihanna, Beyonce, Madonna, Demi Lovato, Lizzo, Jason Derulo, and many more. Now as an established songwriter, his focus is as CEO of Seeker Music publishing company where he and his team work to develop and support artists. His company represents artists, writers and producers such as Run The Jewels, Kito, Jon Bellion, Teddy Geiger, Sofia Valdés, and many more. Our guest has also dipped his toes into the world of film, serving as the Executive Producer and Executive Music Producer on the movie Spinning Gold, which came out in March 2023, and Verona, which is still in production. On top of all of this success, this writer’s work has been nominated for three Grammy Awards, winning one for Beyoncé’s “Halo” in 2010. Additionally, he has been awarded several BMI awards as both a songwriter and publisher. He is a passionate advocate for songwriters and serves as National Trustee for The Recording Academy and Chair of their Songwriters & Composers Wing. His dedication to the betterment of the songwriting community inspires us, and writers all around the world. And The Writer Is…Evan Bogart! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to And The Writer Is with Ross Golan. There are millions of singers, thousands of artists, and only 40 songs per genre at a time. These are the stories of the hottest creatives, the most venerable legends, artists, songwriters, executives, and more. Follow our socials and share your music with the and the Writer is community. We'll see you all there. And now, here's this week's episode. Hey guys, there's a cool company called Sound Royalties that was, founded about 10 years ago. They provide funding for music creatives without ever taking ownership of

their copyrights. All they need to do is see that you have a royalty stream. They don't need personal guarantees, collateral, financial statements, or credit checks. They work alongside publishers and labels, distributors and PROs. They don't replace them. Again, all they need to know is that you have a royalty stream of at least $5,000 in a year, whether it's from mechanical performance, digital streaming, sync, whatever it is. If you're interested in finding out more about sound royalties, check out their website or DM them on Instagram or call 844 for all music. That's right.

It's 844 for all music to get started with sound royalties. Call them today. Hey guys. I'm excited to say a few words about one of today's sponsors, Seeker Music. Seeker was founded and is run by one of my very dear friends. and repeat guests on the writer is Evan Bogart. Evan is an advocate for songwriters. He is in charge of the songwriter wing of the Grammys.

He's a trustee for the Grammys. He's just a good person. And so that kind of community and culture is what Seeker is based on. They acquire only the best catalogs and sign only the best humans, including Christopher Cross, the go-goes, run the jewels,

John Belly and John Ryan. Mozello, Julian Benetta's Family Affair, Carra DiGuardi, Zara House, Future Cut, Sam Waters, Ruth Ann, Brian, Morgan, and various other amazing songwriters. In fact, they have publishing deals with Keto, Robopop, Sophia Valdez, Charlie Brand, Tilly, and more. So I recommend you go follow Seeker on all their social media sites, but go follow Evan to and let them know

how much you appreciate Evan's work. Because of him, we have Songwriter of the year. Because of him, we have songwriters added to the album of the year for the Grammy, and now he's got his publishing company that is a wonderful sponsor for our podcast. So thank you again, Seeker, and go check them out now. BMI is the champion of the creator, supporting songwriters and making sure you get paid

for your creative work. More than that, BMI has an incredible team that helps guide and develop songwriters, shows you how to navigate the industry plus provides invaluable opportunities on stages, and at festivals. Bottom line, they help you with your career at all levels from those just starting out to the biggest hitmakers, just like they helped me out when I was just starting out and how they still helped me out today. You can learn more at bMI.com. Welcome to And The Writer

is. We have a special update. We have the one and only Evan Bogart. We did his interview about five years ago, six years ago, seven years ago, man, I don't know, but it was like the third or fourth interview that we released. I think it might have been the second interview that you did. I think it was like Ricky and then... Yeah, yeah. That all makes sense. You guys are like, hey, we're doing a podcast.

Can we interview you? Well, because the whole point was to interview like our best friends in the business to talk about it. And I remember saying to you guys, because I tell people of this a lot. We didn't release any until we had already recorded 12. So all the mistakes I made as an interviewer in the first 12, those were locked. I didn't even know what I was doing. But I also pitched it to you guys.

Like, listen, this is just for our community. Yeah. There'll be about 300 people who listened to it tops. At the time. And it'll be really good for us to do. And now we have probably somewhere between 6 and 7 million downloads. Yeah. So more than 300 people listen.

to your episode. Enough to fill Staples Center probably about four or five times. Amazing. Which is now crypto, so there you go. That also tells you when we did it. But anyway, rather than doing the full intro,

which you can go back and listen to the original about how much I love Evan and how much he changed my life because he was my booking agent when I was in glacier hiking. Evan has gone from being a massive hit songwriter to a massive hit songwriter who does

a lot of things that he wasn't doing then. We were talking right before this interview about how we share an affliction for making hobbies into businesses. So let's run down your last five years in about 45 minutes. Yeah, basically. I think it's actually, let me just give kudos

to what you guys have done with this since then because I think you guys have really built such an amazing community, songwriting community with this podcast. And I think inspired so many millions of people. Songwriters, up and coming, already established. It's really been such an amazing service for the songwriting community. So congrats on all that.

Thanks. Definitely exceeded expectations, but maybe less so about expectations as much as it created avenues we didn't know again. Exceeding expectations are, hey, I think we can do this. But we didn't think, we didn't care about it. You didn't think about like five years ago. So this is definitely, we definitely did this more than five years ago because five years ago was the CR. And music modernization.

Yeah, exactly. And think about you were able to rally the community around that using the podcast and using the community from the podcast as a tool to do that. Yeah. It's really an amazing thing. But it works because of the support of. of our closest friends in this, you know, because I think we all wish we would have had these kinds of things growing up. I mean, you know, we talked a little bit about your childhood in your interview,

but now since then, the biopic around your father and his career has come out. Yeah. Not to go out of order, but talking about the idea of all the people. He's funny, we actually started working on that, like, you know, 2010. Why does it take so long for movies to get, man? I don't know. Sometimes they don't. Sometimes, I guess it just depends what the movie is. I mean, like, when we first started working on the movie,

the movie's called Spinning Gold. Spinning Gold. So when we first started working on Spinning Gold. Yeah. When we first started working on Spinning Gold, which is, like you said, a biopic about my dad, Neil Bogart, who, you know, I guess most famously founded Cass Blanca Records and is often credited with bringing disco from the clubs into the mainstream with

Donna Summer and the village people but also had Parliament Kiss and before that ran Buda Records where he signed the ISEA brothers and Bill Withers and Curtis Mayfield and Gladys Knight and a whole bunch of people and and it's his story you know we started working on that in 2010 so crazy and when we did that it was announced that Justin Timberlake was going to play my dad and Spike Lee was going to direct it. Wow. And neither of them are obviously involved in the movie now.

But, you know, these twists and turns, you know, Justin was involved, and then Spike wasn't involved, and then Nick Casavides was directing it, and then Nick wasn't involved, and then Justin put out the Man of the Woods album, is that what it's called or something? And then he went on tour, and he had this movie with the Woody Allen movie

and troll. I mean, all these things were happening, and it just kept, Delayed, delayed, delayed. And then at some point it was just kind of like, I think that there was a mutual deciding to move on from the movie, Justin, and he had so much stuff going on. He just didn't have time to pay attention to it.

