Switched on Pop - How to DIY a Music Career (with Amelia Meath and David Gray at SXSW)

Episode Date: March 15, 2024

In a landscape where the music industry seems designed to stifle creativity and independence, Amelia Meath stands as a beacon of resistance. Through her involvement in bands like Sylvan Esso, Mountain Man, and The A's, and as a founder of label Psychic Hotline, Meath defies the narratives that label success in music. This conversation dives into the systemic challenges musicians face today—from the pitfalls of streaming economics to the trials of touring and beyond. Yet, it's not just about the hurdles; it's a conversation on solutions, embodied by Meath's multifaceted career and the inspirational journey of David Gray, whose story of grassroots success with "Babylon" serves as a case study in artistic resilience and independence. Sign up for the Switched On Pop Newsletter Songs Discussed David Gray - Babylon, Shine, What Have I Become, Skellig Sylvan Esso - Coffee, Die Young Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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It's free for iOS users. Hey, it's Charlie. Last week, I was at South by Southwest, where I spoke live on stage with Amelia Meath. You've heard her on the show before with her band Sylvan Esso alongside Nick Sanborn. She's also been a guest producer on SwitchDumpop where she interviewed Jeff Tweety, Maggie Rogers,

Barty Strange, and Katie Gavin of Moena about the act of releasing records. I wanted to speak with Amelia again because there's a predominant narrative that everything in music is impossible for musicians today, and I think Amelia's career suggests otherwise. She's an example of how musicians can build their music as a business. It's not to say that there aren't enormous barriers. There are, and we talk about them. I think Amelia is uniquely poised to offer wisdom about

navigating these murky musical waters as a label owner of Psychic Hotline, as a studio owner of Bettys in North Carolina, and as an all-around entrepreneur who's made her own way across multiple musical groups, Silvanesso, Mountain Mem, and the A's. Not only does she offer her experience, but also in the second half of the show, we explore a case study of another artist who has paved a wholly, original,

and largely independent career, David Gray and his modern, classic Babylon. All right, here's the show. Welcome to Switch Don Pop. I'm songwriter Charlie Harding. I'm Amelia Meath, also a songwriter. Okay, so I want to start with some big headlines. These are from the past couple of years.

New York Times says that musicians say streaming doesn't pay. Can the industry change? Stereoogam says, why are musicians expected to be miserable on tour just to break even? The Guardian, the music industry's over-reliance on TikTok shows how lazy it has become. So clearly there's a lot of issues facing artists today, particularly independent musicians. Many of these forces are, of course, way bigger than any one person. But I want to see how you've tackled some of these issues. like streaming and recording and touring and the issue of monopolistic platforms who suddenly take down all of your music

Let's start with streaming and really ownership of music. Why did you want to own a label and start Psychic Hotline? Does it enable you to do things differently than being on another label? So one of the reasons why we started Psychic Hotline was very practical in that we got the masters back to our first record and didn't want to to give it to another label. So we were like, we're gonna keep this and figure out how to distribute it ourselves. So you had a deal that at some point the recordings reverted back to you. Indeed, yeah.

Also, we wanted to figure out a way in general to bring the music that we loved into the world in a way that a lot of the stuff that I like I find just doesn't really see the light of day or isn't talked about in a way that I think that it should be in order to get other people to love it. And so when we started talking about psychic hotline,

we started talking about how do we create an environment where the artist is understood and where we can truly listen to them, consider what they're saying, and try to give the gift of the music that they make to the world in a way that doesn't feel like you're waving a little tiny flag and then putting it away immediately.

Okay, so there's a practical reason. You get to own your recordings, which I feel like the public is well aware through the guidance of Taylor Swift on the importance of owning one's recordings. Indeed. It's nice that you don't have to go back and re-record all of them

in order to have ownership of your music. It's true. Yeah. And then there's also the creative side. Yes. Are there other advantages that you find? If something goes wrong, it was definitely us that did it. What's gone wrong?

So much, all the time. When you sign on with a label, you meet 20 really nice humans one time, and then they sort of disappear in the engine. to the ether and you're trying to make a music video and you're talking to like seven different people who you kind of remember from that one weird time

that you saw them. And we wanted to create an environment where it's always the same people. You always know who you're working with. And if there's a problem, you can get them on the phone. There's a real place-basedness to your work. You're in North Carolina. You have also started,

I don't know what the relationship between the music studio and the label is, but it seems like you have created a real destination for people. Why did you decide to make a studio you called Bettys? Indeed. It's named after my partner's grandmother. Oh, that's so sweet. Yeah, Betty.

