Digital Social Hour - How to Build a Rabid Fan Base Without a Record Label | Rick Barker DSH #958

Episode Date: December 7, 2024

🎵 Discover how to build a rabid fan base without a record label! 🚀 Rick Barker, former manager of Taylor Swift, spills the secrets on growing your music career independently. 🎤 Tune in now for a game-changing conversation packed with valuable insights on: • Leveraging social media to connect with fans 📱 • Using AI and technology to speed up your success 🤖 • The importance of business acumen in the music industry 💼 • Rick's journey from radio to managing a superstar 🌟 Don't miss out on this eye-opening episode of the Digital Social Hour! Rick shares his experiences working with Taylor Swift, navigating the music industry, and helping independent artists thrive in today's digital landscape. Join the conversation and learn how to: • Create engaging content that resonates with your audience • Build a sustainable music career without relying on labels • Use AI and tech tools to boost your productivity and reach • Develop a business mindset to stand out in the industry Watch now and subscribe for more insider secrets from music industry veterans and successful entrepreneurs. Hit that subscribe button and stay tuned for more game-changing conversations on the Digital Social Hour with Sean Kelly! 🎧🔥 #MusicIndustry #IndependentArtist #FanbaseBuilding #DigitalSocialHour #RickBarker #TaylorSwift #MusicBusiness #SocialMediaMarketing #musicmentorship #networkinginthemusicindustry #empowerartists #howtonetwork #musicmarketing CHAPTERS: 00:00 - Intro 02:19 - Building a Career 06:58 - Characteristics of a Superstar 09:18 - Preparing for Opportunities 10:55 - Getting on the Podcast 14:11 - Rick's Support for AI 17:05 - Growing a Podcast 19:20 - Rick's Admiration for Gary Vee 21:04 - Downfall of Clubhouse 24:38 - Taylor Swift's First Manager 33:01 - Taylor Swift & Scooter Braun 34:30 - Understanding Record Deals 36:19 - Taking Sides in Music Industry 38:55 - Where to Find Rick 41:28 - Outro APPLY TO BE ON THE PODCAST: https://www.digitalsocialhour.com/application BUSINESS INQUIRIES/SPONSORS: [e-mail] GUEST: Rick Barker https://www.instagram.com/rickbarkermusic/ https://rickbarker.com/ LISTEN ON: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/digital-social-hour/id1676846015 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Jn7LXarRlI8Hc0GtTn759 Sean Kelly Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmikekelly/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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because you got quarter of a million video views or you're gonna go retarget everyone who gave you those quarter of a million video views and turn them on to another piece. All right guys, Rick Barker here. We're gonna talk to music industry today. I haven't had someone in your space, man. I'm excited.

Oh wow, thanks. Well, I appreciate you having me in general. I mean, everything that you're doing right now, you're touching a lot of pieces of content throughout the globe. And that's what I love. It's like you find these podcasts, you're like, you need to be about this in order to do this.

And you've totally proved everyone wrong. You're like, I can just go out and have interesting conversations with people and people want that. I don't niche down because you could learn something from every niche and apply it to your business. I agree. Yeah. So I'd love to hear how you penetrated one of the

toughest industries, which in my opinion is the music industry. Yeah. It's interesting because I tell people that want to come into it. I'm like, you're trying to function in a dysfunctional business because the consumer does not have to pay for the product. Right. And think about any other business. If the consumer, it's like going to Costco,

try the sample, say, oh, I like this, just take it and leave. How long would that company or Costco be in business? And that's kind of what's happening with the music business. It's the wild, wild west in a way, because there's no gatekeepers. Everybody can upload music. My mother-in-law could upload music if she wanted to and shoot a video and start an Instagram channel and get in the way. There's just a lot of noise. So my goal since leaving Taylor has been to help

independent artists and other creatives in general just say, look, let's go find you an audience. Let's go build a relationship with a small group of people first and then get bigger. Everybody wants the big thing first. Most people wouldn't know how to handle the big thing first. So we try to crawl before we walk, walk before we run. But yeah, music's the greatest business, the most complicated business. You can't throw money at it to fix it. There is no do A, B and C and D happens. It's no two artists career paths have ever been the same. It's interesting. And these days with everyone's short

attention span, you're only remembered for your last hit. Oh my gosh, if that, you know, it's, we live in a three second world, a six second world. And I was telling an artist one day they were so. Creatives musician. It's all about the art. They're like, why are these tick tock people? And I said, look, there's people that you know, the sound, but you wouldn't know the artist if they were riding in the car with you, you just know the song. You just know that hook.