And then my brother wanted to cast an unknown instead. And obviously there was so much success around Rami Mollick and Bohemian Rhapsody. He wanted to find somebody from the musical world because my dad was such a showman. And so he ended up casting Jeremy Jordan, who's been so successful on Broadway, to play my dad. and that's what it really unlocked everything at that point. My brother ended up deciding to direct it himself. Larry Mark, who is the producer on the movie as well,

produced like Dream Girls and Jerry McGuire in terms of endearment and the greatest showman, basically said to my brother, like, no one's going to know how to direct this better than you. You know this story inside and out. You're the most connected to it. You do it. So with my brother as a director and Jeremy playing my dad, we set off to go make it in 2019, finally.

and then there was this global pandemic, which we basically had shot maybe a third of the movie. Oh, wow. And then we thought, oh, but that's it. I mean, like, we were so close to making this movie. Once it's down, how are you going to get back up? Like, who knows when this is going to end? Actor's schedules, financing, so many things that come into play.

And somehow my brother was able to get everyone online, had to recast a few parts, reshoot some stuff. was everyone was a line for June 2021 in New York, in Jersey. And it was like right as like, OG, right as OG COVID had just died down about six weeks before Delta. And somehow nailed it, somehow just hit the bullseye

of the space to do it. And we spent the entire month of June in a massive warehouse in Jersey where they rebuilt all the sets we originally had in Montreal. and shot the movie there and actually wrapped it by the end of June just in time.

We were all like double masks with shields and like COVID compliance officers. It was like insane. Were you there the whole time? The whole time, yeah. Yeah. So I, my role in the movie,

even dating back to the original was I was going to help him be the guy who oversaw all the music, obviously, right? That's the role. I play in the Bogart brothers. My other brother, Brad, is a producer on the movie. He comes mostly from television,

but he's a great line producer. and just a great overall producer. And so it was all Bogart brothers were working on this. But I was overseeing the music. And in 2019 when we were going to go make this, I brought in Harvey Mason, who's like an expert at these kinds of movies of taking older music and reimagining it

and putting new voices on it. So I brought in Harvey and his team for that part of it. I brought in Harvey and his team for that part of it, and then there was a whole aspect of original music. I wanted to make sure there were some original songs, which we were going to do a big end title song. It was actually way back in 2011 or so, we started thinking about doing a musical around it,

and we're playing around with some ideas, and one of the ideas we had kind of noodled with ended up forming itself into this end title song in the movie, which is a big Broadway musical number with Jeremy and the whole cast. We brought in like a choreographer from Moulon Rouge, and she choreographed the whole movie. She did all the Broadway version of Moulon Rouge. She choreographed all the movements in the movie,

and her sister who's in the cast of Hamilton, they choreographed all the stuff together, including this end performance. But then the other, so I wrote this original song, ended up starting it, the idea with Lindy and E-Man back in the day, and then finishing it with Harvey and Jeremy. Crazy.

On set, basically on set. And then the other one was that my dad was an artist signed to portrait records. I didn't know that. And he had a song that was charted like top 30. And my grandma called him a has been that never was at the time. You obviously became successful later.

And he had this song that like was like a, you know, call on the radio station. and like Battle of the Song and one week it beat Elvis and that was like the biggest achievement at that time in his career I was like a big achievement he beat Elvis on the call-ins

Mike by the way at the end of your life you could also be like this was the biggest achievement of my life is that I beat Elvis on a radio call-in like do you know like the guy did a million things that were incredible yeah but growing up in the Brooklyn projects like that's genuinely one of the coolest

you could possibly do and probably more successful than anybody else growing up in his four block radius right like he grew up in the project and like Brooklyn and like to actually have a song out on a record label that beats Elvis on a call-in show

was like he's the god of the whole four blocks, right? But he, anyway, long and short of it, we were listening to that song, a song called Bobby that my dad put out under the name Neil Scott. And it sucks.

It's like not good. It's like a Frankie Valley D rip-off song. And we were like, how are we going to get the audience to believe that this song beat Elvis. And so I decided I would write him a new song. Oh, cool. So I wrote a brand new song called Cherry on Top,

which he performed with Jeremy's character performs, and that's the song that beats Elvis. And it's much more believable in the movie. But it was fun to be able to go, you know what? Like if I had been a songwriter back then, what song would I have written for my dad? Yeah.

Which was kind of like a fun experiment. Did it make you, you know, Brothers going through this, I imagine there's a lot of catharsis. I know you've had to speak about a lot of this too. In the writing process, when you think of writing for your dad, did you feel more connected to him

or differently connected than you? I don't think of your relationship with your dad around songs as much as the records. Do you know what I mean? When I think of the trajectory of somebody who's a record exec, it's another thing than being the artist. That's an interesting relationship when you're serving him with the dialogue.

Yeah, you know, I think for me the whole experience was cathartic for two reasons. One was I got to know more about my dad. I was four when he died. He died when he was 39 years old at the top of his game. And I don't remember him at all. I mean, I have like three memories. I think two were made up and one I think is real. but whatever.

And so I got to know more about him as a person from interviews of people, from getting to know, to hearing the stories of family members that I didn't hear growing up. Like, you know, they protect you when you're a kid. They don't tell you like the real stuff, right? The other part of it being cathartic was actually like this movie had been something that had been talked about in our family and that was kind of like a pressure stress point for a long time.

Even before 2010, like since I was a kid, like we should remember. my dad. And like, it's dominated conversations for so long. It was kind of, like, I was excited to have it done for, to be done with it. So, like, my family can move on from it. Could you move on from it? Yeah, yeah, totally. I've moved on from it. There's no sequel. I'm the sequel. It's the story of you. Well, okay, so, I mean, this was, the one note I had was to talk about that a little bit, you know? Well, look, I always say I wouldn't have gotten to the music industry without my dad and people think well that makes sense because your dad was so big in the music

industry and actually you know from from tons of self-reflection over the years I probably went into the music industry to feel closer to him because I didn't know him not I think at one at some point I probably was just like this is all I'm going to do because this is my way to get close to my dad or whatever you know feeling of my dad was to kind of follow in his footsteps quote unquote whatever that means. And maybe I, early on in my career, as discussed in previous episodes, probably followed that too much, too letter, too much of the letter. But I've definitely, you know, at some point, and I think probably somewhere either around SOS or Halo, split and created my own line of things where I wasn't necessarily trying to be like my dad, and I had done things that

he never did, and started living my life for myself. And, but I, you know, I mean, I think... How did this experience inform how to be a father? Well, it's actually super interesting. Like, I, um, when I finished shooting the movie was about four months after Ezra was born. And Ezra was there in, in Jersey with Zizi during the whole June. They came for the month of June or whatever. And I went away on vacation for like a week.

And I came back from vacation and I actually went to see like a medical dietitian. And it ended up losing within nine months close to 100 pounds, which I've mostly kept off since then. What it informed me about being a father is that I want to be one. That I want to be around for my son. I wanted to be healthy. and I wanted to not, I wanted to, you know, I mean, like, I just didn't want there to be a chance that I was doing something where I was going to take myself away from Ezra, you know?

And what I thought about was, and my God, we get so deep on these things, what I thought about was all of the memories I have, even now, to this day, Ezra's like two and a half almost, right? And I, like, spend all this time with him. And I think, oh, my dad was alive when I was two and a half. I don't remember any of it. that. My dad has all these incredible memories of me or had these incredible memories of me, just like I do right now of Ezra, but I don't remember any of it. Right? I need to be there

to like have shared experiences with him. Like he's definitely sharing experiences with me right now, but like he won't remember any of this videos and photos and things. But like I want to, I want to grow old with him. And my dad didn't get a chance to do that. And I'm not saying he did that because he was overweight or anything. But, you know, he lived an excessive lifestyle, you know. How do you die? How do you die? Cancer.