That's really wonderful. But you're pretty far away from the major music hubs of New York, Nashville, Atlanta, Los Angeles. Why is that up there? And what does it do in creating that? Because it doesn't a group of people that you spoke about. I decided to move there for six months to finish the first Sylvan-Elso record. And then that took off and we just went on tour forever. And so all of a sudden, three years later, we were like,

oh, we live in Durham, North Carolina. And then we needed a studio practically because we kept on, at first, we would only work in our house and working in your house is hard because then you never stop. So we rented like buildings and would build like makeshift studios in them and that would only last for as long as the least did. And finally we had made enough money. and we realized that we could actually build the dream studio that we wanted to make.

So it's the practical side on your end, again, as the band owning parts of these assets, means you can record infinitely and you don't have to pay studio time. That's nice. Indeed. But what about you also said, you know, as a label, you want to have a sort of consistent set of people in a place? What does it do for other people who come to your space? What makes it different than working in the other sort of standard studio spaces? Bettys? Yeah.

I designed it so that it's really bright inside. Could you describe the typical music studio? Oh, usually it feels like a little bat cave. And there's someone in there who's already mad. There's a lot of red velvet. There's a lot of red velvet. I don't know why red velvet is the... It's bachelor energy, dog.

Like, it's just like one little guy who lives in there who's made all the decisions. Studios are all just like man caves. The data supports at Annaburg Institute shows that, I think, 96% of producers, I believe. It's high 90s. It's true. Are men, so...

Yeah, that's just the people who say, their producers, though. Yeah. I've called myself a music producer before, so I understand. I know me too. Okay, so you have a bright space. Oh, yeah, so it's a bright space. It's run by wonderful people.

It seems like there's something special that people are willing to, you know, hop on a plane to North Carolina rather than, you know, if you go to L.A., you can do a dozen sessions in different places. There's a recording studio in every block there. The thing that we wanted to make was a place that comes with, you know, there's a woods that you can walk in, and there's a nice person. there named Anna who will make you delicious food

and it's made by artists. So usually when you go into a studio, at least for me, the first times I did when I had bought the time, the clock starts and you're immediately thinking about every minute like dollars and cents and I wanted to figure out a way to just get rid of that

to make a space that's on a sliding scale that welcomes days where you just can't you don't want to make music. So you can go for a like in the woods with your friends. or like hang out in your room and read a book that's on the shelf or make a paella. You've attracted a lot of people to make this like their own cultural hub. People have literally moved to be closer to this creative community that you're building.

It's true. It's really nice. It's working. How about when you're not home? Another part of the story of music right now is that touring is just not working. That you're expected to be miserable just to break even. What are some of the things that you've learned having control of your artist's career that make it work for you all in the specifics of like how can it work

in all the forces that are trying to make it challenging? I don't know if it can work in that like the forces that are trying to make it challenging is capitalism. So I don't know. Is anyone happy right now? I'm happy to be here. I'm happy to be here.

We have to choose joy. But in general, I know. But you know, but you know, The horrors are real. Okay, so what are the barriers that get in your way? Like, what are the things that you have to confront when you're out there, that you're just like, oh, this is bugging me? What are the general hardships of tour?

What are the things that make it really hard? Yeah. I was lucky. From the business perspective, specifically. I mean, I understand that, you know, physically it can be very challenging. Yeah. I was lucky enough to begin touring before I needed to take care of my body or brain because I was 20 years old.

Some people need to take care of their brains from the moment they were born. I could just skibble off into the world and do whatever I wanted to do and had the stamina to continue doing it. So I love touring and I love the hardship of touring. It's where I feel most comfortable. In terms of the business standpoint of touring, it's very hard. You have to think about trucking and lighting and how you're going to pay everybody a living wage to do this weird job where they hand you a microphone and make sure this sounds good in your ears. or you have to make sure that all the t-shirts cost the right amount,

but not too much because then people will get upset. You need to figure out how much to charge for a ticket, even though you don't ever want to charge $60 for a two-hour experience. But if you're going to have these lights or something like that, you must. Right. So it's the balancing of all of those things to try to create your artistic vision as well as something that's hopefully profitable. One of my understanding is that every person in the chain, capitalism, is trying to take more and more of a cut, right?