You just know whatever. I said if you want to build a career then you're going to have to slow down a little bit. You're going to have to take that person who saw you for six seconds and then how do we get them to watch a minute and then how do we get them to watch a three minute video and then how do we get them to listen to a song. How do we get them to give you an email? It's all, be happy that all the tools and resources are available for you to get someone's attention in a world where everyone wants their attention and that they took the time to choose you that day.

The problem is is that we rely so much on what I call rental property, like Spotify's rental property, Instagram's rental property, YouTube's rental property. I said, we need to get them to the restaurant you own, which is your website. You control the aesthetics, you control the content, you control everything, but you're relying on all these fake numbers and all these fake everything to validate you. We need to get you back focused on, do you want to build a business?

And if you want to build a business, you put the right product in front of the right person and make the right offer. Doesn't matter what business you're in and you can't expect people just because you love it to love it as well. Yeah. So when you go on Spotify and you see some of these songs have a hundred million views, like what percentage of that you think is real? It really depends. A lot of it could be all of it real, but it's passive listening. And what I mean by that is that

it's playing in the background. If I'm listening to your podcast, that's passive listening. If I'm watching your podcast on YouTube, I'm now actively involved. I chose to be there. Sometimes your song on a playlist, someone didn't necessarily choose to hear you, but they heard you, but

there's no DJs. Unless somebody heard something so, wow, I got to see who this person is, where they actually pull their phone out, open up the app, look to see who it is, go to the about section, click your hands. There's a lot of work that goes into that. So these people that have these million views, there's a lot of artists right now that are making 20, $30,000 a month in their streaming business, but they can't sell tickets to shows because no one knows who they are. They just know they like the song and the song.

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Some A-listers even. Yeah, and it's sad. And I think a lot of that just has to do with, one, the price of concert tickets has gotten way out of hand. It's like what they're sold for face value and now 10 times. The resellers. Oh my goodness. It's like what they're sold for face value and now 10 times, 20 times. Oh my goodness.

It's absolutely crazy. Yeah, the Taylor Swift, I mean, weren't they like 500 each this year or something? Well, and then you go try to find tickets for her right now, you know, depending on when you're listening to this, it's gonna be $3,000, $4,000 in the nosebleeds. In the nosebleeds? They started out at 500, but by the time we get it we were looking

I have a young artist. I work with Jordana Bryant Amazing little artist. She's this generation's version of because she's speaking to that young female again You know Taylor's now 34 years old. So she's obviously not speaking to that person, right? So actually, she's older than that. But we went to look to buy tickets to do a contest and they were $3,500 each. Holy crap. That's nuts. That's crazy. And 85% of people are living paycheck to paycheck right now. Absolutely. And right now there's parents that are doing everything they can. I mean, I know Google's very smart, but for whatever reason, I still get the text smart, but for whatever reason,

I still get the text messages and the Instagram DMs. People wanted me to get them Taylor tickets. And would you have her do a video for my birthday? And I'm like, somebody please let Google know it's not me. Former, former manager. But it's interesting to see the extent that people will go to to to get two tickets. Like they were going to different countries

because the shows were cheaper at ticket price than they were here. Wow, that's nuts. Yeah, crazy right? Yeah. I'm like, yeah, here let's go to the Wembley Stadium and it's less than if we were going to the Hard Rock in Miami.

Yeah, what's that differentiating factor with those artists that have such a rabid fan base you think? What is it you think they do? They have grown up with their audience, I think. They, their audience feels connected to them. I think they feel like they've been on this journey, whether it be Taylor or Beyonce, Lady Gaga, Ed Sheeran,

you know, it's like, there's not a big difference talent wise, I think sometimes between the A-lister and the superstar. So what's the difference? I think it's the business acumen. I think it's really understanding who your audience is. You don't leave anything up to chance. I think the biggest stars, Jay-Z does not become a billionaire because he's not strategic in his thinking. Right. Taylor does not become a billionaire because he's not strategic in his thinking.

Right. Taylor does not become a billionaire because she's not strategic in her thinking. Whether you like her voice or like her or whatever the case may be, you can't knock her big business acumen because she has opened up so many opportunities for other artists to now own their masters. That's a conversation that she started the fight with. She went direct to AMC and offered them her tour video instead of going through a studio, paying a percentage, she went direct and now all of a sudden other people are like, oh, we can do that.

