The Bobby Bones Show - BONUS: BobbyCast - #188 - Mike Dungan - Chairman/CEO of Universal Music Group Nashville: How Stapleton met Timberlake, Discovering Luke Bryan and Breaking Rick Springfield

Episode Date: August 7, 2019

This is an episode of The BobbyCast -- The podcast Bobby does from his house. We thought you might enjoy this episode. Check out more by subscribing to the BobbyCast.Mike Dungan is the Chairman/CEO of Universal Music Group Nashville which has artist from Luke Bryan, Keith Urban, Sam Hunt, Carrie Underwood, Darius Rucker and more. He talks about discovering Luke Bryan and having to tell him he didn’t have a good enough song for a single on his album. He also talks about seeing Darius Rucker play with Hootie and the Blowfish and being the first one to think he should do a country record and then getting him to. He also talks about breaking Rick Springfield “Jessie’s Girl” and when to expect new music from Sam Hunt.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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It feels good to Geico. Hey, we're going to play you an episode of the Bobbycast here. If you listen to the show on podcast, I think you'll like the interview podcast that I do. and this one is by someone who's not really that famous unless you're way in the music world, but I felt it was so interesting. I wanted to put it in front of you. His name's Mike Dungan. He basically runs a record label, and he talks about that, what he does and how he discovered Luke Bryan, and I just want you to listen to this, and if you like this, I think you'll love the Bobbycast.

So, you know, obviously you're here, and you're hopefully a fan of the show if you're here to listen to the Bobby Bone Show, but check out the Bobbycast, a show I do from my house. Here is Mike Dungan, and then tweet me or send me a message on Instagram, and let me know if you liked it. All right, cool. Here it is. A bonus episode of the Bobbycast. You sound great. I would get that a little closer though. Yeah, right up there. All right. Episode 188 with Mike Dungan, who is, and I say this in a loving way, because Forbes did this article about me a while ago, and they were like, the most powerful guy in country music. I am not. And I've often said they were wrong about that, that I think you are the most

powerful guy in country music. I think the reason they would say that about me is because I'm just out there, like my face is out there. But you're the guy that's calling all the shots. making all the careers. Yeah. So here's your chairman's CEO of Universal Music Group, and I kind of divided it up a bit. MCA Mercury Capital, EMI, Show Dog, those are kind of the subs underneath the massive umbrella. Showdog is no longer. It's no longer.

No, no, I had a little arrangement with Toby. Yeah. Mainly just because I liked him. Get a little closer up there on there. There you go. Mainly just because I liked him. So Show Dog, no more. No.

He's doing that on his own, and that's fine. I'm looking at the artist's roster. I just have so much talk about. I was talking to Rod Phillips, who is the head of IHeart Country today, and he's like, Duncan has the greatest stories. He's like, have him tell you the Sinatra story. I can't tell you that one. Most of my stories, I can't tell.

I don't even know what the Sinatra story is. Okay, it's probably the proudest moment of my life, funniest moment in my life. I am all of 20. I've had the hair down to here. You can't see. Like down your nipples almost. I'm down to my nipples.

I have a big beard. I look like I'm in the Grateful Dead. And I was going to college and I was working in a record store. And I was a buyer for a couple of major lines. And really just a kid. And all of my friends were into, I don't know what, roxy music, you know, all this. And I was too.

But I loved cinema. And I especially love the Sinatra, Count Basie combination. And I would talk about it and play it all the time. And my friends would just roll their eyes. So Sinatra comes out of retirement and goes on the road. So he's coming to my hometown, Cincinnati, Ohio. So I use whatever leverage I have as a 20-year-old, you know, part-time buyer, and I get the best tickets I can for Sinatra.

And no one wants to go with me. So I dragged this guy. I dragged this guy that works with me, and he looks pretty much like I do. And we're sitting, like, in the fifth row, and it's in the round. And to show you how good the seats were, like Johnny Bench was, like, 15 rows behind me. Ken Griffey was 15 rows behind me. I was just primed. He comes out, you know, it's the big orchestra, Nelson Riddle, I think.

And it's, you know, da-da-da-da-da-da. He comes out, he rips through four songs. Oh, so right before the show starts, there's one empty seat next to me. And this little bald guy comes in, he says, he sits down and he looks at me, smile, says, how you doing? I said, great. He goes, it's going to be a good show. I said, yeah, I can't wait. So Sinatra comes out, he goes right in to come fly with me.

He rips through like three more songs, and then he starts to talk. And then he says, ladies and gentlemen, I am so honored. We have in the crowd tonight, one of America's greatest tunesmiths, a man who can take a word and change it into a lyric landscape that will melt your heart. Ladies and gentlemen, one of the all-time great songwriters, Mr. Sammy Khan. And the spotlight hits the man next to me. He's a little tiny guy. That was the guy.

Yeah, he's a little old man. He hits it, and Sammy stands up, and he turns around, and he takes a bow. And Sinatra says, Sammy, I am so honest. I'm so honored that you're here. I cannot believe that you're here. I don't know why you came to Cincinnati, Ohio, of all places, but I'm so honored that you're here. And I loved you so much that I wanted to make sure

you got a seat right next to Jesus. Which was you with your long hair. Yeah, it was me. And you had to be like, holy crap, I'm being kind of acknowledged by Frank Sinatra. The chairman of the board. So what does CEO of a record label, like what do you do?

Because I just picture, like Saturday in LA of Lauren Michaels, he'll go and watch comedian and sit back in the back before even an audition and you'll just know that he's there. Yeah. And he's like, it's dark. And you're like, oh, crap. Lorne Michaels is here. It's like a big moment, but also, you know, he doesn't smile or laugh.