There's a lot of frustration over the amount of merch cut that Live Nation takes, for example, right? And people saying, I'm not even making a penny off of this merch after all these cuts. So where are the things in the chain that you choose to own versus the things you're willing to hand off to other people and the burden of having to, you know, have this laundry list of things that you have to manage on top of making the music? At this point, I've pretty much handed off everything to, others, but I have direct relationships with all the people who manage those things. For example, we have a

merch manager who talks to the venue. Also, the booking agent negotiates the rate for the merch before the show, and then your merch manager enacts that and makes sure that all that happens. You're building a team of people that are in your ecosystem, which is different than being like

I have an agreement with some other entity that I don't really know. Yeah. I try to touch every aspect of the thing that we do. Usually I don't have the bandwidth to do it in the way that I would like to. How do you build that culture of trust that you described like on a music video shoot? People assemble, disassemble, you never know anyone. What do you do to build that culture of trust on tour so that it actually all works and people follow through and do their things?

You just have to hire the people that feel good and that make you feel like they understand who you are and what you're trying to do, which involves a lot of trust on my side too, you know? Okay, how about on the side that we have no control over, the monopolistic platform is that are deciding when and when we cannot post music. Oh. We have very little agency over this. Indeed. What do you do to cultivate audience outside of these worlds? It feels like, you know, the headline is basically like everybody is basically said,

do TikTok only. It's the only way you can market yourself. That is an absolutely an important outlet for sure. What do you do to think about actively cultivating your audience and nurturing them? I try to have a direct connection with the people who like my music, which is usually formed during live performances. Social media helps with that some, but honestly, I've never really found a way to authentically be in that

without wanting to leave my physical body, never to return again. Thank you for being honest about that. I feel the same. If you're lucky enough to have fans, there's an amazing thing that can occur where, like, an aura board, of energy starts happening where you feel as if you're supporting each other. And if you invest in that, because it's really one of the only things in this industry that feels real, if you invest in that and believe in it and tell the people who are listening to you that you believe in it,

there's a pretty magical and amazing thing that can happen where you get to live in the real world together. Well, who do you observe who you think is particularly good at that? Sometimes it's hard to look at ourselves and say, I feel pretty good about how I'm nurturing this audience and people that love my music. Are there people that you look up to? Oh, yeah. Oh, boy, the nerds are going to love this.

The band that we turn to the most when we're questioning what we're doing is usually fish. Because they have been around forever. They essentially invented the wheel of making festivals and touring forever. They are one of the top touring acts by ticket sales and revenue every single year. Exactly.

And they are completely outside of any sort of mainstream music. I'm sure they have some streaming numbers, but people probably listen to more of their music on Fish's own streaming service or other streaming services that cater to live music. Oh, absolutely. So they're their own ecosystem. They are.

Okay, so Case Study and Fish, what are the things they do remarkably well? What are some things that you have observed? We've got to do some of that. They do so many incredible things. I think the thing that they do that's the most inspiring to me is that they see what their fans

are asking for and then they actually invest in that. For example, Live Fish, which is like an app that they have where they play a show, they upload that show immediately to Live Fish. One, so that people can watch the show in real time if they have subscribed, so like you can

just follow a tour from your living room if you want. But they also were responding to the fact that when people were coming to their shows in the 90s and taping them, instead of being like, don't do that, they like made a tapers section

that you could be in if you wanted to tape the show. Following the taping culture of the Grateful Dead that was developed and they allowed it as well. Yeah, but like if that had started happening, like my reaction to that would have been like, no, you don't get to do that.

Yeah. Yeah, but instead they were like, oh, yes, of course, you like doing this thing. Right. There is agency amongst the fans and how they engage with the music. They kind of deliver to them how they want to. I mean, now you no longer have to wait for a tape in the mail via a cassette.

You could log in the next day. It's true. Though the tape is so romantic. They should do that again. People would love that. Is there anything else in their ecosystem that you think they do particularly well? They've kind of like bumped out their entire touring world where like I think they started like a catering company that they bring with them.

They bring people to like outfit their backstage. They're basically a true traveling circus. in a different way than most other touring bands are. They bring like a little township everywhere they go, which is really inspiring. So they have their own merch, the company, I believe. They do all that stuff.

So, yeah, very few people are getting as much of a cut in the process. Indeed. Right. I was recently invited with a press ticket to go see one of their live shows, and I had not seen, I had to seen them maybe 15 years before. And you went to a very special show.