Wow. You know, so it's like, those are business acumen people. Kanye, business acumen, love him or hate him. He's a businessman You know and and that's what I think is the biggest separates right now and then When you also make your business your fan base and you're creating music for your fan base You're not chasing you're saying this is who they are. This is what I do for them This is how I show my appreciation to them. This is how I let them in on everything that I do. Game changer. And that's what I'm trying to teach independent artists and

also business owners. It's like, we're so sometimes focused on who we don't have. We haven't even learned to love on the people we got. They all want your million plus following on Instagram, but they don't know how to message back to 30 people that send a messages this week 100% you see what I'm saying that they just want they see what you have and they're like, well Shawn's got it You know, I I should have it. No Shawn knows how to handle it Shawn's got systems and processes in place to make sure that things don't get overlooked Yeah, they don't want to think about that business side of it. They just don't get overlooked. They don't want to think about that business side of it. They just, Ray Daniels, I brought him up to you before. He has the God's Podcast.

He's brilliant. He says people pray for opportunities. They don't prepare for opportunities. And there's a lot of people praying and a lot less preparation going on. And that's where I think sometimes creatives, they see that it can be achieved. They see that it's available. They want to start there. They don't know the journey it took to get there. I mean, you've been building businesses.

You know, you just didn't wake up one day and go, hey, look, I have all this now. Everything's been a snowball effect. Yeah. And what was your first snowball? What got your snowball? You can't prevent early mornings, but you can help prevent certain HPV related cancers with Gardasil 9. Approximately 75% of sexually active Canadians will get HPV in their lifetime.

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But that was eight years ago in my college dorm room and that's what got me going. But what does Gary teach? Social media. Do. Yeah. Not what you know, it's what you do. You did something with what you learned.

You know how many people listen to Gary V that are still flat ass broke and haven't done anything? Yeah, a lot. Most of them. Honestly. You are the outlier. You are the person that says, wait a minute, he's kind of laid out this roadmap. He's like content, content, content.

As we're recording this, you've been going all day You know most people won't do one a week, right? You did more in one day than most podcasters are going to do in the next So but that's the thing that's business acumen That's what makes you a superstar in the podcast world and not just a podcaster Because you think different. And if everyone thought like you, we would have more of you. Right.

But we don't. I thought my buddy was pulling my leg when he said, Hey, would you like to be on this podcast? Like that's way out of my league. That's I, I, I'm, I was like, and then I'm sitting there and now here we are having this conversation. I'm just like, okay, this is interesting. You know, this is an opportunity for me to learn from you because of what you have been able to do. I love how you simplified it,

but yeah, it really comes down to that. And I get asked every day how to get more followers. You probably get asked every day how to get more views. And that's the wrong mindset. Yeah. You know? Yeah, I always ask, how can I serve who I have because you know what they'll go get me right more followers You got to provide value first once what and once you know, and this is what people forget once you have value Then you start using the technology and the tools that are available to you to speed up this process

Like Facebook and Instagram ads people are like, I don't want to run ads. I'm like, wait a minute. I can go get you to watch 15 minutes of me, or 15 seconds of me for a penny. They're like, what? I'm like, yes, learn what's out there and what's available to you. And I was like, think of it like this.

Everything that comes across your social media feed, when they push play, they chose you. I call it chosen marketing. They chose you out of all the stuff, whatever it did, intrigued them to want to push play. Now what are you gonna do? You're just gonna be excited because you got quarter of a million video views,

or you're gonna go retarget everyone who gave you those quarter of a million video views. Are you going to go retarget everyone who gave you those quarter of a million video views and turn them on to another piece of content? Yeah. Because are you going to control the rabbit hole or are you going to let YouTube control the rabbit hole? Are you going to control the, the for you page or are you going to let Tik TOK control the for you page? So that's what I try to share with people.

You know, they're arguing now, it's like technology is ruining everything. I'm like, no, technology, every, I can't say every, but we can have this conversation. When something comes along, the reason it usually comes along is for speed. Think about the car. Think about email. Think about cell phones. Hell, a pay phone. Pay phone is faster than having to wait till you got home.

You find a pay phone. Microwaves, AI, social media, Zoom. All these bits of technology that everyone fights, they've come along to speed up something because we live in an impatient society. Very. So grasp that. The plane that you took to get here, which allowed me the opportunity to not have to

go to Vegas, we use technology, the cameras that we're using to film this. No one's here having to sketch and say, here are the pictures of what Sean looked like in a profile and Rick looked like in a profile. And here's the notes of the conversation that they had. It's like there's so many cool things, but a lot of older artists, speaking on the music side, they fight it. They don't want it.