He just, watch what I picture you doing. Like going into some of these places in the dark and just kind of watching these acts and they know you're there. Yeah. You know, I used to do that. That used to be how this business worked and I loved it. I loved that you could kind of come in anonymously and you could come two, three times before anybody figured out that you were had any part in you know signing someone to a major label but it's that the business has just gotten so crazy now and these young kids that work for these publishers in

particular they're on it and if anybody pulls out a guitar they're like running around behind them so there's no secrets there's showcases and you know it's all much more formal now but i used to you know i mean my story about signing luke brian was a pretty good one because i went four times by myself and sat in the back before I pulled the trigger on that, you know, for a lot of reasons. You know, and Carrie Edwards was here. Carrie Edwards was my intern. Yeah, and she was, and she's what led me to go, I just want to talk to Mike, too, because Carrie was here, and Carrie and I worked into American Idol with Luke together.

And she was like, man, have you had Mike on? I was like, I haven't. Like, I see Mike sometimes. Yeah. But she talked. And so you tell your version of the Luke story, going to see in Luke four times, as you say, before you. Carrie was a student going to Lipscomb and she interned for me and for us at Arista Records. I came into town in 1990 to be the head of marketing. I was on the pop side

working for Clive Davis and I came down here because I completely fell in love with Tim Dubois and I loved what he was doing. I didn't consider myself a country guy but I loved just the way Tim Dubois carried himself and Carrie was an intern. Then she went away. I think he was a think that she came back was an intern in another department. And when she interned for me, I thought her name was Julie. And I called her Julie every morning. I'd come in, she'd already be there. And I'd smile and say, morning, Julie.

And she'd just look at me and say, good morning. And finally six weeks later, she says, you know, my name's Carrie. And I said, no, it's not. She said, yeah, it's Carrie. I said, why would you not correct me? She said, I was terrified. Anyway, so she comes back. We give her a job as a coordinator in the A&R department.

And you know how that goes. You know, you're kind of doing everybody's expenses and you're taking care of the business in the A&R department. But before you know it, that kids also listen in the songs. And then they're going to showcases. And then it's like having the morning zoo on radio. You know, it just keeps building and building and building. Well, that's what happened with Carrie.

Then we had an unpleasant end to all that Aresta Records thing when the corporation decided that Clive Davis was too old and was going to push him out. So we all got pushed out and it was folded up into RCA. So Carrie goes away. She has a couple of kids. She came back and she was working part-time at a publishing company. That didn't really work out too well. And then she had another kit.

And then she came back and she called me one day and she said, I think I got one. And I said, what do you mean? She said, when I was at the publishing company, there was a guy there and I watched him develop and I think he's an artist. And would you come see him? And I said, anything for you. So I went to this place called The Trap, which was owned by Irv Woolsey, who's still George Strait's manager. And has winners losers?

Has winners losers and a whole bunch of other places. And I watched a guy who was incredibly undisciplined whose songs were okay. The band was sloppy. He was turning his back to the audience. He was having fun with the band more than with the audience. but you know and it was nothing professional but there was something there was something I couldn't take my eyes off of and it was that it was that star thing that you can't define

and you know it was like you were seeing Elvis in the early stages so I kept going back and I went he played every Thursday and I went every Thursday night did he know you were there yeah okay yeah because of Carrie and in typical Luke style I think he was unaffected by it didn't cause him to get his game together and he was just as sloppy and just as unpolished and unprofessional as he was you know the first time and then the fourth time i took a and r back and i explained to them what i

saw and they said yeah i feel the same way and then it wasn't we months went by and i was really depressed at this point i you know i'm running capital records and we hadn't found anyone worthy of signing for a long long time and I was just depressed and I was laying on the floor in the A and our department throwing a tennis ball up in the air bitching about life in general and I sat up and I said here's what we're gonna do we're gonna find that guy Luke Brian we're gonna bring him in here we're gonna tell him we want to sign and we're gonna give him the money right now but he's gotta understand that you know we're he's not ready and this he's gonna have to work on this and he came in

he started crying and all everyone started crying and Tears of joy. Tears of joy. Got it. And, you know, of course, he made a record too fast, and it wasn't. I still say we kind of survived that first record. Had a couple of hits on it. Did you tell him, you didn't think he had a single?

Yeah. So you hear the batch of music and you go, I don't know that the song is here. Oh, I had a couple of those conversations. You can probably, if Carrie told you this, it was probably the infamous second album when that came up, because we had accomplished just enough on the first album, which was driven 100% by his personality. You know, everywhere he went, people loved him.

And radio people were saying, oh, my God, I love this guy. He's so awesome. I just wish you had a song. You don't. But, you know, we pieced it together here and there. And we, you know, we sold just enough to keep going. Then we hit the second one.

At this point, Luke had a lot more confidence under him. And he came to me with six songs and said, I've got it. and let's just figure out what the first one is and we'll put it out and then we'll finish the album later. Well, I listened to it and he didn't have it. That's the worst conversation you can have. And I've had it with pretty much every star artist I have. You know, legendary stories where they hated me for weeks and weeks at the time.

And then something happens and it all gets put back together. But in this case, Carrie was upset with me. Luke was upset with me. Jeff Stevens, who was producing, was upset. They called me back about two or three weeks later and said, can we meet and talk about this again, but we don't want to come in your office. That's how bad it was. So we go to Jeff Stevens' office, and they had remixed these six songs. And I said, guys, it's not the mixes.

It's the songs. They're just, they're not great, and I'm sorry. So Luke's getting angrier by the minute. Carrie won't look at me. And I said, what else do you have? And so they started pulling out discs, and there'd be two songs on each disc, and there was really nothing there. And at one point, we must have listened to 30 different songs,

and there was just nothing there. And I was thinking, oh, gosh, this is going away. You know, I had such great hopes for this young man, and this is going away. The first, what we accomplished on the first go-round was it. We peaked. And I said, and then I said, what else you got? And Luke, real angry, says, man, I got nothing. I just got some scratch vocals on my laptop.

I got nothing. I said, bring it out, let's listen. So we listened, and there were like three or four that were nothing. And then he plays a song called, and this is a scratch vocal, it's just him in a guitar. It's called Brain is a Good Thing. And I looked at him, and at this point,

everyone was staring at the ground. They didn't want to deal with this conversation at all. And I said, guys, what's wrong with this? And Luke turns to me surprised and kind of angry. and kind of angry. And he says, you like this? And I said,

well, I wouldn't want to make a career out of this, but I'm telling you, this can make big dent in things for you. This could really get you in a good space.