I went to a very special show. I don't know if everyone, we're getting into a very niche, conversation now, but they did a famous New Year's set at Madison Square Garden. And I had just gotten in that evening from the holidays. I was like I'll show up. That sounds interesting. And it felt like I was in a certain way rejoining a cult that I had left 15 years prior. I've never seen an audience so engaged in every song choice. Do you think about that? One of the things that happens in the sort of, the thing that the jam scene had figured out really well is the spontaneity of the set

becomes reason enough to participate on top of all the community and the culture that you get invested in. Is there any way that you bring that sort of culture into the thinking about how each show is its own thing to make it worth going to every single possible show along the tour? We don't really have enough songs.

We only have like 50 songs. You need like two more decades. You need like 200 songs. Yeah. But there is an aspect of that that seems really fun because our show is Sylvanessa's show right now is so theatrical and there are a lot of like costume change moments

and like key lighting things that I don't think I could do an improvisational set in the same way though every song is different every night because of the improvisation that Nick is doing yeah could you describe what we see when your bandmate Nick is performing it's a whole oh yeah Sandy brings like a full modular rig on tour and he recently added his favorite

favorite synth, the Juno 6. These are instruments that no normal human would understand what they're doing when you're observing them. I have programmed synthesizers and I don't know what he's doing. I know. It's so exciting. It is. Yeah. He has a beautiful math brain and he's like really good at making it musical. The instruments that he brings on tour, it is so hard to make them make the same sound over and over again night after night. And he's able to do it.

Okay, so this is reason to go see. Like, they won't be the same. No, they won't. Every night it's going to be, there's chaos in there. Yeah, he's created the patch kind of like a sandbox. So, like, the guardrails are there, but all of the musical elements of it are changing constantly. What about for you? How do you respond to that?

Oh, it's fun. I just get to respond. Yeah. So I get to improvise, too, but just physically and with my voice, which I suppose is an instrument. Yeah. And overwhelming joyous dance. It's one of my favorite things about seeing your shows. Thanks.

Yeah, a lot of great dance. In preparation for this conversation, I asked you to bring a song that you would consider a modern classic, a song which has had huge cultural importance, but maybe is under-recognized. Attention, Spotify. Has arrived on the new Good Girl Jasmine Absolute

of Carolina Herrera, a fragrance intense with character gourmet and addictivo. Imagine a jasmine emvolvente, toffee caramelized, and tonka-tosted. A combination that seduce from the first instant and he has a Wyehurtigal Jasmine Absolute,

hypnotica irresistible. Discovered La Ory and Lethate Emolver for Susentia. Which song did you bring for us? I brought David Gray's Babylon. And if you want it, come and get it crying out,

the love that I never read. I think this is a great pick because it is related to independent artists and he has an amazing career story want to talk about, but why did you want to pick David Graze, Babylon? Because the record it comes from White Ladder is just so good. And most people don't...

My booking agent threw it on in the car like seven years ago while we were driving somewhere, and every time I hear, honestly, any song from this record, but because this one was the one that was on the radio most, it brings me back in time more immediately. This was... So the album White Ladder came out in 1999, and at the... The Turnin' With the Millennium, this song sort of blanketed alternative radio, adult contemporary radio, mainstream radio, and it sounded kind of unlike anything else at the moment. Yeah, absolutely.

People don't talk about it or reference it, but like the sounds on it have seeped their way into so much of the music that's appearing right now. So much of the synth choices and the melodic structures. And I was actually looking it up and on Wikipedia it says that there's a very much. genre is folk tronica. Folkronica. Now as someone who has been in folk bands and music that includes a lot of electronic music, how do you feel about that label?

All right, well, we'll come back to this. So I spent the last two days looking really deeply into the song, and I think it really presages some of the conversation that we're having about the current music economy. It's a song that, in I think, in a certain way, prefigures your own career. Can we take into the story of the song? Please. Okay.

So background is that David, Gray. He grew up largely in rural Wales. And he was set on becoming a musician from a very early age. He goes to the same art school as John Lennon. Forms a band. Gets a demo tape out to an A&R. Used to be you have to have tapes and you get them to people who had gate kept this stuff, right? So this is in the early 90s.

And he gets a small label deal. Puts out a really lovely album called A Century Ends in 1993. I'm going to walk down the shoreline. One last time together. Feel the wind blow I wonder in the hearts like it feather. So let's shine off a century ends. And his early songs earn him huge critical praise.

The 60s songwriting legend Joan Baez called his early work. He said that he's the best lyricist since Bob Dylan. A lot to live up to. But he did not get a lot of commercial radio pickup. This is the era of grunge, mind you, not singer, songwriter folk music.