And I'm like, shame on you. Got adapt. And I know a lot of people in your industry are against AI, but you're actually for Oh, it depends on what you're using AI for. If you're using AI to help you write songs to me, that's no different than having a co-writer that's helping you write a song because you have to feed the prompt. You don't turn it on and a song pops out. You have to tell it what it is that you want but I don't even use it for that. I use

it more for give me 10 podcast ideas for a struggling musician that they would find interesting. I use it to go back to the beginners mindset because I've been doing this for so long I got I was guilty of Over-talking my audience. I had all this cool new stuff because I spend tens of thousands of dollars Staying in touch with what's going on in the digital marketing world and I would come back and it was just kind of go over So I said wait a minute. I Have a book that's almost finished called Music Business for Parents. So I said, what are things that a parent would want to know when starting out, when they realize? And it gives me some ideas. I go, okay, that one's crap. This

was great. Let's go deeper on this. Hey, if I wanted to make this the best book ever, what additional resources? Now I can spend hours and hours and hours of going on Google and it's no different than me typing it into Google. The difference is I'm typing it in to something that has access to the whole interweb to be able to come back and say this might be interesting. Okay I like that. Let's go deeper. Hey here's the lyrics to my song. What emotions do you find from this? And write me five social media hooks that tap into that emotion. That's cool.

Boom, boom, boom. Now, are they all going to be perfect? No. But that's what I use it for. I use it to help me outline books. I use it to help me outline courses. I use it for a lot of different reasons. But once again, I use it for speed. I use it to help me outline courses. Yeah, I use it for a lot of different reasons. But once again, I use it for speed

Hmm. I use it for speed the way that we record music. No one's using real-to-real anymore Why we're using Pro Tools you go in and grab a synthesized sound. Is that cheating? You want to go in and have go buy a beat from someone and you sing over it? Was that cheating? No, that's utilizing technology that beat maker could upload his beats to a place that you could go hear it, like it, license it, not have to record that music yourself. You live in the middle of nowhere and you don't have producers, but some of the best producers in the world are putting their beats up on places like BeatStars and now you have the ability to work with a badass producer and you didn't have to travel to his town.

You didn't have to pay the studio time. You didn't have to pay anything. You get the finished product. So technology and AI, I'm all about it. All about it. Yeah. You just spit out so much gold. Going back to the ads real quick.

Yes. I wanted to give this actionable advice because I get a lot of questions about how to grow a podcast Yeah I wouldn't have been able to get big guests without running ads because no one's gonna go on your show if you're getting 100 views So I spent tens of thousands of dollars on YouTube ads to get some of the videos to a million views hundreds of thousands of views So that's a good hack for people watching this and then going back to the AI Dude, every time I go to a new city, I ask Chad GBT for 50 interesting podcast guests. I have an email script that it generates

and I email all their managers, PR teams. That's how I get my guests. It's done. And the thing is, is it can do so much. I mean, it's like, so artists sometimes they fight social media. And I think they fight social media because they don't understand what it is. It was just, it's an engagement tool.

It's just a tool. I don't sell on social media. I give value to where people want to go someplace else to know what it is that I'm selling. I sell through email. You know, it's like, I want you to, I'll, I'll do, and this is for any business owner, go and type in, go to chat GPT and say, what are the 10 biggest complaints about whatever business that you're in? You do one minute videos on complaint. Number one, make it a 10 part series, the 10 biggest complaints in the automotive

industry. Boom, it will give it to you. You make it fit your thing. Go talk to the camera, talk about it. Hey, and if you want the other nine, just comment the word, once again, AI, it's a keyword AI, it's comment the word free. And then you set it up to hit a Lanny page. They give you the email, you send them the stuff they wanted, and then you set it up to hit a Lanny page, they give you the email, you send them the stuff they wanted, and then you put together an email nurture sequence, solve four or five more problems,

and then at the end say, hey, if I was able to do this to you with four emails, imagine what I could do if I had an hour of your time. I've got 10 calls, I'm doing 10 one-on-one interviews, here's my calendar, charge whatever your hourly rate is, and you'll make a thousand, two thousand dollars solving people's problems, and it was hourly rate is, and you'll make $1,000, $2,000 solving people's problems. And it was their idea to come to you because you provided value to them first. Wow. I love that.

