The Fat Rat

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob left That's Podcast.
My guess today is the Fat Rat. There's number one
gaming music. He's got five and a half million YouTube
prescribers and billions of streams and twenty one thousand Discord members.

(00:28):
Mr Fat Rat, glad to have you here. Thanks for
having me Bob Okay, you know a lot of people
listening this are gonna be unfamiliar with you and your music.
So let's start from the beginning. Why the Fat Rat.
What's that name about? It's a typical like online name
that I used for gaming. Um, it's from my nickname
in school. So I was really small at school and

(00:49):
I was doing kung food to defend myself, and then
first people called me after the after Splinter, which is
the master of the teenage mutant Ninja chattles. Then day,
after a week or two, they found this was way
too friendly as a nickname, so they simply called me
Rat and German Ratta. Yeah, that name sticked with me

(01:09):
for years, and so when I started playing online games,
I simply picked that up and called myself the Fat
Red and online games for about ten years and then
when I started putting out my own music. I was
a music producer a long time before, but when I
started putting up my own music, just put it on SoundCloud.
I used my online name, which I used in like
online games, and now I'm still stuck with it. Okay,

(01:31):
it's a good name, but the rat in terms of fat,
You're not fat in the least. Why the fat rat?
Just because it sounded good when I chose the online name,
like you know, like you choose an online gaming name,
it's not you don't think about it that later on
you might have like ten million followers who might like

(01:51):
ask you about why did you pick the names? Just
you know, it just sounds good and you just pick it. Okay,
getting some other basics down, I'm not sure. I'm sure
to get the pronunciation wrong. You're in good again. Where
are you in Germany right now? Oh? Yeah, in gutting In. Yeah,
it's in the very middle of Germany, which is pretty
much in the middle of nowhere because all the big

(02:11):
cities like Hamburg's in the north, Berlin is the northeast,
and Munix in the south. And yeah, it's a little
bit like in the s where everything most stuff happens
on the coats you know, and the very middle there's
not that much going on. I mean, at least in Germany,
maybe still way more in the U s um. Yeah,
and so you have very much in the middle of
no there, like all the big cities are few hours

(02:34):
drives away. How many people living good? Again? Okay, and
you grew up there, Yes, I grew up there, and
my wife also grew up here. And that's the reason
why we're here because we have all our parents are here.
So we have a daughter and her grandparents just has
all the grandparents very close here. That's pretty cool. Okay.

(02:55):
How old are you today? Forty two? Okay, So what
was the environment in music and life with for you
growing up? It wasn't It wasn't really challenging because my
mom had a music school and I had some talent
in music. But I was really quickly the best in

(03:18):
the music school. Um, because you know, when I was
like fourteen fifteen years old, whenever there was a concert,
I was the last act to perform because I was
the person there who was the longest there, and I
was like the best player. But then when I moved
to Munich later on, when I was starting to study,
I learned that I wasn't half as good as I

(03:40):
thought I was, because then I had some actual competition. Okay,
you know, the average person in America has not been anywhere.
So tell us a little bit more about Germany because
you spend time in the stage. What's the difference between
Germany and the States from your viewpoint? It's a really

(04:02):
good question. It's a really good question. That the funny
thing is whenever, like the grass always greener on the
other side. Right. Um So, when I moved to Los Angeles,
where I lived for three years, I've realized what was
it good about Germany? Now when you ask me the question,
everything that comes to mind is how awesome the U.
S A Is and what are the problems here? Um

(04:23):
So Germany, please forgive me when I'm like a little
bit negative. But um what I love about the US
is that people are way more into doing things and
acting and lesson to planning everything to death, which, at
least in the which is probably great when you're in engineering,
like when you're building planes or you're building big structures
or whatever. It's great when you have zero tolerance to failure.

(04:47):
But in the entertainment industry you have to do stuff
and simply try and failure is an option, and that's
something let's say, failure is an option. I think that's
a big part of the US. People just do things,
they try stuff, they move forward. And in Germany everybody
is always afraid to make a mistake, and people do
rather nothing than making a mistakes. So I think that's

(05:08):
a huge difference in the mentality. Okay, from our viewpoint,
it appears that Germany, maybe with France, certainly runs the
European Union. What is the mindset of Germans today? You know,
we can talk about I don't want to start labeling

(05:29):
different countries whatever, but somehow are seen as more lazy,
some is more economic, lee forward, and we think the
perception in the US is that Germans are very precise
and at the bleeding edge of technology and engineering. That's
where the BMW's come from, the Mercedes, the Porsche's. You know,