I actually don't think it was the drugs that killed him. And I don't think it was the partying that killed him. I think, I think he, supposedly he drank like 20 tabs a day. Like, just non-stop. That's just. Like, non-stop. He was just, 1970s and 80s just. being stupid in drinking, like, everybody drank soda and drank.

Yeah, yeah, but like... The tab was the first, like, diet soda, right? Like, it was the first sugar, you know, sugar substitute soda. And, you know, the shit they were using back then was, like, all chemicals and cancer causing whatever. I think it was probably that. Wow. Like, they gave them the cancer. I mean, like...

Crazy. I mean, for what could be anything that gave them the cancer. But I think, I think when you hear someone is drinking that much tab, on a daily basis, you're thinking, like, maybe... Well, you talk to people. all the time. I mean, my dad's main liquid sources, die coke still. And you're like, dude, just drink anything else, water. Yeah, yeah. Just sometimes anything else, please.

But yeah, I mean, that's fascinating. Yeah. Do you think, yeah. Are the Bogart Brothers going to make more movies now? Yeah, we just wrapped our second movie. Oh, you did? Yeah. I didn't know about this. Yeah. What's the second movie? It's a musical that I had been writing, a pop musical that I'd been writing since 2015. And we put it on pause.

Originally it was sold as a TV show to, I don't know, it was ABC or NBC or something. And then like the head people got canned. And then they took like a year to get it back. And then they were about to resell it. And then some other executive team got canned. And then spinning goal got funded. And so all just the focus shifted to that. and I thought, oh, that'll never get made.

What's it, what's it called? It's called Verona. Okay. So it's basically Romeo and Juliet. It's a retailing of Romeo and Juliet, but it's original pop musical. So it's all original songs. A whole, a whole smattering of people. Yeah.

I mean, it started with, started in the E-Man days. So a lot of E-Man, Andrew Goldstein is on a million songs. Chelsea Lena. Cameron Forbes. Like a whole crew, that whole, whole crew of people that were signed to me and E-Man or to E-Man back then. And then the rest of it was written since then by me and Justin Gray, who I write a lot of my sync stuff with.

And he's my composing partner. You know, in a industry, when we were talking about, you know, the affliction of making hobbies into businesses, part of the problem with that is not with you, but the perception of somebody who's, you know, oh, he's making movies now. Oh, he's running a publishing company now. Oh, he's doing the Grammys now.

But it's music. It's song-based. You do not have to explain this to me. No, no, no. It's like, it's this weird thing where you're like, on the first episode, you said it on our episode back of the day, and I still rings true, right? If you're not writing songs, the House of Cards Falls, right?

And so for me, like Verona is an extension of me writing songs. That's where I derive pleasure in writing now is when I can look in an entire project and go, okay, cool. These seven songs we're keeping from back in the day. I need to write six more songs based on the script. My brothers turn this TV show into a feature film. The guy who funded Spinning Gold is going to fund this movie. We're shooting in Italy in Verona, or in around Verona, northern Italy. And it needs these other six songs, right? And I'm like, that excites me as a songwriter to go in there and complete this vision of this story and then getting the chance to go

and executive music to produce the second thing that I did after spinning gold and be able to go, okay, cool, who's my music team, who's my audio team, who are the choreographers, how am I going to work with them, like learning a whole new skill set, right? And I've now learned how to basically do two movies where I've, from soup to nuts, created the music from all way to the beginning

to all way to the end and have to work with an audio team, a sound team, the producer team, an editing team, a sound editing team, sound mixers, choreography, everything, onset, studio on set, cutting artists, writing, rewriting things on the fly. Like, that's like an exciting, I mean, dude, how long have we've been doing this for, right? Like, to be able to create a new skill and have new experiences, that's what I'm, that's what I love. And I'm not, not writing, that's where I'm writing. I'm taking my skill as a songwriter and applying it to doing new and exciting.

Hey guys, there's a cool company called Sound Royalties that was founded about 10 years ago. They provide funding for music creatives without ever taking ownership of their copyrights. All they need to do is see that you have a royalty stream. They don't need personal guarantees, collateral, financial statements, or credit checks. They work alongside publishers and labels, distributors, and PROs. They don't replace them. Again, all they need to know is that you have a royalty stream of at least $5,000 in a year, whether it's from mechanical performance, digital, streaming, sync, whatever it is.

If you're interested in finding out more about sound royalties, check out their website, or DM them on Instagram, or call 844 for all music. That's right. It's 844 for all music to get started with sound royalties. Call them today. Hey, guys, I'm excited to say a few words about one of today's sponsors. Seeker Music. Seeker was founded and is run by one of my very dear friends, and repeat guest on Anne the Writer, is Evan Bogart. Evan is an advocate for songwriters. He is in charge of

the songwriter wing of the Grammys. He's a trustee for the Grammys. He's just a good person. And so that kind of community and culture is what Seeker is based on. They acquire only the best catalogs and sign only the best humans, including Christopher Cross, The Go-Gos, Run the Jules, John Belly, John Ryan, Mozilla, Julian Benetta's Family Affair, Carri DiGuardi, Zara, House, Future Cuts, Sam Waters, Ruth Ann, Brian Morgan, and various other amazing songwriters. In fact, they have publishing deals with Kido, Robop, Sophia Valdez, Charlie Brand, Tilly, and more. So I recommend you go follow Seeker on all their social media sites, but go follow Evan to

and let them know how much you appreciate Evans' work. Because of him, we have Songwriter of the year. Because of him, we have songwriters added to the album of the year for the Grammys. And now he's got his publishing company that is a wonderful sponsor for our podcast. So thank you again, Seeker, and go check them out now. BMI is the champion of the creator, supporting songwriters and making sure you get paid for your creative work. More than that, BMI has an incredible team that helps guide and develop songwriters, shows you how to navigate the industry plus provides invaluable opportunities on stages and at festivals.

Bottom line, they help you with your career at all levels from those just starting out to the biggest hitmakers. Just like they helped me out when I was just starting out and how they still helped me out today. You can learn more at BMI.com. The more I work in theater and I have a couple shows doing executive music producing for TV shows and you get involved in

one of the best parts of it is that there are very few A&R people between you and the end. There are people who have notes and there are people who want to make it better but in the end a lot of those people respect your lane. You're the music guy.

You're the music guy. How many times do you hear that? Well, you're the music guy. Yeah. And you end up, they just sort of, if you're cast in that role of being an executive music producer and you're writing songs for something, it's not the same thing as when you write a song, you send it in. They're like, I don't hear my artist on it.

Like, you're the ANR guy with all due respect. Just trust me, just send it to the artist. I promise you that if they sang it, they would sound great on them. That's different than when you walk in and you're like, here's. the song and you could have whatever demo of it and the actor is so excited to sing an Evan Bogart's song. Sure.

Because they've sung some really bad songs. Yeah. You know, before and they get an opportunity to sing from one of the greats and it's a whole other experience. And then they also sound really good. And they sound good. They're like, wow, this is the best I've ever sounded. My anecdote about theater is always

that the worst dancer in New York can sight read music. Sure. So, there's like a respect for music that runs deep in other fields. There's a huge difference in writing for Spinning Gold, which is an homage to a time, and it's making something present and real now. There's a huge difference between that and narrative music and a musical,

where the song has to drive the story and move it forward. There has to be intention, obstacle, tactics. It has to be dramatic. And there's so much conversation before you even. going and write the song to really understand where to, where to, like what you're trying to convey. Why? Why?