Trust me. I don't know. I don't know. And Carrie started to do the, yeah, well, I always liked it, but Luke didn't like it.

So I just said, look, let's just cut it. And if you hate it, we won't put it out. But please, just cut it. I think there's something here. Well, a great thing.

And that was that a couple of weeks later he hooked up with Dave and Charles from Lady Anabellum, and they wrote, Do I? Which was one of the great, great songs. So we put out Do I? It was a massive song. And then we came back with Rain is a good thing, which I believe was a four-week number one, by the way. And, you know, to this day when I see him, when he opens with that guitar part, that thing, I kind of roll my eyes because it's so huge. cheesy and you know i had a hand in this cheese but man it made a big difference for him and it made for all of us what a great story and you went through that many songs yeah probably 30 that day that's hard that's hard when you're feeling nothing i've been through that with several you ever you ever wrong and go this isn't one and they go yeah i'm like and they go no we really and you get like okay you you can hang yourself like you can die on this hill if you want and then they

end up being they were right? Has that happened to you? Not that directly. There have been songs that, you know, you'll get into like your third single choice and I want something. Yeah. And the band wants something else. I want to talk about Stableton for a second. Okay.

Because with Chris, I was getting into some trouble back in the early days because before Traveler came out, I would have Chris on and he'd come on and play. And he'd mostly would come on and play the songs he'd written for other people. Yeah. And some of the, the, you know, the, the, you'd come on and the, you'd come on. the high ups at the company at the time who aren't there anymore they would say i don't know we don't know what this guy's not researching he's not testing yeah and i would say yeah but like i can tell like i i think i have probably not as good as you but i have a talent of of knowing what people like

sometimes before they like it and i miss some but for the most part i do pretty good at that game and i'm like man there's just something about this guy and they're like i you know maybe you shouldn't have them on that fourth time and thank god the cmsa's happened oh my god we're just and timberlake changed everything never seen something change in a night before like that did with the staple, like the whole Stapleton project and brand and artist. What was that like for you? Well, I saw it in dollars because digital downloads of tracks were still kind of a big thing. They're less of a thing now, but I had my phone and I had the app for the iTunes store. And I'm watching Click, click, click, click, one purchase after another, and then they're rolling just out of control.

And we went from, I'd say, $900,000 in the hole to in the black before he finished the song. That quick. That quick. Unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable. And so when that was, did Robert Dean pitch that idea of Stapleton Timberlake? No. Did you guys go after, like what was that? How did that come together?

Do you know about the Timberlake thing? It's such an odd story. I don't know if this is interesting or not. I think it is. I think it is. Okay. All right. First of all, I had tried to sign Stapleton at Capital in 2007, something like that.

And I ended up chasing him really hard. And I couldn't figure out why. And then he was sending all the signals that he was a problem child. So I walked away and didn't do it. And it turns out that he was. He told me later that he didn't want to be an artist. When we offered him the gig, he panicked. First, his ego went off the chart, and then he panicked.

He didn't want to be an artist. So he was doing everything he could to sink the deal. So, right before I came to Universal, Brian Wright signed him at Universal. So I sit down with Chris and he said, listen, I'm worried that you don't like me because I put you through a lot. I said, you know, I'd like an explanation for what you did. And he told me, he said, I didn't want to be an artist. And I said, we did a pretty good job syncing that one. I said, but I liked you before.

I wouldn't make you the offer before. So let's just get to business and do it. Well, he had a whole bunch of songs that he had put together that he brought to play for me. And again, I didn't hear anything. Now, it wasn't that they weren't good. It was that they were in two the best way I can describe it is three-core rock and roll songs from the Mitch Rider era.

They didn't have the lyric integrity that I was used to from Chris. They didn't have the structure that I was used to from Chris. And I said, what are you doing here? Where are all the great songs that you've written for everybody else? And he said, I write those for everybody else. That's not for me. This is what I am. I said, I'm not telling you this is good or bad.

I try never to use the words good or bad. I try never to use the words good or bad. It's what works in the market or it doesn't work in the market. And I said, but I don't know what to do with this. And I don't want to hurt your feelings. Well, he's thinking that I'm flashing back to when he burned me years ago. And so I'm getting even. I wasn't.

I just didn't know what to do with it. So we went round and round a little bit. And then he wrote three things that were much more in the ground. prove than anything we've ever heard from him. And it didn't really work. And I think it was because radio looked at him and said, well, he doesn't look like Luke Bryan. He doesn't look like a male model.

He doesn't look like a star, whatever that is. And, you know, we had 25 radio people that said, this is awesome. And 125 that said, really? He looks like an Allman brother. We don't, you know, it's not country music, at least not, at the time. So he comes in my office and he says, look, it's painfully obvious radio isn't going to deal with me. So just let me make the record I want to make. But I promise you, I'm not going to give you what I gave you the first time. I want to make a real country record. And I said,

okay, just do it. So he went away and did it. I would say the record's not really a country record. It's more like a Memphis Blues record than anything else, but it was great. At this point, he was still a little stunned. See how this pattern of pissing off my artist at some point. And he was looking at me as someone that he could never trust. So he delivers the record. He was dancing around me, dealing with people around me instead. And we had not quite finished copies of the traveler.

You know, they weren't polished up all the way, but it was really close. And a guy named Joe Fisher worked for us in A&R. And Joe Fisher had befriended a guy named Trace Ayala, who has been Justin Timberlake's best friend from Memphis since the third grade. And so they're hanging out in the weekend, and they're in Joe's car. And this changes from one disc to another, and on comes the Stapleton music. And Trace Ayala flips out, and he says, oh, my God, what is this? and Joe Fisher explains it to him.