(05:54):
the average person, if you're a slacker in Germany, can
you get away with it because you know, or what
is the general person in Germany? Like yeah, yeah, um,
so first of all, uh don't be afraid to hit
me with like uh stereotypes, So it's totally no problem.
So speak freely. Um. Uh, I think you can get

(06:18):
very pretty good as so Germany. Germans are not about
hard work. I wouldn't say that, it's more about precision.
I think that's that's a good point, um, because uh yeah,
like I said before, I think it's this being afraid
of making failure being very very accurate. That's the good

(06:38):
side of it. The bad side is that it often
slows down things a lot. Right, So when you want
to do something in the years, you say, hey, let's
do this, and everybody's cool, let's try it. And in
Germany everybody's oh yeah, but what could go wrong. Let's
let's figure out everything that could go wrong and make
sure nothing goes wrong. And um, if we're afraid. There's

(06:58):
actually a very good specific example I can give you
in the music industry because I'm like, most of my
business contacts are still in the US. So when I
for example, when I worked with the management in the US,
we had a call, how we want to do the
deal right? And he said, Okay, this is how we're
gonna work, and then we started right. We didn't even

(07:18):
signed agreement. And this was about like thousands, thousands of
dollars from the start but when I signed a small
a capella group in Germany and we wanted to release something,
they insisted on written agreements that we would send back
via mail, like not email, but physical mail. So otherwise

(07:42):
it's not because otherwise it's not safe, um legally right,
So you have to send like the letter agreements all
of the world. And my business partner in the US
was still involved, so we had to send it from
Germany to the US and then back to Germany and
then to everybody to sign it. It was like no
almost no money in all, but they were so scared

(08:02):
that something could go wrong. And this is I think
that's a pretty good example how the mentality is different Germans.
Very everything has to be done right. It's like the
typical image that people are standing at night at the
green at the red traffic light right the where the
pedestrians crossed, and its red lights. So they stand for
a minute and wait till the light turns green and
there's no car around, nobody's around whatsoever, but they're still

(08:25):
going to stand at the red light. That's I think
that that's German. It is okay, not everybody does it,
but that's how people are here. I'm older than you are.
And I remember when Europe most of the radio stations
were state controlled, so at this point, and certainly electronic music,
many people believe, started in the Midwest of the United States,

(08:46):
but really took hold in Europe. So the average person
and it's hard in today's digital era, and you're old
enough to know have seen the transition in Germany? Is
music consumption driven by the radio or other ways or
has there been a transition in your lifetime? And what
kind of music do people listen to? Honestly, I don't

(09:09):
even know that much about it because I have my
very own space. Um I think it's very like big influence.
I think it's still TV. But then there are those
subcultures like German rap became a big thing in the
last couple of years, just like you know in the
U S as well, like the rappers there was like
huge come back sort of thing after all the E

(09:31):
d M stuff, and that the same thing happened in Germany.
But I don't even know exactly where that came from
because I have, like like I said, I have my
very own almost the bubble where I live in where
I have like my music world. Um, I listened to
the radio. HEO sometimes, Um, but I'm not so familiar
with the audience in Germany. What's important is my audience

(09:52):
is two percent German, It's nine percent is the rest
of the world. So it's artists wise. I'm not German.
I mean I live here and I'm from here. But
like my as an artist, I have as much to
do with Germany as as I have to do, even
more a way less to do with Germany than I
have to do with Vietnam, China, USA, in Mexico. Okay,

(10:15):
when you were growing up, rave culture started to be
something in the US and the nineties. Was that something
that was happening in Germany when you were growing up,
and were you a participant? Yes? Absolutely so. We had
Love Parade in Berlin where they were like over million
people coming to Berlin to join. The Love Parade, for
those who don't know, was like trucks with sound systems

(10:38):
on it and making a huge parade, and the trucks
were so loud that whenever you was you were like
somewhat close to one truck, you could only hear that
one truck. Uh yeah, so yeah, And I went to
a couple of those parades that was. Those were the
raves back then. It's not not so much of the festival,
but it was a lot of those parades and was
a ton of fun. I was like eighteen years old

(10:58):
at the time, really drunk, and yeah, it was a
lot of Okay, you call yourself the number one gaming
music artists, what exactly does that mean? Well, the gaming
music is simply the term that helps people to find
music that's similar to mine. In the very beginning, I