What's, what emotion, what narrative, like everything. You don't have to understand what's going. Is it good? Is the movie good? Yeah, objectively, I think it's good. Okay, cool. Yeah, yeah. When does it come out? They're slating it right now for Valentine's Day 2024.

Wow. So that's actually pretty fast to rap and then, oh, it's already been edited and everything. When you say rap, it's like done. Oh, yeah. Right now we're in post. So, yeah. So Justin and I are scoring it as well. Got it.

We're doing that right now as well. We scored, Justin and I scored spinning gold. How much are you writing in the way that you used to write? How many times are you doing sessions in a week? Depends on the week. Yeah, fair. Yeah. Sometimes none.

Sometimes the whole week. Just depends what project I'm working on or what I want to be working on or what I get called in to do. Should songwriters get paid? Yeah. You mean like in general? Yeah, songwriter should definitely get paid. You mean, should songwriting be a free, something that people do for free?

I mean, some people think so. Not anybody on this podcast. Are you talking about upfront money? Yeah, sure. Yeah, sure. I think the songwriter should get up front money too, yeah. But I mean, in general, should songwriters get royalties.

Yeah, some writers get royalties also. That would be crazy. Do you... I already have one volunteer, John. That's the recording academy. I don't need another one. Okay, so let's go, let's jump to that. last time both of us were pretty opinionated on how songwriters should get paid

and felt like we could do some things to support songwriters thus starting things like this podcast and the conversations we've had a million times with Busby at the time and some of our peers that were really hustling I'd like to think with us and are still with us in ways but you then became the president of the LA chapter, you're a trustee for the Grammys, you're running the songwriter wing of the Grammys or president of it?

Chair, chair, whatever. I mean, okay, so that job. You know, you go and you say I always, you know, I talk about silos in my career. And when I talk about advocacy, I have that as a silo. Yeah. It's important for me to do.

It's good for the community. And sometimes you're like, wow, I just spent three months working on this project that was good for the culture and for my community and

is objectively underappreciated for how much work you've had to put into it I appreciate the work you've done for us and I think we should acknowledge the fact that songwriters are winning awards

that they were never winning before because you exist in this community and you can post anything you want about this is important for your livelihood, stand up for songwriters in the community, and it's often crickets. And you go and say, this will give songwriters a 33.3% better chance to win a Grammy, and shit lights up.

Like what you are doing for your Grammys are emotionally, as have been emotionally more important to most writers than some of the stuff that you've done that have actually affected their wallet. And that's the truth. Songwriters are that vein that we need the appreciation and we need it from the source, the Grammys,

and here you are our beacon of light in that community. First of all, I applaud you for that. And second of all, why are you doing this? Thank you. And I mean, for everything that you just said, I mean, um, look, I mean,

songwriters being vain in that regard. I mean, that's the reason that, you know, Spotify has notable and, you know, Amazon sponsors the Iver novellos. You know,

like, it's, it's a little bit of like, I thought it was Apple or Apple. It was Apple. It was Apple. Now it's Amazon, yeah.

But, um, it's kind of like, Yeah, look over here, look over here. Yeah, but also just kind of like people, sometimes people have, if they have the opportunity, they end up voting against their own interests, you know, depending on like the bigger interests. I see that a lot. And I think that's complicated.

I think being a songwriter is complicated because most songwriters don't have a brand or a strategy. or the right team in place supporting them. And I feel bad. I feel like that's why I do what I do. I feel like there's not enough mentors to go around for the amount of songwriters that there are. And there's not enough people who actually know what they're talking about.

You know, you are, you're rare in that regard. I mean, you put me on to certain ways that I should get paid that I didn't know about. And I think there are a lot of songwriters who don't understand their business still. They don't understand how to conduct. their business. They don't understand what's fair. They don't understand what people should be getting.

They don't understand how to deal with other people. They don't understand how to act in sessions. There's no like best practices manual that goes out to songwriters when you become a songwriter. Going back to like your idea of rookie camp from back in the day, right? There is no

that doesn't exist, right? And I think it's on us, it's on people like us who actually care to actually devote our time to do that. You know, I, I jokingly say this because obviously there's, there's, there's more important things than songwriting, but like I always say like, the recording academy is my, is like my soup kitchen, right? Like, where do I donate, volunteer my charitable time, right? And for me, I think I could make the biggest difference advocating for songwriters and on getting, getting songwriters

the help they need. And advocacy, um, isn't just about getting paid, right? I mean, advocating for songwriters is for education, advocating for health care, advocating for mental wellness programs, advocating for mentorship. And so through the wing, we're able to do all that. Like, I'm able to do more because of the wing

than I was just as a songwriter, who was the president of LA Chapter, who then became a trustee, which I just got reelected. So I'll be a trustee for two more years. And I've served on the advocacy committee, the National Advocacy Committee for the Recording Academy, but I feel like through the wing,

we're able to create more opportunity for people. And certainly not the only ones doing it. We work with all of the songwriter organizations. We're not against them. We're not competing. Like, we work with Sona. We work with NMPA now. We work with NSAI.

We work with everybody, right? We're like, how can we collaborate to create a better life for songwriters and composers? Like that's literally is what we're trying to do. One of the easy ways to do that, like you said, is the recognition at the Grammys because the Grammys are revered. So we're able to create new categories. Songwriter of the year was something that we've been talking about forever.

That's now our reality, right? And there are other ones, right? I mean, adding songwriters to album of the year was imperative. Adding songwriters to album of the year was the beginning of that, right? That's how that started the ball rolling, right? We did that. It didn't exist when we had that interview. No, it didn't.

Oh, that's crazy. That is crazy. So Ross and I wrote this proposal to add songwriters to album of the year, which in the history of the Grammys, they hadn't been. That happened, and James Fontleroy is the jeopardy question of who was the first songwriter to win an album of the year Grammy, who is James Fauntleroy. But that started the conversation. And I think when Harvey became chair of the trustees

and for the brief moment that Deborah served as CEO, the wing became an immediate priority. Harvey's like, let's get the wing, let's do it. This is where Harvey's a collaborator for both of us and is, it's amazing to have an ally part of the Grammys like that in that position. I mean, you can't understate how important it is to have that, then

some of the other people will say, when we first started in the industry that were running the Grammys, did not care about songwriters in the least. Also, because for the 55 years before no one cared. So a lot of it was like, why were we changing something that

works out great? And you're like, well, it works out great for not the songwriters. I mean, I still think in the end, you know, I don't think songwriters deserve every award. There's still work to do. There's still work to do.

There's still work to do. And we know that. And because of the wing, we're able to do that, right? And it wasn't just Harvey becoming chair, right? The Grammy set out, God, maybe seven years ago, at least five, I think longer, seven years ago, to start doing re-qualifications in a different way where they started making people re-qualify and trying to weed out the hobbyists as members. So they've been refreshing their membership.

They also made a very deliberate approach to refreshing the board of trustees and each chapter board and really try to create more diversity, not only just from like gender parity or ethnicity, but also from like genre and craft and age and trying to create more of a well-rounded brain trust on the chapter level and on the national level. And so that combined with Harvey as the chair, who's now the CEO, having a songwriter producer CEO is also awesome. And all of that combined gave us an opening to create the wing. And the idea was how do we get songwriter of the year? And Harvey was like, let's get the wing up.