I mean, it's simple, but people are, I mean, and like Gary, bad props. I wish I would have known you were a big Gary Vee fan. I bought all his shoes. You know, I'm 32 years sober, but I subscribed to his Empathy Wines when he had it to give to my buddies. You know, it's like, I wanted to support whatever he did because I wanted him to continue to provide value, you know, because it provided value to me in a way when I met him. We were joking because people will say to me, they're like, dude, You're like the Gary V of the music industry and I didn't know how to take that at first I said why they said because your solution base you don't let anybody wallow in their shit

But you don't say you're wrong. You're like you're wrong. Here's why and here's something you could try to fix it I always try to Be that solutions based person. Because there's so many negative people that will go, you can't do it, why? Well, I don't know, you can't do it. Don't listen to that person. You know what I mean?

It's like sometimes we're listening to the wrong people. We were joking about Clubhouse during COVID. Those were the days. Oh man, I would go in and just call BS on all the people pretending to be these music business gurus. There was a lot of those. Everybody could hide behind an icon and you could put whatever your accolades

were and nobody was searching. They were just so lonely because they were at home from COVID. They just wanted to talk to anybody. And I would go on and I would just, I would, I would pop in and people would see my thing, Oh, let's bring Rick up. And I go, yeah, by the way, not to cause problems, but that's bullshit. You know what I mean?

It's like, you're one of the reasons that things are wrong with the music industry because people prey on independent artists. And I would go out and, you know, I did my best to try to protect it. What do you think the downfall of Clubhouse was? Cause Twitter space is killing it. Yeah, I think the downfall of Clubhouse was? Cause Twitter space is killing it. Yeah. I think the downfall of clubhouse was, uh, once again, there was no barrier to entry.

It was like, you got an invite, you could get on, you could pretend to be whoever you were. Uh, I, somebody had reached out to me and said, Hey, I need, can I have one of your tokens to get this guy on? I'm like, sure, whatever. So I give them a token. And the next thing you know, people are reaching out to me going, Hey, this guy's scamming me and I saw that you're the one who brought him into Clubhouse And I went and I looked I reached out to Clubhouse I'm like get my name off this guy's thing Wow you know I would go on and call this person out

Hey if this person's saying I Did not I explained exactly how I went about doing it, but I think Clubhouse served its purpose. Once again, it got a massive valuation and it just once COVID ended, everybody went back to YouTube. They went back to their normal lives, but it served a purpose for a while. I thought it'd be like the next big thing. Everybody did. Yeah. Yeah. People built up big followings there. They built up massive followings, but once again, did they know how to take them from Clubhouse to a platform that they own? And that's the biggest thing. You know, it's like I, there's, so I'll help artists run ads and there's options. I can go get a lot of clicks. I can go tier two, tier three countries

for those of you that don't understand tier one or USA, Australia, Canada, you know, it's going to be a little bit more pricey in those areas. Then we have countries like Brazil and Mexico love music. They'll click. Then you've got your tier threes. You want to stay away from it. You can get, it's like when you go to somebody's Instagram page and they have one video that's got a million views and the next one has 930, they bought a whole bunch of Palestinian, you know, wherever, just don't do that, okay?

It's just, yeah, that's the worst. Be okay with slow growth. It will create careers. Messes up your engagement too, because the retention rate is the algorithm these days. Well, and the thing is, is the algorithm's gonna say, okay, everything Rick posts will start in Bangladesh.

Well, then the person I really need to see it never gets to see it. So what I do is I always do higher intent. It's like I send them to a place where I'm gonna take a shot by giving something a value to get that email. Because once I get the email,

I can start building the real relationship. You know, I do a lot of Instagram Live. I love going live on Instagram. I tell people when they ask about Taylor, they're like, why isn't Beyonce and Taylor have to be on? I said, trust me, if we were starting over today, Taylor would be on Instagram every night going live. Oh, she would have ate it up. All these tools today. I mean, we only had MySpace when we started.

Wow. Everybody was our friend. So we had to really, she would have loved, I don't say she loved, but in my opinion, 16-year-old Taylor would have loved being able to go live and perform every single night to a worldwide audience. Think about that. That's what I tell people. You want a venue? Open up your phone, put it on a tripod, go live, worldwide venue. You want to talk to people?

Talk to them. You want to bring them up? Bring them up. Why would I bring them up? Because then their friends are going to get notified that they're live. And now you're going to introduce yourself to their friends and you didn't even have to do nothing but bring them up and act like you gave a shit. Right.

I mean, it's like the tools. Oh my God. I love them. Were you Taylor's first manager? So I was technically her second manager, but I was her first manager when she released her record and went into that situation. My background is in radio. So I did radio for 15 years in Santa Barbara, all I ever wanted to do. I created the first ever radio tour where artists actually got paid. That ended up putting me on the radar

of the record companies. I always tell people, it's like if you can solve other people's problems, my goodness, does it open up doors. And that was a problem. So I helped break a bunch of artists from the early 2000s and ended up being offered a job to work for a record company.