(11:19):
have people asking me, Hey, what's the like the music,
what you're making? What is it? I was like, I
don't know, it's it's not really E d M. You
cannot call it d M. E d M is like
a certain you know, sound, a certain culture and everything.
It's kind of close to that, it's not really that.
But then I stumbled upon gaming music mix tapes on

(11:42):
YouTube and I found, okay, this is like the kind
of music that I'm making. And also my music is
all over those mix tapes, right, They often started with
my song. They still do. If you bring up gaming
music mix on YouTube, it's often the first song. It's
the Fat Rah. Yeah, so that's where I'm okay, cool.
Then that's kind of the niche or the genre that

(12:06):
describes my music, that simply describes it best in which
the most functioning note for people to understand kind of
what it is because it's music. It's not music from
video games. It's simply music that grew out of the
video game video game culture. And it's also yeah, it's
also the term where you can find music that is
somewhat similar to what I'm doing. Okay, So what is

(12:29):
different in terms of sound between gaming music and id
um um gaming music? It's kind of more like electronic huts,
not so much made for dancing, right. The gaming music
always has I mean e d M always has to
be danceable, right, because you played on festivals, you played
in clubs. That's what it's made for. And gaming music

(12:51):
it's more for listening because what people do with it,
they played in the background, especially when they're playing like
competitive games like Dota two or League of Lets or
stuff like that. Okay, As I say, a lot of
people are not that experienced in this world. So let's
talk about music in actual games that people play multiplayer

(13:14):
online or they buy discs or whatever. Do you license
your music to those commercial games? Yeah? I do that
as well, but that's not my primary primary thing that
I'm doing. That happened because my music became so big
in the space. So a couple of those big, big
games reached out to me and said, hey, I want

(13:35):
to we want to have your music in our games.
Like it's a title song for the actual season. So
for people who are not in the gaming space, like
games today, it's not like it's not like a DVD
that you buy, so you buy the thing one time,
then you played through and then it's over. It's more
the term games for games as a service, So a
game is a continuously developing product or space. So it's

(14:00):
is for example, so those games today they have seasons.
It's like okay, every uh three months or every six
months there's like new levels, new characters, and they also
then have a new title song. So for example, the
Rocketly for example, licensed my song as a title song
for the new season, and then I think recently did
it again, and then Doda too. I made a music

(14:21):
pack that that was the only time where I made
music specifically only for a game, which is then not
I got didn't get paid for it directly, but it's
an in game item that you can buy. So the
game itself is for free, and the business model is
that you can buy stuff in the game. And one
of the items that you can buy in the game
is my music pack. So the standard music that you

(14:43):
that plays when you play the game gets exchanged by
music that I made, and you pay I don't know,
four dollars to get that, and then I get a
share of those four dollars. Is that a real business
or is that really small? I ain't my I can't
talk numbers. So the first month I think was no,

(15:04):
I'm not I'm sure if I'm numbers, but it's a
numbers no, no, no, no, I'm not sure if I'm
allowed from the from valve side, from the g I
just remembered, uh, nobody. It's a real business. That's a
real business. I could I could, I could live in
I could live a year from what I made in
the first month. This is just from selling packs within

(15:29):
the video game exactly. There's no license, okay, And like,
what kind of deal if since they're not paying you
up front and you were talking like four dollars for
a pack, how many different songs would they get? Would
they all be yours? And how would the four dollars
be split. Uh once again, I'm not Harpers, and sure

(15:51):
if I'm allowed to talk about that about the split.
Um so they actually it's a standard standard deal. Um,
it's just they have a lot of different creators. Um
so not everybody can place his or her item in
the game, but they do this quite a bit. So
there there's a community or a lot of people who say, hey,

(16:13):
I want to play stuff in the game or sell
stuff in within the game, and um, yeah, it's just
a standard agreement, which and it's it's processed through their
through Steam. So Steam is like iTunes for video games
sort of thing. So it's a platform within that you

(16:34):
can like you can buy games, you can download the games,
and then you have a community aspect to it and
all those things and it's done within that platform. So
one of one of you the statements I opened Steam,
which is actually the platform that I also used when
I want to buy games. So it's all done within
that platform. Okay, is Steam because you know, maybe I

(16:54):
don't have it straight. Is Steam a platform or also
technology or the game games written a specific language that
Steam provides or Steam is just a hosting place. Um no,
So tons of different games are um are are used

(17:17):
in Steam and like um distributed through Steam, so I
would I would call it like the distribution platform. Yeah,
it's a software that you install, So you say, okay,
I want to download Steam. Then you install the software
on your PC, PC or your Mac, and then you
create a user account and then you have like no
games in your library, and then you buy some games