And he said, you know, who would love this is Timberlake. He said, can I send this to him? And Joe calls me from the car and says, you know, would you be mad if I gave him this copy so he could send it to Justin Timberlake? And I said, well, the worst that can happen is we make a fan out of Justin Timberlake, no, give it to him. And Timberlake went crazy.

So about a month later, phone rings in the office. Joe Fisher, his office, and this woman says, you don't know me, but my name's Jessica Beal, and I'm married to Justin Timberlake, and his birthday's coming up in a month, and he has everything. So I try to give him experiences, and I wonder, we're going to have a party for like 40 of our closest friends at our place in Montana. And I wonder if this guy, Chris Stapleton, would consider coming and singing at the party. So Stapleton calls me and says, well, what do you think about? this and I said, you know, geez, it's nothing else. You can tell your kids and your grandkids that you were at this party one time and Harrison Ford was there and who knows else who was there

and, you know, they're going to fly you on their jet. So he goes out there and the story is that Justin was so enamored by him that he was borderline rude to the rest of the guests. He didn't even talk to them. He just wanted to hang with Chris. So they started this close relationship and Justin said, I want to produce you, me and Tim, Timberlake are going to take it in New York City and produce something that's more blues-oriented. Well, that never came together. But, you know, we put together a pretty good campaign to get Chris nominated for CMA, especially for our album of the year because we knew Nashville loved this record,

love this guy. And I think Robert Deaton's looking at us like, okay, I don't really know what to do with this because you don't have a hit, you know, but the guy's got four nominations. so it's almost guaranteed he's going to get on the show. What are we going to do? And Cindy Maeb, who's our president, went to Chris and said, do you think you could call Timberlake and see if he'd do this? Chris said, well, I'll try.

So he called him and he said, give me the date. And he said, I'll be there. And the rest is history. I mean, it was just, you know, from huge financial loss to a massive, massive, examination of overnight success. I have never seen anything changed like that in a single night. Me either.

Then that performance, which really he was and he is who he is, but after that it was, he was freaking Chris Stapleton. Yeah. Like that was the moment. I think the biggest moment I've seen since living in Asheville, if I had to pick a singular moment,

I think that's the biggest one I've seen. Yeah. And you know what? It was culturally a huge moment because we don't do things like this in Nashville. You know, prior to this, at the risk of now everyone's going to get mad at me, but prior to this, everything was more calculated. And it was, you know, it was put together. It was marketed pretty well.

And this was just something that happened totally organically. And I'm sure someone's going to, you know, listen to this and call you and say, I was part of one in 1967, and it was just as big. Probably right, but to my eyes and ears, it was like, okay, this changes the game. This changes everything for everyone. And, you know, the funny thing was, starting the next week, and pretty much every day for the next three months, we were auditioning mountain men in my office.

I mean, massive guys that came out of the hills of somewhere with long hair and scraggly beards and they all sang like monsters. I mean, they were so good, you know, but you know, you can't push that too hard. How do you feel about that? Because, you know, an artist will come and break through and then there are four or five similar sounding and looking artists.

Like, where is the line for you when you're running a label of who is going to be someone that has some long term to them or who's just like the viral thing or the, you know, the kind of today thing. Well, if it was just four or five, it would be tolerable. But honestly, it's more like 50, 75. I mean, I have always made my way in this business by looking for talent that is talent.

That sounds really like a product. Looking for artists that are, you know, they're square pegs. And, you know, there's square pegs that are close enough that now we do our job and we cram that square peg into a round hole. That's the most gratifying part of the job. But the problem is, everyone after that is a copy. And Keith Urban was the classic example because I didn't sign Keith Urban. He was in a band called The Ranch. And they were originally at Warner Brothers. Warner was not doing anything with it. There was a head of business affairs at Capitol that was a

big fan, convinced Scott Hendricks, who was then the head of Capitol, to take over the project for like next to no money in exchange for points and it didn't work but then another guy came in to run the company and Keith announced that he wanted to leave the band and have a solo career and this guy said okay go make a record so they made their first record and it wasn't happening uh didn't have any real success at radio the album was put out prematurely it wasn't selling anything it did not look good for this guy Keith Urban and I came in and I went to two shows that he was doing and just I had seen the ranch but I was not ready for what I saw with Keith Urban and it was like holy cow this is the gift from God this is this is the one that I'm just going to roll a dice on this guy and everything we do after

this point it's going to be built around Keith Urban and we did it and I mean it was a lot of work from a lot of people. We had to sell. So much money had been spent without any financial reward that we sold about 800,000 before we even broke even. That's crazy. But the minute he did break, everyone who came through the door was Keith Urban. They had the same little, you know, he had that rhythmic tick to him that just made him so unique. And all of a sudden, every kid in the world was cutting his hair that way and was playing, everything came in and went, it went, ding, dini, ding, d'n, d'n, you know. It was like, oh, please, you know, sometimes the market can handle one copy, maybe two, but not 20. And, you know, that's how we get into trouble as music people, we allow this, you know, same old, same old.

You know, we're just copies out there. You know, I'm not real wild about what the music sounds like right now. In general? Yeah, and I think it's because there's a lot of sameness out there. Do you feel like, because I feel the same way, and you talk about sameness, I feel like everything is so, everybody's looking at short-term lines. Like, how do we hit our quarter? Yeah.

So therefore, if you grab a copy, it's going to make you money today, it may not make you money in a year. Yeah. And people are chasing tomorrow more than they're chasing three years of a substantial project. Yeah. And I think what happens is the music all starts to become the same sounding. Because all the acts feel like they got. to be the same and they're chasing other acts so they can get on the radio.

Well, I will tell you it's probably the hardest thing to resist is signing these people that come in and are really good, but they're derivative of something right before them. If it was derivative of something from 20, 30 years earlier, that kind of turns me on, but the copy thing does not. But, you know, I don't know why other labels or companies do that. I do know why, but I'm not going to say it here. But I have always tried not to because, you know, It's, I much rather reload with something that's exciting.