And at that record company, they had a 15 year old that no one had heard of yet. And they said, take her and teach her the music business. Take her out on this radio tour that you have created. And she didn't have a manager at the time. And we clicked. I mean, it was one of those things. It's like, I wanted to teach, she wanted to learn. Neither one of us had done this before, so we weren't set in the ways of other artists and other managers. And after our, you know, 30 days together,

they would call every night wanting to solve the world's problems. And they're in Nashville, I'm in California, and finally I called the label and I'm like, you got to go get them a manager, man, they're wearing me out. And they went and all the big managers said no, and some of the other managers, maybe they didn't want a teenager, maybe they didn't want to deal with parents, who knows why. They said no, they didn't understand the teenager, maybe they didn't want to deal with parents, who knows why, they said no they didn't understand the internet were

some of the reasons why. So they called and said hey I said how's the hunt coming and they're like that's why we're calling and I said okay and they said what would you say if I told you Taylor wanted you to be her manager? I said I would say no. What do you mean you would say no? I said I've never managed anyone. They're like look we're not hiring you for your management experience. You think different. You believe in her.

You're willing to take risks. You're willing to try things. That's what we need right now. We don't need somebody that's just gonna set, you know, do the same things that everyone else is doing. So I used to always tell her, I'm like, hey, if you want the same results as everyone else, do what everyone else is doing.

And right now, they're failing. Right now, it you want the same results as everyone else, do what everyone else is doing. And right now they're failing. Right now it's like the industry has shifted. There's a change coming and what are you going to do with it? And it was great. So they offered me the job to be your manager and I would drive from Santa Barbara to Nash, uh, to LA, catch a plane, land in Nashville, catch a bus. That's a far flight tour for four days, go back home. And I did that for two years.

Damn, every week? My last year with her, I was going 187 days. And I had a four-year-old and a two-year-old at the time. And I had gotten up to like 300 pounds. And I was just like, all right, God, what's the plan? You know, I'm gonna see more money than I've ever seen in my life. In January that year,

I would have become an instant millionaire. And I was like, at what expense? Now I grew up with divorced parents. I grew up poor, so I never made money decisions because it's never an option that I had as a kid growing up. But I also knew what divorce that impact that had on me. And I called her and I said, listen, I'll forever be grateful.

I'll always be one of your biggest fans. I said, but my family and my kids are the most important things. So I gave my notice to work through part of 2008 for her. And then told my wife, I said, listen, I said, I wanna move the kids to Nashville. I said, I want them raised in the South where manners aren't an option. I said, I want no state income tax.

And I'd love to get twice the house for half the money. Love it. And it checked all the boxes. And then a very interesting situation happened at that point is that I didn't have a job. I had been paid severance and that was running out. And I got a phone call from who at the time was the most powerful person in Nashville and his assistant said Joe would like to meet with you when is the next time that you're going to be in Nashville and I thought I'd done something wrong because

Joe Galani was the most powerful Scott Borsetta who I worked for a big machine was number two so two totally different styles you, most people didn't go from one of their labels to the other. One came from a sales background, one came from a promotion background. Both amazing guys. I was blessed to be able to learn from both. And when I lost, left the job, I was doing some work for a couple of his clients. And I thought I did something wrong. I said said can I ask why Joe wants to meet she says he just thinks it's time you and him got to know each other so I flew to Nashville a week ahead of the family coming out and I met with Joe and

he said listen he says not to take anything away from Scott and Taylor he said but my team saw what you did with her they saw the way she responded to you they saw all your crazy ideas. They saw you out in meet and greet lines for three and a half hours, and the first person up in the morning, and the last person. The lesson is there is one, you never know who's watching. You never know who's watching. He said, listen, he says, I think you would fit perfect with what I'm looking for at Sony.