So how do you translate an artistic vision when it's artistically off trend? I called up David Gray yesterday to ask him how he did it. I just was doing my best. And all I was being told was all the things I needed to be more like Nirvana, more like Britpop, more like that, add a beat to it, do this, to get on the radio so people could find out about you. He was being pushed in lots of direction, change the sound of the music. He puts out an alt-rock-leaning album,

called Flesh in 1994. Once you sang your own song, now you're dancing to the same drum. Whatever you may come. He even gets a major label deal off of Flesh. He makes a third album called a Cell, Sell, Cell, ambitiously stating the goal, puts out in 96. And he tours all of these albums endlessly.

Literally goes knocking on radio station doors. he gets an opportunity to open for Radiohead does two tours with them the albums are not commercially viable I was soiled goods at that point I'd had three albums out the major labels were not interested and they said as much

so the labels gave up on David on his final U.S. tour it was a total bust his bus driver literally at one point abandons David and his fellow musicians under the false pretense the bus had broken down And so down in the dumps He basically has to go back home

In the late 90s Goes back home to London Build a small home recording studio With the very last of his money left over from touring To make one last go at it And one of the songs that he writes Is Babylon The verses dance around

The different hooks And the different lyric ideas In a rhyming scheme Only wish that you were here You know I'm seeing it's so clear I've been afraid The chorus lands The camera turns inward

And it's meeting to myself. I had to get it. I had to get over myself. Let go of my head and my heart at the same time. Really sweet. Yeah. After straining to meet all the genre expectations that he's being forced into,

he instead has to go without a major studio, using off-the-shelf gear, he gets a computer, a couple of synths, a sampler, some drums that are recorded with just two mics, and ends up creating this hybrid folk and electronica album, with David telling himself to just go out and get it. Like, this is my last go. And so naturally, along with the help of his manager, Rob Holden, he's going to self-release this album.

He's spoiled good, as he says. So I think we literally pressed up 3,000 copies with our own money. We had this small following, a very intense following in Ireland, from the first three records, God bless the Irish. I mean, the success in Ireland built to such levels that we had like seven or eight times platinum there. He had toured Ireland a lot, and that was where the audience was.

And so the song spends six weeks at number one in Ireland, where it eventually goes 20 times platinum, becomes the best-selling album in the country. And because he's totally independent at this point, he eventually needs more help getting the physical distribution of actual CDs out in the world, partners up with Dave Matthew's upstart label ATO as the first signee in the US selling 2.4 million records. Then Warner re-releases it in Europe selling 5 million records under a unique deal in which David, like yourself, would get his rights back at some point in the near future.

For him, creative control was very important. It was a real innocent venture. It became less innocent as we kind of suddenly caught a look of ourselves in the mirror that is, success and thought, hey, we look kind of good. You know, we've got the look this year. We're it. And then you can see there's a certain point we start to sort of believe in ourselves. It's fucking awful.

He's a lot of fun. This is a once-in-a-lifetime kind of song, right? I think it's something which is happening to people more and more and more where there's like a big blow-up moment and you have to figure out how to seize it. For David, it's a big deal. he gets nominated for Best New Artist at the Grammys on this very grassroots self-made album. But he was insistent on building it in his own way

and skeptical of promises of the big labels, which means he basically had to run the business. There's a lot of burden of responsibility and decision-making, and I've got to pay wages and shit like that. You've got to make all these decisions, and there's a reason why the music business works in the way that it does, which is that, look, here's the Rolls-Royce, here's the big hotel suite, all the champagne you can drink,

and here's a load of money to put in the bank. It's like, don't let, don't you don't worry about all the other stuff, we'll take care of that. So he makes the deliberate choice to not take the pretty cars and the hotels and the endless champagne and instead takes a note from his friend Dave Matthews to build a lasting artist's career by owning his own work and doing the hard work of building out the audience, something he believes can still work today for artists.