And try to cram that square peg into another round hole. You know, we talk about moments. I think another big moment was Casey went in the Grammy for album of the year. Yeah. With Golden Hour, like that's up there with one of the bigger moments in the past five or six years. Massive. Just huge. And one of the most, one of the most difficult to figure.

out scenarios that I've ever been involved with because she consistently makes unbelievable music that doesn't really fit in anybody's box. It's just great that it touches a lot of boxes and it's so great that if you play Casey music for anyone, anywhere, they respond positively. But it's a real challenge for people who market music to, you know, take that. We haven't gotten and Casey to where she deserves to be. You know, there's a lot more work that needs to be done. And, you know, you could argue that with the exception of some of the instrumentation on the Golden Hour record, it's not that country.

You know, it's a much more pleasant, pop, universal-sounding piece of music, but it doesn't really fit anywhere. It just fits everywhere. Does that make sense? Yeah, no. Oh, yes. It fits nowhere and everywhere at the same time. Yeah.

I mean, you know, to some degree, Nora Jones was doing that when she first popped. It was like, okay, what is this? Oh, I know this is great. Nora Jones came from inside EMI. I was running Capitol. A kid that ran sales for Blue Note had been somebody that worked for me years ago.

He sent me a CD with ruffs of Nora Jones. And I just, he said, and I think you're going to like it because it's kind of country. And I just was all over it. And the guy that ran Blue Note, Bruce Lundball, who's one of my idols, he had a famous staff meeting where he said, I want to know why the Nashville people are more excited about this than we are. And it was because everyone in my office was seeing it as, you know,

the second coming of something special. Boy, when don't know why hit. Oh, yeah. And it kind of existed for a second until it was a monster. Yeah. Because, and that's what happens with things, and with Casey, too, I would say, you know, she had created her own lane and then her own, and then everybody else just kind of fell into her lane. Yeah. Once people start falling into your lane, I mean, I was on pop radio at the time.

Yeah. And we were slamming this every hour. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You know, our pop labels didn't really want to work the record. Because it didn't fit anywhere. Our company created a promotion department just to work Nora Jones. That's the truth.

Well, what a financial gamble and, well, what a payoff. Oh, yeah, massive. I benefited from it, too, because they created this promotion department. They were all pros, and I had really good, almost pop country stuff over here. So, you know, while those guys weren't working on Nora Jones, they worked on Keith Urban. and that developed a whole different career for him too and that probably wouldn't have happened if I had to jam it through

LA or New York you know we talk about some of the artists that are special and are hard to at times market and Kip who's yours kind of falls into that like so good so passionate such a devoted base but I feel like that would be at times you just want to bang your head against the wall

like how come some of the stuff works so quickly and then how come some of it just won't take at radio specifically. Yeah. Like what do you feel like the struggle is with Kip at times? Well, I think honestly, the first album was loaded with hit songs. And the second album was things that resonated to Kip's audience specifically, but they weren't across the board universal hit songs.

And I think he's back to, I think the new stuff that we have that you'll hear very soon. I think you'll be surprised. You know, he's got such a unique thing, and a lot of artists, you know, have this. It's got such a unique one-on-one relationship with his audience. He can sell out anywhere he goes. And they love every word of every song he's done. But to get past that point, to get those people that are more passive,

that's where success comes in. You know, I kind of, you know, I'm brothers Osborne. Not terribly different, completely different kind of artist, but not, you know, you go to their shows, their fans are like tearing the place down. It's one of the best live shows I've ever seen, by the way. Both those guys are fantastic live. And I've spent time with Kip personally where, you know, I do stand-up. And so we'll talk about, because Kip really cares about his audience. And he's like, man, if I see one sad face, it puts me out.

And I'm like, man, you've got to stare at foreheads. That's what I tell. Like, they could be sad and then not be because something. you've done. Right. They could have something sad in their family, or they could want to feel sad. Right.

Like, and you're allowing them to feel that, but that guy's pat. I say what I say about him. I love Kip. I do too. Because he's so, at times I want to, you know,

smack him outside the head, and he wants to smack me upside the head, but most of that's from love. Like I just, you know, I really respect that guy. This, uh, AEG company put together massive concert in England called country to country,

C to C. And when I first heard about this, I rolled my eyes and thought, okay, this isn't going to work. I never used the C word when I went to Europe because their idea of country is like Boxcar Willie. And if you say Keith Urban's country or Casey's country or Kip's country,

you're going to get those kind of people. And they're like, well, this doesn't sound like Boxcar Willie, you know. And all the regular people go, well, I thought country was Boxcar Willie, so I didn't come. So anyway, so they have this first show. I didn't go, but it was pretty successful. So the next year I came back, and Kip was on the bill. And he was a nervous wreck, and he was a wreck because he thought these English people are not going to relate to me at all.

They're just not, and I'm scared to death. I said, just do your thing. Just do your thing. I said, I don't know that any of these people know who the artists are. That's my take on this. And I was right. Kip went out, and he was as big a star as the Dixie Chicks, because they didn't really know. any of them. And because he worked so hard and because he was so desperate to get their love and

attention, he killed it. And he's got a really nice career going on in England, particularly because of that first show and he's continued to go back. And, you know, I go over there now and people say, what's going on and Kit Moore? It's like really, okay, all right, great. It's fun to hear a lot of the artists that you've helped break. And I'm going to go back in time a little bit to Rick Springfield. Oh, yeah. Who, you know, Jesse's girl was the song that, I mean, we still play it on my show now. I mean, this is the song that lives forever, you know?

So how did you get involved with Rick Springfield? Well, I got fired for that for one day. You got fired. You got fired. Yes, I was a pop promotion guy in my hometown of Cincinnati, Ohio for RCA Records. And I was a kid, and I didn't get a lot of great direction. in that job. And I can say that now because the guy who hired me who didn't direct me really well passed away last year. So God bless Eddie Mascolla, but he was not really giving me the kind of

direction I needed. But so in that day, singles and albums would just show up at my front door. And there was no, there was no conference call. There was nothing, you know, it was like, no, we don't really know anything about this artist, but somebody signed them. So here it is, go see what you can do with it. And I get this, I get Rick Springfield album. And so, single the same day. I didn't know anything about him. I just put it on and Jesse's girl just killed me. I thought my god, this is a huge pop song and I was going on the road to Columbus, Ohio the next day. And, you know, like I said, no one was talking about it. I was supposed to get another record play by another artist who I won't mention here, but it was not a very good record.