He said, I would love to offer you a job as a consultant. So I excused myself and I went to the restroom and I pulled out my Blackberry. We didn't have iPhones then. And I call my wife and I said, go on Yahoo. We didn't have Google. I said, type in, what does a consultant do? I said, I'm being offered this job and I have no idea what it does. And she laughs like you did. And she's like, did and she's like well

It looks like they advise it areas of expertise and they can get paid really well. Hmm, and I Immediately accepted the position as a consultant and did that for almost three and a half years for them while consult because then other people Would call and go hey, I understand you're a consultant. I'm like why yes I am, you know, and they were like, what is what do you pay and this I had my numbers down I had the whole system down. But what I started seeing Was there were just way too many things That I was screwed because I thought like a manager, but now I'm working at a label and I'm pro artist

But I'm also pro label and I'm seeing a lot of things are happening at the label that aren't beneficial to the artist and I'm like shit how do I say something because I'm friends with these artists I'm friends with these managers this employer is now paying me to do this right so I ended up realizing that if I wanted to be the most effective that I could be I needed to start educating artists before they got their record deal and educating new managers before they got the record deal to be able to go in and make sure that they were a business. Because the record companies today, they're not in the startup mode

anymore. They're in the acquiring businesses that are already working. They already wanna see streams. They already wanna see ticket sales. The tools are available for anyone to do it. They wanna see, are we gonna invest in someone who's already doing it, who's already using those tools? We don't have time to start someone from scratch.

It takes too long, right? It takes way too long. It's very risky. They're not designed for that. They're not designed to help an artist grow a fan base. They're designed to throw gasoline on the fire that you've already created. So now you can come in and become a business partner

with the label and not an employee. Employees have no decision-making power. Business partners do. You're able to write a better deal for yourself. You're able to come in with momentum that they can keep rolling. It's hard to start the wheel. It's easy once the wheel gets rolling. So that's what I'm trying to do is help those that want to go that route be something that's attractive to them. Those that want to remain independent keep 100% creative control. Keep the bigger piece of the pie,

do things when they wanna do things. I'm also teaching them how to do that, how to stay independent, how to be your first record company, your first manager, your first publisher, teach them those business sides. And I'm able to teach thousands of people all over the world because of technology, because of the internet.

Love it. You know, I make courses. I do, if there's a problem, I'll talk about it, create it, put it out there, load up someone's toolbox, then it's up to them to use the tools. Yeah, love them. And what store? Then it's up to them to use the tools.

Holy crap. Did you watch the Taylor Swift Scooter Braun documentary? I've watched all her documentaries. I also wish that, I didn't care as much about what was going on with Scooter because I didn't have a personal relationship with Scooter, but I did feel something as the fans were turning on Scott Borsetta because they were perfect for each other. Scott gave her, so she was signed to Sony Music

before she was signed to Big Machine Records. A lot of people don't remember that. Scott was the one who gave her the opportunity to write her own music and write her own record. People forget that part of it. Taylor put his label on the map. They were perfect. What happened there? For each other.

What happened with that relationship? Well, that relationship came, her deal was coming to an end, you know, and she wanted... She got offered more money somewhere else. Yeah, a lot more. And the ability to own her masters and the ability to do a lot of different things. You know, it's like that happens. But know they were people were saying things like you know it's like never blame the label if an artist signs a bad record deal blame your attorney. Because you don't have to sign it and the label is the bank and the label is going to do everything it can to protect the bank and the label is taking all the financial risk in the beginning. So the label deals that they were signing were pretty standard at that time.

And that's the deal. And then once you recoup, which means you get, so do you mind if I explain how a quick record deal works? Okay. So the record company, I give you a hundred thousand dollars and I say, okay, here's your hundred thousand dollars. That's your advance. I'm also going to, we're going gonna spend 200,000 on a record.

We're gonna spend 50,000 for a video. So now you're responsible for paying back that money. That was a- It was like a loan. It's recoupable, yes. Now, the deal I just signed with you is an 85-15 deal. So for every dollar that comes in I keep 85 you get 15 Yeah, but the problem is you have to pay back your loan to me out of your 15

Got it not out of the 85. Oh, wow. You see what I'm saying? So it's not The dollar doesn't pay back the loan your 15 cents. So that would take time. It does it So it's almost like for every, I don't know the exact math, but people would say for every 200, it costs you, you have to make a million to be able to pay back whatever it is. You're the crypto guy.

No, that makes sense. You've got the number thing, but yeah, you're only paying it back off your 15. Now, what not many artists recoup, it's really hard because the label can spend and you're responsible for it. And most are, well, she had already recouped multiple times with what had happened. So she was always able to go in and, you know, renegotiate.

I just, I just wish that. It was just sad to see because they did some very special things together. And there's stuff that went on behind closed doors that I'm not privy to. And it doesn't matter to me. I just, when people would come to me asking whose side I would take, I said, I'm not gonna take a side.