Once the wing is up, let's focus on songwriter of the year. So we were just like, let's go build the wing. We had like six months before the Grammys. We were going to have Trevor Noah announced it at the Grammys. We were like, let's just go. head down, get a bunch of honorary legends to launch it with, put together a leadership council, like let's just go. And so Harvey always talks about having a bias to action.

And that was kind of our inspiration by the way. We did that. And then immediately in the first leadership council meeting, I was like priority number one, let's start writing a songwriter of the year proposal. You know what the songwriter wing should do? I still think and this is not this is because

what I think the definition of a songwriter is has changed so much and it continues to evolve is if there was some sort of special award that still goes to like somebody in the business

who doesn't qualify for any of these awards like there are so many songwriters that help create music cares being involved in music cares that probably do like incredible work and donating their time to hospitals and doing stuff like that there's you know maybe an advocate impact or an advocacy award of some sort there's so many that's a good idea there's some people that are this last year they added the best song for social change that's a good start it's a good start yeah i just think there's some like i i keep talking about when we were talking about the songwriter

Hall of Fame before this, and there's just the definition of what a songwriter is continues to evolve in an era where songwriters often have to do a lot of things to stay relevant

or because they have your personality and not the personality of you know, Max has now multitasked, but we know a lot of people who primarily just have been songwriters and songwriters their whole life. They don't enjoy doing the other stuff so they don't do the other things.

They're not spending the time you're spending at the Grammys. But to me, I don't think of your achievements with the Grammys should be looked as anything other than a massive diamond album. Do you know what I mean? Like that's a songwriter also. Sure. And that's a massive success. So again, thanking you for your service.

Yeah, of course. Do you feel like the advocacy stuff that you do with the Grammys, has that affected any of your songwriter positively or negatively? Any of who? Has that success affected your songwriting in any way? It positive, like, not, you know, does the time you spend away from sessions, does it slow down your brain in the songwriting? You know, when you're writing with that kid who just got signed to Atlantic,

you know, which is like half of our emails are like, hey, you know, when you go into that to that room and you're writing with that songwriter who just got signed to Atlantic, my question is like all the stuff you've done outside of it has that positively or negatively affected, either your ability to get in the room or what you're doing in the room. I have such a crazy answer to that. Please.

If I was in the room with a kid who just got signed to Atlantic, I would be thinking to myself, why am I wasting my time? I should be working on other stuff that I think would change, be more, that would actually make a greater impact in the world. Not just in the world, just for me even. If I'm... Not to sing out of Atlantic. No, no, no, I'm just using it as an example, right?

Like, when people pitch me new artists to go in with, it has to be something that just knocks my socks off. I just have to be blown away by it and so inspired by it to make me at this point want to even do it. Yeah. I'm just, I'm just, I just, there's a lot of stuff that's out there that's just not that great. Well, also happens when you start signing stuff where you're like, if you're one of the mentors, I would prefer to write with my writers or my producers.

I would much rather, I have artists, I have artists that are signed to my label. I have writers that are signed my publishing company. What's the label? So let's get into Seeker. Yeah, sure. actually let's finish on Seeker what's the label? Is that also through Seeker? Yeah, it's all through Seeker. Oh, it's all through Seeker. Okay, so

you're, you know, we're in the middle of the pandemic. Everyone, I had this, I played golf with this guy. Forget his name and I'm so I'm embarrassed about this, but he used to run EMI publishing the catalog after the sale. So he owned, you know, somewhere over the rainbow. And I'm golfing with this guy. And this is probably six years ago or so. And I said, do you think people should sell their

catalogs because we don't know what Spotify is going to pay, maybe the songwriters are going to lose everything. Should we sell our catalogs? And he said, oh, you're looking at it all wrong. Always sell your catalog when interest rates are low. This is before

the interest rates have dropped. Right. He said, you will see everything gets inflated. I was like, wow, that's incredible. So I'm watching the interest rates starting to go down, and sure enough, I call my attorney and I'm like, hey, I know we would never normally talk about this, but is this something that we should look into? It's starting to bubble up. People are starting to sell some stuff.

I was like, oh, interesting. Because like, even just going through the conversation was just fascinating. There's this giant gold rush for like what a copyright is and why, look, the stats being 70% of Spotify's that's consumed, streams that are consumed are, is existing catalog. You know, 30% is new music. So all the hustle that you're fighting for in putting out new music is battling in that little space of the 30%. Right. And here you are like also in part of this catalog acquisition world where you're like, oh, this is. maybe the future, if you're talking about the money ball part of the music industry.

That's an interesting way to put out. This, this for the last six years has been the money ball part of the music industry. I wouldn't even say six. Well, I mean, it got out of control the last three. In 2021 was like, the last two, three years in particular. But since I had that conversation with that guy, where I was like, oh, sure, fascinating. So now that the cat's out of the bag and people know what's happening. Yeah, now it's like everyone's mom.

Everyone's mom's like, oh, are you selling your catalog? Yeah, yeah. It's like I read about it in the New York Times yesterday. That's exactly right. What happened? Yeah, what happened? All right, it was simple. So I think going into, I think really 2018, I had been writing.

full time at that point for like 13 years. Like not like pretty not pretty nonstop. And I kind of made this deliberate like I'm going to reduce the amount of sessions I do and really just say yes to the things I love, which is something that I preached for a long time for people, but I wasn't really doing it. I was still saying yes to certain things, right? Because you have this like feeling this of like, you know, survival, right? You gotta stay relevant.

You gotta stay survival, right? And I, but I started slimming them down. And I started getting more cuts. It was funny. I think it was 2018. Cobol had said, you were the only writer here who had a single from seven different genres this year.

Which I felt like was complimentary because I love so many different kinds of music, but also my cut rate was up. None of them were like gangbusters, but it was funny to look at it. It was like I had a rap single and I had an R&B single and a pop single and a dance single

and a country single and a rock single. It was like all these amazing songs that were out from all these artists that were known, well-known, up-and-coming, whatever, but they were all done in probably a tenth of the amount of sessions that I had been doing on a yearly basis.

And I was like, oh, this is so great. This gives me an opportunity to really focus on some other things. We're about to start going into spinning gold, I can like focus on that. And going into 2019, I was like, man, I really want to, I really want to do something else.

I just felt unfulfilled doing what I had done before. And I said to Larry, who's still my manager after all this time. And I said, Larry, I said, dude, I'm fucking bored, man. He's like, what do you want to do? And I was like, I just want to only work on the things that I love. and then I just want to figure out how to take my brand of mentoring and publishing, and I want to try to scale that up somehow.

I want to just do it in a bigger way. I want to affect more people. I love everything. It was coming to the end of almost decade relationship working with Ricky and Zizi. I'd sign them both in 2010. And over the last nine years, you know, everyone from MKTO to Harlow to Harlow, all these people that I've dipped in and out of, you know, I published them. I'm their label.

I manage them. Whatever it was, you know, I get in where I fit in kind of thing while I'm full-time songwriter. And I just didn't, I just was kind of like overdoing the same old, same old. I was thinking about coming into this decade and thinking, am I just going to keep doing this? Like, what else is there, you know? And I was about to start doing this movie.