(17:38):
or you download some free games. You're like, okay, I
want to have this game in that game you downloaded,
and then it keeps the game. So originally I think
it was developed from Valve. They developed games themselves, so
Valve owned Steam, but they also developed games, and they
developed it originally just as an update client, so just
so you do it within the platform and then it

(17:58):
updates automatically whenever a game update happens. But then they
started plugging in other games, so other people said, hey,
can we maybe distribute our games through your platform for
updates and stuff, and then they did this and I
think by now what's funny is I think Valve is
the company in the US that has the biggest profit

(18:19):
per UH employee in the in the entire US. I
think they have liked employees and they have like billions
of profits. Okay. So your music pack which is sold
on Steam, is it sold directly by Steam or does
it go through the person who constructed the game that

(18:39):
you gave the music to for free? Uh no, because
Valve the owners of Steam, they also developed they are
also the owners of Doda too, So it's one thing.
It's one company in this case. Let me let me
just put it in in a different way theoretic, Lie, could

(19:00):
you independently put a music pack on Steam? Uh No?
Not in Dota two. That wasn't That wouldn't be possible. Okay,
And you know, uh in many walks of the music
business other than the major label, certainly indie labels, it's

(19:22):
a fifty fifty deal. Is that similar here? Is it better?
Is it worse? That's a little worse, but it's close, okay,
just because for this deep in how often do they
account uh monthly? Monthly? Okay? So for okay, so that

(19:43):
you know that and you feel you're getting an honest accounting, Yeah, yeah, absolutely, okay. Okay,
let's go back to this licensing thing. You give the
music to the game like those two. Do you ever
charge large to license? Yeah? Not? Uh not? Data too,

(20:05):
because it's this model. Um, but I do a lot
of are my company, and it's not me directly, but
my wife who who manages me and runs all my
business stuff, and my cousin. Actually it's very very family.
They do a lot of licensing into mobile games, for example,
that they use it for a year and they pay

(20:26):
me a yearly fee to use the song. Okay, but
from the beginning of your public life you talk about
the ability to license. Now, let's use YouTube as a
specific situation. Yes, if you want to use a major tune,
legally you might jump through hoops. But what do we know?

(20:47):
There's content idea on YouTube such that the creator ultimately
gets paid. So what exactly is your model? It's just
you don't have to ask me to record it. But
I get paid by YouTube, right, don't get paid by YouTube?
What's going on there on on YouTube? I have a
different model which is kind of unique, which is that

(21:08):
I it's free to use on YouTube for everybody. So
you if you have YouTube channel, you can use my
music there and monetize the video and keep percent of
the revenue. I I'm not going to touch any of
the revenue on YouTube. Wow, So your main avenues of
revenue or what. Uh, it's my own YouTube channel which

(21:29):
has around a million plays per day. Um, I mean
I'm much the what's the net on a million players? Um?
I have to think I think they think. I think, well,
it's it's my much. You can't make a month from YouTube?

(21:52):
From you, that's I think it's that's twenty five k
around that a month. Yeah, so you have your own
monetized YouTube channel. That's one stream of revenue. Anything else Yeah,
then of course are the d piece right Spotify, Apple Music, iTunes,

(22:17):
still sales and those things. That's the that's by far
the biggest chunk because so so on youtu, I think
it's roughly it's roughly one k for a million place
around that. And on Spotify, my revenue is not that
good because it's very international. So when your only base,
when your place all comes from the U S, you
make more per play than me, for example, makes a

(22:39):
lot of place in Vietnam. You just don't make that
much money in being non per play. Um. But there
I roughly say, like over all these piece for me,
it's a million places. On Spotify is around like five
k per month. I know it's not per mount like
million plays is around five k over all these pe Okay,

(22:59):
so have YouTube and you have the das traditional music streamers,
you have packs on Steam any other your avenues of revenue?
Uh yeah, licensing of course, like licensing into different games.
So not only not only the packs, but a lot

(23:21):
of mobile games are licensed into a lot of um
mobile like tires hop, like jumping games and stuff like that.
Publishing on all the stuff. Um, then what's that? It's
um uh, neighboring rights. Those are the big, the big ones. Okay,

(23:42):
So most of your revenue is from traditional music streaming. Yeah, okay,
so is it? How did you let people know that
not only could they use their music on YouTube without
asking that they could keep the red the new I