I'm gonna use this as an opportunity to educate on what that situation was. Scott needed to sell something. It was more valuable with Taylor attached to it and Scooter was a smart businessman and came in and took that opportunity. It's business. It's business. But then all of a sudden you know you turn the Swifties loose and they're all making death threats and all kinds of crazy things that are happening. You wouldn't believe the crap I get sometimes people are

like, who's this Rick Barker guy? I'm like Google bitch. You know, it's like, it's like that's part of my story. You know, I take zero credit for anything that Taylor did. Because Taylor ended up having to do it the same way Gary Vee can't take credit for what you did. Because he said the same thing to millions of people you chose to do it. I say the same thing to thousands of artists. She chose to do it. You know, cause I'm a firm believer.

If I'm going to take all the credit, then do I have to take all the credit for the people that didn't have success with what I taught? Right. Can't be picking and choosing. Absolutely. So I'm just like, hey, I gave some people some information. They did something with it.

Congratulations to them. If you'd like me to give you that same information, awesome. But I can't guarantee anyone anything. It just doesn't work that way. And everybody wants guarantees and trust me, if anybody's guaranteeing you anything, run. You're not legit. It's a red flag for me when someone asks,

what can you guarantee? I can guarantee that I'll do the best I can to provide you the content that you need. You know what I mean? That's all I can guarantee. I can only guarantee me showing up, me doing the work. It's like I have this thing called office hours and every Monday, three o'clock,

artists that are in my community come and ask me questions specific to their business. It's like me being a virtual manager for thousands of people without having to physically take on their day-to-day responsibilities because the manager couldn't do it. So they ask a question, they're like, so what am I going to get when I become part of your program? I say, you're going to get me showing up. When I say I'm going to show up, I will get you the answer to your question either from my own Rolodex or I will help you find the problem and find the answer because my job wants to teach you to fish.

I don't want to fish for you, but if I can't get you the answer, I will get you to the answer. Absolutely. That's my only promise that I can promise someone. I can't determine who's gonna like your music. I can't determine which part of the algorithm that is gonna release it to the right person or whatever the case. I can't control any of that. The only thing I can control is me showing up and being present at that moment, you know, at that time. Boom.

Rick, closing thoughts and where can people learn from you and get in touch with you? Just hit me up on Instagram at Rick Barker Music, head on over to my website, you know, if you want to grab a free copy of my book or anything like that. And if, you know, you feel that you might want to spend an hour with me to learn something, there's ways we can do that as well. But you know, first off just thank you for allowing me the opportunity to just share me, you know, my whole goal in life is to encourage people to seek the answers.

You know, it's like, there's no, you can get it today. There's no shortage of it. And yeah, DM me on Instagram. to seek the answers, you know? It's like, you can get it today. There's no shortage of it. And yeah, DM me on Instagram. Let me know that you found me here on Sean's podcast and you know, let's pop it up. You got your own shoes too? Yes sir, custom shoes baby.

Yes! Got a brand, everything. Got the mic flags, got the back on. No, you're doing it right. Yeah, if you don't mind me asking, how old are you? 27. God, I wish. That's how I feel about like 18 year olds. Yeah, you, no, you're doing it right. Yeah. Yeah, if you don't mind me asking, how old are you? 27. God, I wish. That's how I feel about like 18 year olds.

Yeah, I'm 57. You got young energy. Well, what it is is that, like I said, I've been sober for a long time. I just, I'm passionate about people and I see you're also passionate about people. And it's like, you found a way to provide for yourself, but in a way that helps other people and When you lead with a servants mentality, you will always win

Mm-hmm And that's what you're doing by allowing people like myself to be a guest on your podcast You know by allowing us to to share our stories, you know, my story is I didn't graduate high school I didn't go to college, you know, not by choice. I got addicted to drugs at a young age and fortunate it got sober. And one thing led me to another. And I tell people that, I'm like,

look, your past does not define your future. I went from being homeless on the streets, addicted to crack cocaine, to launching one of the biggest stars in the world. So save your excuses for somebody else, you know? But I also tell people that, as I say, I share that for two reasons. One is that don't give up on somebody

who may be struggling with an addiction. And number two is don't use that as an excuse because no one has ever asked me for a resume. No one has ever asked me where I went to college. No one has ever asked me for a resume. No one has ever asked me where I went to college. No one has ever asked me anything like that. They said, I saw you were able to do this for this person. Can you do it for me? Show up every day, kick ass,

and people will notice what's going on and the right opportunities will come your way. I love that. We'll let it there, man. That was so powerful. Perfect, brother. I appreciate it, man. I appreciate you coming on. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. Thanks for watching,. Yeah, thanks for having me. Absolutely, thanks for watching guys.

See you next time.