The ATO model, and Dave, Matthew's model was basically work it, tour it, play it. It was intense. It was backbreaking work. We went round and round and round and round and round and round and round. That was absolutely mad. So yeah, I believe there's still a long game to be played. He's built a very great enterprise running for more than two decades. He's got a great touring career still releasing music through his own label. His latest album is Skellig. It's really gorgeous. I highly recommend checking it out. I feel like David in this way sort of presage the music economy by building his own studio, self-releasing his own music, nurturing his audience in a way that contemporary artists like yourself have done, and pioneering a blend of minimalist folk and electronic music, folkotronica, if you will, a sound that he really admires in your own work. I love the silver essay discipline of less is more always. I love the minimalism and the leaning on the voice.

and then throwing electronica into the mix. Wild winter, warm coffee, do he love me? And on a track like coffee, they've got all these beautiful sounds, but if you bring big electronic sounds in or drum beats, and it just sounds massive. So it turns out you have a fan in England. Maybe a collab in the future. So I think this is a thing that a lot of artists are going through today

is they might have their moment that blows up on TikTok before TikTok takes their music down because whatever licensing arrangements exist in the background and then they've got to do something with it and I think he is a great case study in a time where it wasn't necessarily perceived that there's something you could pull off. You had to have physical distribution and he did it and he made this whole sound that I think in many ways invites

the unique blending of music that you all create. How do you feel about David? Oh my gosh. He's just so cool. the way that he reacted to having such a giant hit at that time and still kept a cool head. Also, that I was aware that he had some records from before. Yeah. But I didn't know it was his fourth record, which makes so much sense.

Also, to learn that Babylon is to himself, I always felt that that was true, but it was really nice to hear him say it. Most people just think it's like a classic love song, which he's so good at writing a love song. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the fact that it was a love song to himself is really nice. Is it really sweet? Do you write to yourself?

Oh, yeah, all the time. In the voice of someone else? Yeah, or like, the other guy, the other me. Yeah, totally. Where have we heard that before? Oh, boy. Like in all of them, probably. Like die young, probably.

Coffee, maybe. Probably all the new stuff. I'm talking to myself a lot more now. Can we listen to one of those real quick? Sure. What were you saying in a fire or crash all for a really. How tragic so early. I was going to die.

What were you saying to yourself? Oh. You know. I'm sorry. And that one in general, like, it's also definitely a love song, but I think I was talking about the realization that perhaps I would stick around because I was enjoying myself.

I'm really happy you're here. Me too. It also speaks a bit to what you were saying earlier about the being on tour and your capacity at that point at the early age of just not paying attention to health. And what about anything else off of your last record? No real Sandy. Are you speaking to yourself? Oh my gosh.

In so many. I haven't looked at what the songs are called anymore. Oh, how did you know? That's totally me talking to myself. Even begging with me all the time under my towel. Have I seen? How did you know? Because up on stage we experience an extreme slap delay echo.

I can't quite capture the words. Could you share the words of this? Oh, I was talking about figuring out how to take care of yourself. Kind of the same thing that you were just talking about, of like, looking back and being like, oh, I did a good job of taking care of the small version of me and now here I am. My understanding is right now you're taking, you have slowed down your work a little bit to give yourself a break. You've toured sort of relentlessly for three tours in a row.

It's true. What are the things that you need to do as an artist so that you can recharge and be back out there? I don't know. I'm trying to, that's like part of my new project right now is trying to figure it out. Usually I go towards some old school crafts. Right now I'm making a quilt. That's wonderful. It's really fun.

I've never done it before. It's hard. Doing a lot of cooking. Trying not to put too much pressure on making anything right away. Because usually when I come off tour, the stimulus of tourists, there's just so much coming at you all the time that when I come home and the pace of life slows down, I get like real itchy and kind of freaked.

And that is usually solved by immediately trying to make something. So I'm trying to just sit. in the not making. And instead I make soup. It makes soup. Yeah. It works. That's wonderful.

Can I tell you one of the things I've found about in looking up other people who have big business empires and music outside of what you'd expect? Kiss has sold a half billion dollars of merch. Oh. I'm not surprised. They get all that hot topic money. They got the hot topic money. It's blanketed everywhere.

That's right. Can we all say thank you to Amelia Meath for joining us live on Switch, Don't Pop at South by Southwest. Switched on Pop is produced by Rihanna Cruz, edited by Art Chung. This week, we're engineered by Bill Lance, illustrations by Iris Gottlieb, community management by Abby Barr, Nishak Kerwa is our executive producer, a member of the Vox Media Podcast Network, and a production of Vulture, which is part of New York Magazine. You can subscribe to New York Magazine at nymag.com slash pod.

You can find more episodes at Switchdown Pop.com, all the social media platforms at Switchedon Pop, and you can get more insights on our episodes and our newsletter, which you can find on our website or in our show notes. We'll be back again on Tuesday, and until then, thanks for listening.