And I needed time to do that. And so I did two things. I decided that I was going to sell a catalog, which I had never sold or bought or whatever. I had never done that before. I actually used your lawyer. And I sold a catalog that I, there wasn't my catalog, I sold a substantial catalog that I owned a piece of,

and gave myself the opportunity to kind of explore new things, to put some money away, to not have to write songs. to only write songs if I wanted to. But to give myself an opportunity to explore new things. And I met with a ton of people and I was trying to figure out what was the next chapter. Was I going to go inside? There was conversations with publishing companies

about maybe going inside and setting up like an A&R section where like I took songwriters that were like, could be branded and like could come under my wing and like work with their teams and like became like a different service of like a major publisher or like just different conversations. And like some of them progressed pretty far. And in the middle of that conversation,

I got introduced to an investment firm out of the UK. And I was really reluctant to meeting with them because at the time, there was probably like a dozen people. Like the hypnosis thing had started, right? Like people were talking. I had just gone through a catalog sale to Anthem, not to hypnosis. And there were headlines starting to be made. But it wasn't like what it became.

And at the time it was like hypnosis and shamrock and primary wave, and maybe reservoir and tempo and like a few other companies. But the majors weren't buying catalogs at the time, right? And there weren't like an onslaught of, you know, investment funds that were set up and investment vehicles. And I was like, I don't want to meet with these guys. Like, they just want me to buy catalog. That just sounds like the most soulless job of all time.

I'm a creative. And Rich Christina, who introduced me to them, was like, no, no, no, you should go meet with them. They want to do something differently. And I was like, okay. So I went and met with them, and they were basically like, we've done diligence for the last year, and we don't want to be an asset vehicle.

We don't want to just want to buy catalogs. We want to start the next great independent music company, and we're looking for someone creative to lead that. We were told to speak with you, that you want to do something like this. And I said, okay, well, I do, but I don't buy catalogs. I build catalogs.

But I'm down to learn. like what are you guys thinking and they kind of laid out their vision and I was interested in it and I basically told them how I would do it differently and after about three or four months of just kind of getting to know each other they were like can we come to L.A. and sit in a room and try to sketch out a company and it was Grammy weekend 2020 now I don't know if you guys remember Grammy weekend 2020 but the deborred Dugan thing had just happened with the recording academy and Kobe Bryant died. It was a pretty short time. It was a pretty short weekend. stressful 10 days.

So I wasn't expecting much from this meeting, but I went into it and basically 10 hours later came out and shook hands and they basically were like, I said, I don't know anything about buying catalogs. The part of publishing, I don't know. I didn't go to school for that. I went to Interscope Records University. I didn't go to Wharton or didn't have my MBA. This is not my world.

And they're like, we're going to surround you with the smartest people in the world. We don't know what you do. How do you write a song? How do you decide if you're going to sign another song? songwriter, like, and like, what's your process? And I was like, oh, my process. Like, how do I articulate that? So, like, we kind of exchanged these ideals and, like, these plans and decided we were going to build a company from scratch that was both catalog and signing and how I would apply the way I would creatively approach signing somebody to catalog.

And that was basically how he decided to start Seeker and shook hands. And it was February 1st and went to New York to take a bunch of meetings and then six weeks later we were all locked in our living rooms and I mean that time for getting locked in your living room I signed a lot of writers during quarantine some that I had writers

that literally were signing quarantine and are no longer with the publishing company in quarantine like it was stressful all around I refused to sign writers during quarantine yeah well I also that was actually that was the weird That was the weirdest. I don't know if that, like I will say this.

I also found people who I ended up having amazing relationship, creative relationships that were primarily based on Zoom. Yeah. That were because I didn't know how long that was going to last. And that skill set has turned them into excellent writers outside of it. I'm not knocking it whatsoever. I just know that when March 13th or whatever came and the next week, it was a Friday, and the next week I had a phone call with what became my book.

board of directors. And I was like, what are we doing? Is it like, what are we doing? They're like, um, like, keep going, build, learn. You know, they surround, they introduced me to former CFOs of, of major publishing companies who had gone through sales to other publishing companies.

Like, literally sat there and I started picking up the phone and calling every lawyer, every manager, every business manager, I know, and basically saying, hey, I'm going to be acquiring catalogs. This is the company that I'm building. This is what we're going to do differently from everybody else. And next time you have something that comes your way, just think about us. And all of a sudden, opportunities

started coming, and they kept coming and started picking up. And what my shareholders had said to me that, you know, people are going to be off the road. People aren't going to know what to do. They're not going to know how to put music out. They're not going to know how to make money in the same way they did. There's going to be an increase in catalog sales now. And, oh, boy, were they right? And the other thing was, people have been pitching me writers, like, as they normally do. And I had tried to get to know them over Zoom. It's just not my brand. It's just not how I do it. Like, I like sitting in the room with them or like spending a day with them or putting them in with my friends or, you know, just asking them questions that have nothing to do with music. Like, do I

actually like you and want to work with you and do I feel like I can offer you? Maybe you want to, maybe I want to sign you, but maybe I don't have anything to offer you. Like, I'm not the right mentor for you. And there's a lot of that that goes, into it. And I just, I tried, I went down the line, pretty far down the line a couple times in the summer of 2020 and pulled back like, I just don't know. And this is going to be the first time I sign a frontline writer to this company with these shareholders who don't understand really the frontline side of the business. They understand catalog as an asset class, but they don't understand, you know, this kind of like risk, roll the dice, gut, instinct feeling about an up-and-coming songwriter.

I don't want to be wrong. I don't want to be wrong because I wasn't able to run the process that I would normally run. And so I really... Yeah, that changes. Having investors changes the whole thing. I just decided, you know what? I'm not going to sign anybody until I'm ready, until I have the ability to meet people and to get to know people and to really understand who they are and why they want to be a songwriter.

why they, you know, their intent, like, a writer intent is everything. And, like... Yeah, I mean, say what you want about pandemics, but they're really good for building skill sets that you didn't have. I mean, that was the thing is, like, everybody handled it differently.

Like, I ended up doing writing during the pandemic on Zoom, where I was being brought into fix records, which I liked doing more than starting records from scratch. And I know we spoke in 2020, and I remember it was like, right after a day where you were like, I did three sessions yesterday in three different time zones, and you were like super jazzed on it.

And like you were thriving. You were in your element doing that, right? And for me, I was like, I just can't be on another Zoom. Like, I'm taking, I am on Zooms all day long. I don't want to go back on Zoom. I certainly don't want to sit staring at somebody on mute, singing melodies to yourself and then being like, hey, what did you think of this one?

And like trying to like, the beat is kind of off. You're like, you're audio movers, but is it like really on? and like you're, it was just so complicated and I, it just, it just wasn't inspiring to me. So I really, other than like fixing records, like I remember Danger Kong me being like, will you come in and work with Haley Kiyoko and help finish this record? And I went on and rewrote, you know, a lot of the songs with her on that. Then there was a purpose. Yeah, yeah, sure.

When, so Seeker starts, you have both catalog acquisitions and frontline business sort of like. Not frontline yet. Not yet. The idea of what, the idea was to be. was having. The idea was to not differentiate between the two. The idea is we're starting a publishing company. Sometimes we buy catalogs. Sometimes we build catalogs.

Okay, so we're not a fund. Fast forward to now. Yeah, yeah. What's your title, president of Seeker? CEO. CEO. Founder CEO. Okay. Founder CEO.