And I went up to Columbus, Ohio, and I started playing this song. And three of the four, four stations. I visited, hit the record, added it. And, you know, in the Midwest, they don't add records early. So I came back so proud of myself that I was breaking a record only to find out that I was being fired by my boss who was really angry because I got, did not get anything on the priority record. And he just called me and said, you know, once again, you weigh and our everything. You can't take direction. You're not a team player. You're out of here. You're out of here. You're done and i had you know like a one-year-old kid and i'm terrified that i'm out of work and the next morning his assistant calls me and says uh john wants to know what you've got on this or that and i

said john fired me yesterday and she said oh stop it she said you know he fires people every day i said what she said he does and i said i've never been fired and she said well now you have and uh you know that record went on to sell i don't know how many millions but uh it was It was a great thing for my ego and my self-worth. And, you know, Rick and I were talking my kitchen to his kitchen. I didn't have an office, so I worked in my basement. My kitchen to his kitchen every night, big plans. And it did some cool things.

I did a head of radio station in Columbus where we broke the thing, that the general manager was on the board of director for the Columbus Ohio Zoo. And it was like their second or third year in existence. And he came to me and said, we've had so much rain on weekends that our gate sales are awful. And we have no money. There's no, there's no, nothing in reserve here. And we're worried that our zoo's going to go bankrupt.

And he said, you got this kid, Rick Springfield, right? And I said, yeah. And he's on General Hospital, right? And I said, yeah. He said, do you think you can get him to do anything for this? And I said, like what? And we went for some drinks. when we concocted this event, and I knew Rick wouldn't, I couldn't afford to put him up there

and have him perform, and it just wasn't ready, you know, but we brought him to the Columbus Ohio Zoo, and we pulled up a big stage and charged 98 cents to get in. It was WNCI 98-cent day. They had the biggest grossing day they've ever had. It was miles and miles of 13-year-old girls. I've never seen anything like it in my life. If I had been around for the Beatles, it probably would have been like that. Rick goes up on the stage and he's trying to talk and it just got the screaming was so loud.

I couldn't hear him and I was 20 feet from him and all of a sudden the barriers, the security barriers went down and then the stage started a rock and I just remember the cops going that's it we're shutting it down and they grab him and they're dragging him off the stage

and they're saying run and I'm running and Rick's five steps ahead of me and we're all running for this little administrative building concrete you know nothing building and there's a wall of kids running after us and you know this is not particularly a proud moment but um out of nowhere this tiny little 12 year old girl is a speedster and she breaks through the crowd she's going to catch Rick i mean she's and if she slows him down we're all dead we are dead so i just i'm running and i just colt coct her with an elbow right in the side of the head knocked her down into the mud and we we made it

into the building well but interesting the zoo director was a guy named jack hannah oh wow jack hannah he was just jack hannah wow director so we're all stuck in this building while these kids are like trying to get at us it was like a zombie movie or something and i got to know jack and his wife and there's a a million pictures from that. And to this day, Jack and I have a bit of a relationship. And if ever I need anything from Jungle Jack Hanna, I just pick up the phone and say, Jack, would you do something for me? He says anything for you.

So I've put Jack into little videos and he's been in Luke Bryan campaigns and, you know, I run into him every once in a while. Steve Hodges was working for me. We were in the airport and all of a sudden he walks past and he goes, hey, there's that guy from TV. I said, that's my friend Jack Hanna. He said, your friend, I said, hey, Jack. And he came over and we had breakfast together.

That's awesome. What a great story? All that. There's like four layers of good story in that story. Yeah. So Rick and I, we fell out over the next two or three years. I didn't, well, let's just say we just fell out. I didn't like the way he was handling his business.

And it didn't end well. And I've always felt bad. And I've been to see him live a couple of times. And my friends always go, are he going to go backstage and say hi? and I'd always say, no, I'm not, no, I don't, mm-mm. So Mark Niederhouser, who works for Warner, used to work with me at RCA. He was in Denver, I think, when all this was coming down.

And last year at Country Radio Seminar, Mark and I went to lunch, and Mark's the kind of guy that, like, stays in touch with everybody. Birthday, every birthday? Oh, yeah. You get a card or a call every birthday. Oh, yeah, and every artist that we ever worked with, he talks to him on a regular basis. I just, I don't do that, you know.

And I said, so what about Rick Springfield? You talk to him? And he goes, yeah, every once in a while. I said, how's he doing? He goes, he seems okay. I said, well, I read his book, you know, it's kind of sad. And I told Mark what happened between us? And he said, well, that's really, that's not fair.

It's really not fair to you. And I said, yeah, I know. I said, do me a favor. If you have information, give it to me. So I reached out to him the next day, sent him a long email, and he, bam, came right back to me, said, oh, man, it's so good to hear from you. You know, everything you said here just, you know, I think about this all the time, and we really did it, didn't we?

And it's so great to hear from you. And, you know, we haven't talked since then, but it was one big email exchange. This was about a year ago. Wow. Yeah. Wow, what a great story. Darius and Hootie. I'm a huge Hootie fan.

Yeah. I'm a huge Darius. Darius was my first interview ever when I was 17. Really? I got Hootie and I got Darius. I was a diehard fan and Darius and I have done a lot together since then kind of because I wrote about it in my first book. I was like, this is the first guy ever talked.

And I was so nervous talking to him. I was shaking. He's so great. He grabbed my hand and was like, I got you. I was 17. He's so great. And he led me through this interview. And so Darius hit me up about a month ago.