Okay, so the CEO of Seeker has now acquired classic catalogs and some really relevant pop catalogs. I mean, I'm not looking at notes, so forgive me. But, you know, Christopher Cross. Yep. I'm not paying you for that, by that. That's okay. It's fine. I'm just putting that on the table.

Like, don't come after me. Because the answer is like this episode is still coming out. Yeah, it's 100% writer on it and we own the cast. So you're fine. You're good. So for our lawyers who are listening to this debate. It's cool. Gratis. Gradus license. Evan Bogart, 2020. It was like one note.

Yeah. Sit. You knew what I was eight. It's like, okay, so Christopher Cross, which during quarantine, I probably didn't listen to anything, I probably listened to Yacht Rock more than anything else.

So, Christopher Cross had a big part of my quarantine. John Bellion. Yeah. What? What? That must have been a crazy situation. situation.

That was great. And he's awesome. Oh, he's the best. The best. And there was another one that was really significant. We just did, we just announced we did Charlotte Kathy from the Go-Go's. Oh, that's it. Yeah, yeah.

Who wrote We Got the Beat, obviously, 100%, which is pretty awesome. I mean, she's also one of the best people I've ever met in my life. So, I mean, you know, these are three different artists from four different artists. different decades of success. Yeah, I mean, there's, and so many. I mean, we have stuff. My deal with my shareholders from the beginning was I know from the previous years where I cut down my writing and only worked on things that I love, that I only truly find success working on things that I actually love, want to work on, right? Some writers wake up and they can go write a hit for anybody and they can just have success doing whatever. That's fine. Some writers wake up and they

just, they have this emotion, they have to get out of them. Like, I've never been that either, right? But for me, I can't imagine you. Do you know me? Like you ever be like, I have to get, I just have to get this out of me. It's never been me, but there are some songwriters and they've been very successful doing it, right? It's definitely not yet. And then there's some songwriters who wake up and it's a nine to five and they go, I'm going to go write great songs today.

Right. For me, it was actually, it was, this goes all the way back to 2010. I was coming off of a very successful run in the late, single-digit 2000s. And it was right before 2011, which became like Hot Shell-Rae and then MKTO and all that stuff. It was 2010 and it was just

ice cold. I couldn't get anything cut. And I went to see Barbara Kane. And Barbara was like, well, what are you working on? And I said, oh, I just went to go to this so-and-so's camp last week in Nashville. You probably figured out what it is. And she said, do you even like

her? And I was like, no, I mean, not really, but everybody else was going. And she's like, why are you doing that? I was like, I don't know, just because everybody's working on it and like, you know, who knows? And she's like, what you bring to sessions is fun. What you bring to sessions is your energy. That's Evan Bogart's brand. Like, how can you do that when you don't enjoy what you're doing?

You have to enjoy it to bring your brand to the session. Only do the stuff that you're having fun doing. And then you can bring your full self to the session, which I mostly did, which became hot showy tonight tonight, which is like, basically the embodiment of me and Lindy acting like idiots in the studio. And saying weird words and shouting out Zach Gellifanakus in a verse, right? So like, but an MKTO's whole album was just being stupid, right? And having fun, right?

And I think that led to this whole open up this, Barbara's advice led to this whole thing of a success. But fast forward to when I'm talking to my shareholders, and I'm like, I only want to buy songs that I wish I wrote. or projects that I wish I worked on, and I didn't have a chance to, either before my time or I just didn't get a chance to it during my time. I'm going to pass on everything else. I don't care if it sounds completely counterproductive, counterintuitive, counter everything. It only works if I'm creatively invested. I must invest with my heart, and then I can invest with your money. Otherwise, it will not work. And they said, deal. Which was, that was it. That was the selling point.

when I knew that I could only buy catalogs that I loved and I would never even bring it to them. They would even know about it unless I already loved it first. Second, had a strategy for how I uniquely or my team uniquely could actually do something with it. So I knew it was right for Seeker. Then at that point, I bring it to my board and say, I would like to go and acquire this catalog.

It's the same way I would do it from a songwriter, right? I would be like, do I love their music? I'm going to spend time with them. Do I feel like I could be the right mentor to them? It's the same approach, right? It just took the same approach that I take the songwriting or choosing sessions and I applied it to choosing catalogs, right? And so every catalog we've bought, every catalog we've acquired,

every songwriter we've signed, every artist we've signed to our label, but every catalog we've acquired has been governed by that rule first and foremost. And now I have an entire creative team. So first do I love it? Second, whole creative team, let's all, decide whether we have a strategy for this or not because if my sync team comes back and says, we don't know what to do with this,

or my marketing team comes back and goes, I have no idea how to do this, I don't even like it. I take that into consideration. Yeah, of course. You know, it's not just me anymore. But the passion part, it has to pass my test of, do I love that?

Thankfully, I love all different types of genres, so it's not like I'm like only buying one genre. But yeah, I mean, from our contemporaries, right, Mosella, Sam Waters, John Bellion, John Ryan, Ruth Ann Cunningham, like a few other ones, which haven't been announced yet, but we'll be.

And then Christopher Cross, Charlotte Caffey, right? Like older artists, you know, run the jewels, which I think is not only inspiring to me and that I love them and I've been listening to them since. Some of the things you purchase in catalog acquisitions are about, especially when you're developing a company, is about the brand of it, and you can't get anything more credible than Run the Jewels. Well, we think about it.

So on the master's side, we have Christopher Cross and Run the Jewels, right? So Seeker Music as a label, as a catalog label, I'll just call it a label, because I hate saying catalog on the Frontline. But is Christopher Crosson run the jewels? It's a pretty cool record label. That's the Seeker Records label. And then we have a frontline label, which is called Music is Fun. Yeah. Because we just want to remind people.

Sometimes people forget. And so our labels actually called Music is Fun. And that's where we sign new artists and have a whole branding, merch, the whole thing. When we were looking at, because unknown music is my publishing company and the whole idea of, first of all, the fact that it was available was kind of interesting. And it's shocking.

You know, but the idea of going down this thing, it was like the idea of finding something that actually represents the idea of discovering is complicated. And Seeker as a title. Well, that was. Yeah, music being, you know, music is fun. These are, this, it's real. It's like, it gives it authenticity.

And that's what, and that's what it's always been about. It brings Evan Bogart into it. So it's not, it's not anybody's thing. For sure. And, and the thing is, though, like, I've had full-on conversations with songwriters. I always want to know, as I'm sure you would, when somebody wants to sell their catalog, first thing I want to know is why. Right.

It's important to me. I have a list that's like Seeker Family Values, right? And it's like all of these things that I feel like I bring my values, my ethics to how we do this differently. Like I would, in the same way as in a frontline deal, I would never offer someone a deal I wouldn't sign myself. And obviously that's, you know, depends on where they are in their career, obviously from an advance size of things.

But as far as term-wise goes, like if I'm offering someone a deal, it's something that I would feel comfortable signing at their point in their career or in general. The same thing on the catalog side. I don't ever want to buy a catalog from someone who feels like they're like, well, everybody else is selling, so I should sell. Or like my manager said I should do it. Or my lawyer said I should do it. It's important to me. I want to hear from them why they want to sell.

Because if they're like, I want to take some money off the table and diversify my funds, I want to reinvest in things. I want to get into real estate. I actually want to start my own publishing company and sign writers. I'm like, hell yeah, let's do it. Like, what do you need? Like, let's figure it out, right? Sometimes people who have sold catalogs have been like, well, I want to sell because I want to do this, but I also, like, they're my babies.