I was like, hey, my wife's writing a book. Would you write a chapter for me? So I wrote a thing for him. And I was like, in exchange, I would like to hear some new hooty music. And I don't listen to music early ever from anyone, even my friends. It's slippery slope for me, so I just stay away from it. But I'm such a Darius friend and fan and hooty fan. Yeah.

And so he sent it, and what I wonder is, is it country? Are you guys going to try country? I don't think so. I think based on the fact that if you go back, if you took those hooty records that were big and you put them in the market now, they would be country records. Absolutely. And so, you know, that's kind of how we started Darius, solo thing it took a while to get there and there's a somewhat of an interesting story on that too if you

want to hear that yeah so how makes it sound like i'm a genius again but you know it's a true absolutely true story how did the darius solo stuff start well i never liked the hootiena blowfish records not even correct review no i i had i moved to nashville in 1990 had been on the pop side and i moved to in 1990 and immediately fell in love with the art of the song and the craft and the way people would lay out a lyrical landscape and it was just like wow this is the way it's supposed to be and i was like a song snob i became a song snob real fast and um so i didn't care for those hooty records because i thought lyrically they they were just pop records you know so um but years later i'm at Capitol and I had, you know, I've always had really bad work habits. I'm not the earliest guy in

the office. I don't come in too late, but I'm, you know, I'm not there at 8 o'clock in the morning, but I'm usually there at 9, 10 o'clock at night. And when I was at Capitol, I had a very prominent spot on the corner of West End and Murphy Road, and people would go by and go, God, I can see your fat, your fat ass rolling around in your chair up there. We could just go home, you know. So, Well, what it comes down to is I would get home, and I still pretty much do this. I get home and my wife has either gone to bed or going to bed. She's eaten by herself again, I'm sorry. And I haven't eaten anything.

And I'm going to go to bed, though, because I'm going to get up in the morning and go back to work. So I would sit in front of the TV with a bowl of Cheerios. And I did it last night. And, you know, a bowl of Cheerios, and then I turn on the TV. But I can't commit to anything because I'm only going to spend a few. 15 or 20 minutes in front of it. So I would just flip through the channel. So I don't know what you hear this was.

So 2005, something like that. I would flip through the channel and there was a high-definition concert put on, one of the channels. And it was, I saw the same ones all the time. It was Dave Thomas. It was Peter Frampton. It was Mickey Thomas.

And it was Hootie and a Blowfish. And there were others, but those are the ones that I remember seeing all the time, Dave Matthews band. And every time I'd see the hooty and a blowfish, things, I would think, oh, I'd never like this band. But you know what? That guy, this is inappropriate, but I'd think to myself, that black guy, he phrases like a country singer. And so, you know, two weeks later, I'd be flipping through again. There'd be same show, it's a different song. I think,

oh, man, he phrases like a country singer. So I had this weird idea that I was going to, you know, nobody had heard from these guys forever as far as I knew. I was going to try to find Darius Rucker and see what he was all about. But I never did it because I was. was busy and it was, you know, it was a pipe dream. It didn't really make sense. End up going to dinner with Doc McGee, the famous manager, who managed one of my artists at the time. And when we sit down, Doc starts bragging about a dudeia blowfish tour tickets. And I said, what do you have to do with them? He said, I manage him. And I said, I didn't know this. And I tell the story about the Cheerios, about, and he says,

he says, you should make a country record with him. And I said, no, that's why I'm telling you this. And Doc's looking at me, like, yeah, yeah, he'd love that. But I could tell in his eyes that Doc thought, no, he's just kidding me. So we get our cars out of Al-A. And I said, Doc, don't forget about Darius. He goes, no, I'll call him. Well, months go by, nothing. And I talk to Doc every week.

And I'd say, Doc, what about Darius? He'd go, oh, I just got out the phone with him. I forgot. It's like you forgot. So weeks later, I get a call from Doc, and he says, hey, you got somebody who wants to talk to you. And it's Darius. And he goes, hey, man, I hear you. trying to get a hold of me. I said, yeah, I'd very much like to meet with you. I'll come to you.

Just tell me when. He says, no, I'll come to you. Tomorrow? Tomorrow, okay? Can we go to dinner tomorrow? So he flies to Nashville from Charleston, and we go to dinner at Ruth Chris, and I loved him. I just fell in love with him. I had no idea what his sensibilities were, but we started talking about country music, and he started telling me about his experience with it. And Darius didn't know his father. And, you know, he's a single mom and some brothers and sisters, and there was an older gentleman across the street that kind of, you know, took a special role in Darius's life and in his heart.

He called him Uncle Charlie, I think. And he would listen to country, me, he'd listen to the Opry on the radio on the front porch. Darius would go over there as a little kid, and he'd get up on Uncle Charlie's lap and they'd listen to the Opry. So Darius had a sense of this that surprised me to death. I mean we'd talk about more, more, more, and he said, oh, man, my brothers and sisters they used to make fun of me because I would go around the house singing, you know, Webb Pierce songs, and my friends would make fun of me because, you know, I knew Mel Tillis songs,

and I said that is wild. And so we start talking about making this record, and he came in, he had been thinking about this for so long, he had a paper bag full of cassettes, and on there were scratch demos of these country songs that he had been writing inspired by the experience with uncle charlie and the opera and he played him for me and they were they were one of two things they were either kachon kachon kachon texas two-step songs yeah or they were hearing my beer vering gosden ballads and i just kept saying there this this won't work and he went what do you mean man it's country music i said it's not really if i mean it's not what's on the radio and if that's what we're trying to do

It's really, so we went round around. I didn't have any answers. I was just in love with this guy. And, you know, I will admit that the fact that he was an African-American was more than a little bit interesting to me. But as I got to know him, I pushed back on that really hard because the press, when we broke him, the press were saying, how does it feel to be the first guy to break an African-American in country? I'd say, you know what? I mean, the fact that he's an African-American is pretty self-evident,

but it really diminishes his talent. And I hate to even talk about this now. I was aware of it when I started this, but it's not about that for me anymore. It's about this guy with the most unique voice and this great phrasing and a big laugh and a big smile and a warm heart. Anyway, so we got to the point, and along the way, we talked to a bunch of producers,

and then he fell in with Frank Rogers, and he kind of fell in love with Frank. And between Frank and Darius and I, we just sort of talked this through, and what we came to was the music shouldn't be that different than Hootie and the Blowfish, but it needs to say something. You can't just say, hold my hand, hold my hand, hold my hand.

You've got to lay out some kind of a lyrical landscape, at least in the verses. And, you know, it took a while for Darius to get that, but with Frank's guidance, and Frank was, you know, also a successful songwriter, pretty quickly came together. And, you know, we had four number ones off that first record. That's pretty big. Yeah.

Yeah. When he, I did this little thing with my staff every year where the artists come and they just play for us. And it's very inside. There's no plus ones. My wife's never been. It really bothers her that she's never seen this special thing. But Darius came for the first time. He was new to us.

And he got up and did this song. called Don't Think I Don't Think About it. And the room was in tears. It was just in tears. And it was like, holy cow, this is going to be massive. And then, you know, I did the I don't think it's strong enough. I love that song, but I don't think it's strong enough for a new guy who, forget the fact that you're African-American.

The biggest thing we're going to have problems with is you were the lead singer in a band that was so big that you're a joke. and we've got to overcome the joke part of it. And I don't know that this song is going to be strong enough to do that. And he went, okay, man. And then we cut a whole bunch more. And then we came back six months later, and I said, don't kill me, but I think we should leave with don't think about it.

And he said, you know what, I'm not mad at all. Because because of that extra effort and that extra pressure, we made this record so much better. We wouldn't have had these other four songs if you didn't make me go back. so I feel less guilty about it. We have about five minutes left. I want to run through something. Because I mean, we could do this for three hours, I feel like.

Eric Church. How does he not get nominated for Entertainment of the Year? You know, I don't know. I mean, he doesn't. How does he not win it? I mean, it's the same thing. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, you know, the Entertainer of the Year,

at least for the CMA, is so Nashville-centric. And ACMs are becoming that way, too. And Eric's never been one to play the game. He doesn't really go out and show his face and hang out at events. And, you know, he does the T.J. Martel wine dinner because he's into wine. And he has a golf tournament on his own, but he doesn't, you know, Eric, Eric is Eric. He's an artist and he only does what he wants to do and what he wants to respect. He and Casey are very similar in that.

There's no, there's no pretense whatsoever. There's no compromise between either one of them. And I think that hurts him in that sense, and he knows it. We've talked about it. And, you know, he looks at me like, yeah, well, you need to market me. You need to market me around me. So, but you're right. It's unbelievable.

Four hours of just killer stuff night after night after night. Sam Hunt. Yeah. You know, he's threatening to deliver new music in two weeks. threatening. Well, I said this because I've been through this so many times. And, you know, the truth is, Sam had turned out to be much more of an artist than I ever anticipated when we signed him.

Based on what he was doing, which was very pop and contemporary pop music influenced, I thought, all right, you know, he's one of those guys. He's really good at it, but he's one of those guys. But the truth is, once he had that big success with that first record, he said several times quietly, I don't want to repeat myself. I don't want to do the same thing again. And I think that if he could make a really, really country record, he would do it. But I think he's afraid to do that, too. And so we'll see.

I don't know. Have you heard? He loves, I've heard a little bit of two songs, and they're really not finished. They're just like choruses that he's written. But, you know, this is a guy who loves Diamond Rio. This is a guy who loves John Michael Montgomery. He knows this stuff inside and out. He's not a pop music carpetbagger.

He's the real deal. He just, like a lot of young people, he grew up with a lot of influences, and they're coming through. Isn't that wonderful? Isn't that what makes this go around? Yeah. I have a bunch of friends that have been riding with them over the past few months. Well, that's good to hear alone. Yeah.

You know, that's good to hear. I got on a plane. I went to the Grammys and I came back and I got on this plane and he and his wife got on there sitting right across from me. I'm thinking, oh my gosh, this is perfect. It would be a chance for me to talk to him. Immediately he falls asleep. And then we get off the plane and we are legitimately standing, trying to talk to each other right off in the gate. And I got overrun by people, people that, you know, I just had.

I hadn't seen in a long time. Yeah. And he said, you know, I'll see you downstairs by baggage. And we just... Never saw. No. I'll end on this one. I'm doing Celebrity Family Food, and I took Lauren and John party with me.

Oh. So it's me, John, Lauren. Oh, great. I heard a little bit about this. Both dear friends of mine. Aren't they awesome? And we go, but John's about to have new music finally. Yeah.

And it's awesome. Yeah? And you talk about a guy that, you know, he didn't want to repeat himself either. And he kept saying all along, it's going to be real country. I hope you still like me. It's going to be real country. And it is.

You know, when we signed him, a lot of people in town and a lot of people on my own staff rolled their eyes and said, I don't know what you're doing here. He's so country. It's so traditional. I don't know what you're doing. And I would just smile and say, that's why I did it. And, you know, I had one major radio consultant say to me when I played him in the demos, he said, I don't know what you're doing here.

That guy's voice is annoying. And he said, you know, it sounds, it sounds, it sounds, terrible. And I said, his voice is bigotries and lies side of him. Because, you know, you'll hear him. You'll know right away who he is. Distinct. Yeah. Listen, we're out of time. I want to say thanks. I know you got a lot of things to do. It's been fun. I tried, I googled Jeanette Worth to see if it pop up. Just see how rich, see if you're the richest person to come in here. It doesn't show up. That's because I have no money. But the most influential person we've had in here. So, hey, thanks for, I really appreciate

you making time to come over and do this. And we've threatened to get together and we still need to do that. You know, I appreciate that. You're too big time now. It's hard. You get overrun. Anytime we go anywhere. I'm a guy from Ohio. That is all I am. Episode 188 with Mike Dungan. Thanks, Mike. You're 187 people more important than me? Less important. You're the most.

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