And like, dude, I get it, right? Like, I trust me, I get that. And so I say to them, well, why don't you hold on in the performance? Or why don't you hold on the performance on the five songs that mean the most to you? Or if you're an artist and a songwriter, why don't you don't you don't sell your artist songs. Just sell us the songs you wrote for other people. You keep the artist songs. Whatever that is, right? And so, or let's sell 50%, let's sell 50%. You keep the other 50%. If you ever want to sell the other 50%, you'll come to us. But we'll be partners. And I've even

talked people out of selling, which is like, find me another one of these companies who literally is talking people out of selling their catalog to them. Because I just think they're doing it for the wrong reasons. Or they want some, or an astronomical number, and the interest rates are high, and I tell them wait until the interest rates drop again. It's trying to, talking about the importance of mentorship in this business is it runs deep. And you saying that there are so few mentors in this business is something that a lot of people who are mentors are saying, partly because you see how many people need it and how little time there is to give it to everybody.

And when you have the opportunity to actually say, hey, this is how you're getting screwed. And this is how you're not getting screwed, but more importantly, understand the business. Let me teach you about this so that way you can survive as a songwriter or a publisher, or a lawyer, or a manager. But if you are up and coming and you have somebody you can ask and say,

I don't know, or I think I know this, and listen, I say this a lot where if I've learned one thing from this podcast, I used to think it was learning how to age gracefully. And what I've learned from it in a lot of ways is that aging gracefully is on all sides of the business. It's not just the mentor. It's also the mentee.

And learning to listen to, if you have an opportunity to talk to Evan Bogart about your catalog acquisition and Evan Bogart says, why are you doing this and you don't have an answer for it, you can learn from that moment, listen, learn how to age gracefully both in all the parts of your career because that's like it's a community of people aging gracefully we can move a lot you know we can get things done and it's a lot harder

to do it when it's like well they'll they'll lead the way either from either direction yeah you know it's a really good point i mean the other thing about that is is like intent is everything yeah i think i think i think being intentional with what you do, especially in this business, you can make the wrong move really quickly if you're doing it for the wrong reason. Totally. And I think also, like, if I could give advice

in the realm of asking people why or their intent behind things is, you know, if you have a team of people and they ask you to do something or they recommend you to do something, ask them why? I think a lot of people just, don't do that. And I think it's funny when you ask people why

how many times they actually don't have an answer. Yeah. This is, you know, I know we don't have that much more time, but there was, when people talk about publishing contracts, the first thing people look for is the word MDRC, and they're like, I don't want that in the contract. And they'll, you know, well, why don't you want it in the contract? Nobody wants it in a contract. It's not cool to do.

I'll just take, you know, I just want to, just recoupment based, recoupment based. and my thing often with these people is this is this could be the biggest coup that the publishing companies have done is convince or managers or whoever to convince writers to not look at MDRCs

in an era when people are releasing a lot of music and no music is making money very few songs can actually cause recoupment as a whole it's also because it's the way that MDRC has been defined sure exactly but that's fair then say like, well, I don't want MDRC. That's defined to like physical sales only on three major labels

and the penny rate has to be confirmed. Yeah, that's onerous. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Who says MDRCs have to be? Exactly. There are ways to, I'm just saying that when everyone says, I want a deal that just says recoup me. And I won't look at what the word MDRC says.

You'd be surprised how many of that, those clauses are the ones that will help you through your terms. Yeah. And you just X them out and he won't even talk about it because... You don't know what you're doing. I feel like you can't even put MDR... You can't even have that conversation because most lawyers will, at this point,

just so MDRC adverse that the minute MDRC's in there, you're non-competitive. Even if your MDRC was like, you could put out anything on any platform of all... It doesn't matter how much percentage you have of it and blah, blah, blah. It's just the term MDRC is such a bad term, bad word now that it's so stupid it makes you non-competitive yeah that's that's stupid for all lawyers who say that and managers who won't look at it because that's your opportunity right now

to move through terms faster often just as much or more than somebody somebody who can do recoupment based only it is hard it is hard to collect money it takes a long time to collect money it takes a long time to collect money it takes a long time to anyway this is totally there's a whole other conversation yeah exactly well i mean it's obviously a really exciting to see your progression as always. And it's like, you know, I interviewed other people that season where if I had a conversation right now, it would be either them winding down their career or would have been like rocket ships doing the same thing. Like same, same, same, in that same group, you know, Benny Blanco wasn't an artist yet. And, you know, J. Cash hadn't had this last run, you know,

just that whole season where people who some people did their own whatever their journey is and the Evan Bogart journey has just always been really exciting partly because even though we're

about the same age because I came in as your band and you being a booking agent Yeah weird which is so weird but you being my booking agent at the time and talking to you and Teter We've talked about this before

but if it wasn't for you guys saying hey you should write for other people I don't know if I would have written for other people and then they see like you know this kind of thing and like oh yeah oh interesting I could sign writers

boardwalk I'm gonna sign some some writers too you know I can do this it's like okay so it's like oh that guy's running a record I want to do that too it's like the fact that we've been able to work on stuff for the Grammys together

is amazing the fact that we've been able to support each other in our careers is amazing. But I think of you still as a mentor and one of those in so many ways. I think you're a mentor for a lot of people in this business. Also, you started this business young. You've seen it from the Interscope 90s through now, or early 2000s, late 90s. You've been there in this business for a while and you're very smart and you are such a good mentor. So I just appreciate you. I always like these times. I love, obviously, you know, what you've done, what you're currently doing with Seeker. And I feel like when we do the next

update, it'll be like, oh, Seeker is like, you know, everyone will know Seeker. And I'll be like, oh no, this is Evan Beater. He works for this brand that you've developed, you know? Thanks, man. I think it's, I'm excited too, and I appreciate that. I mean, we've come a long way together. I would like to, I want to point out a couple things just as a full circle from our, from our first episode, which is one, for the first 10 minutes of our, of our episode in season one, we talk about bagels. And for an entire year following that episode, people would bring me bagels to sessions, which if we didn't have, if we hadn't talked about it on the show, would have been just

straight up anti-Semitic. Second, we ended that episode talking about the fact that, that, that, um, that, um, we talked about the fact that so many writers didn't exist at that point that existed when we first started writing and that most of us would be gone in five years or six years or seven years. But me and Joe are sitting right here, which I just think is amazing. And a lot of our friend group is still here that was back then too. So I think we've all bucked that trend, which I think is very inspiring in that regard. Like we're all here.

We've all evolved in different, Benny. Everybody's evolved in different ways. You, right? Everybody's doing extensions of what they were doing back then. And at the core of it, they're still creators. They're still music creators. They're still passion about songwriting and songwriters. And yet they've evolved and built these businesses and these lives out of it instead of disappearing,

which was the trend that we had seen when we've, when we, We recorded this first episode back then was all these people we grew up wanting to be as songwriters who just weren't in the game anymore and didn't know how to evolve and didn't know how to adapt. And so kudos to our generation for that, yeah, which I think was interesting. But yeah, man, I'm excited about Seeker, I'm excited about my new journey as a writer doing the things I'm doing and being able to give back to the community in different ways. So thanks for having me on.

Love you, man. Love you too. This episode is produced by Joe London, Hypnosis, Mega House Management, and myself. See you all next week. I'm Ross Golan, signing off.