(24:03):
simply told them when I started, And also when I started,
was way more common that people would simply use stuff
because it was just in the start of content idea
when those things came up on YouTube, and up to
that point, people would simply start using stuff, and then
later on content idea kicked in. But it didn't kick
in for my stuff. So a lot of people already

(24:24):
used it and they realized they got a lot of
copyright claims. But not on my music. So they were like, Okay, cool,
maybe I should keep using this guy's music. Do you
have any idea the volume of clips and and plays
on YouTube that are using your music? Ah, So we
made an estimate recently based on some other people's numbers

(24:47):
that we know, Um, so are approximate as at the
moment at the moment that it's like twenty five million
videos using my music at the moment on YouTube. So
it's not that's not played as a number of videos.
So anybody else doing what you're doing in terms of
giving their music away for free and how big are

(25:08):
they on YouTube? Um? Yeah, there are a couple of
artists especially like especially in the gaming music scene. It's
sort of a common thing. Um simply because it helps
you grow so much. People realize that because when you're
coming from the video game culture, a huge and free
promotion tool is that people using your music in the background,

(25:30):
and then other people hear the music and they're like, oh,
that's amazing, what's that And then they search wood and
they find the music and then they played. So yeah,
there are other people doing the same thing. Okay, let's
go back to the beginning. So your mother random music school.
What did your father do? He was originally a farmer,
but not anymore. When I was born. He was an

(25:52):
independent inventor, like inventing uh machines stuff, but he was
never successful. Okay, and are your parents still alive? Yeah? Yeah,
my father's eighties six now and my mom is almost
She is going to get seventeen in a week. I think, yeah,

(26:12):
uh yeah, but they're fine. They're also together and they're
have an amazing family. I have to say. Okay, and
how many kids in the family? Uh? So I have
a daughter together with my wife and no, no, no, no,
your parents kid they Yeah. I have one brother. He
also lives in gutting In. He works for a US company.
He's an animator also in the gaming space, so he

(26:33):
he animates uh dinosaurs for a game Arc Survival Evolved,
which is also really huge game. But he's doing it
here from from gutting In. And yeah, he has also
a daughter together with his wife. Okay, so you're growing
up and when do you start playing music? I grew
up making music. So the first thing that I actually

(26:55):
remember is me sitting on my mom's lap while she
was playing piano. So she did this she was playing
the piano. And I was two years old sitting on
her lap, and I would start hitting random keys, and
at first she wanted to keep me from doing it.
She was like, hey, no, I'm going I'm playing piano.
You you don't hit the keys. But I kept, you know,
kidding keys, and at some point she thought, hey, I'm

(27:17):
actually doing it for my son, so why not let
him play stuff? But then after like a week or two,
she realized that the keys I was pressing would fit
to what she was playing. And I can still remember
how like she was blown away that I was like
pressing keys that would fit to what she was playing.
And that's how I learned music. So I really learned
it like a language growing up. And I like, I

(27:39):
literally cannot think of a time where I was not
making music. Okay, So what instruments did you play? Um, So,
piano was my my main instrument. I've played a lot
of other instruments, so I started a little bit with
the flute and trumpet. I really liked a little bit
of violent double bass guitar and a little bit of
like vocal lessons and stuff, but piano was always main. Okay,

(28:02):
And you can read music, I assume. Yeah, to a
certain degree. I'm a little bit out of practice, but yeah,
I can read music. Okay. Now you talk about going
to Munich. How old again are you when you go
to Munich? And what school are you going to attend
in Munich? I was twenty one, I think, Yeah, I
was twenty one, and I go. I went to the

(28:24):
s a E. Which is School of Audio Engineering, like
an international school for audio engineering. Okay, but you said, okay,
you you know, some of the terms may not be identical.
You graduate from high school, which in America's traditionally eighteen,
then do you go you go to university or when
I do after eighteen? Yeah, exactly, it's it's School of

(28:45):
aud Engineering. So I got a bachelor's degree there and
so I'm a Bachelor of Recording Arts Honors Recording Arts. Okay,
but you said once you got to Munich, you thought
that people were much better musicians than you. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I after six months, I went into a fraternity

(29:06):
and it was a music or it is a music fraternity,
which was amazing. Uh. They had a huge house in
the middle of Munich, Munich, incredibly expensive and it's it's
like it's like, I don't know, it's uh utopia kind
of for a musician because it was in the middle
of Munich and they had a big, big rooms with

(29:27):
pianos and I could play like grand pianos to use
for free all the time. Whenever I wanted, I could ill.
I moved into the fraternity there, so that was absolutely amazing.
But there were a lot of other musicians as well,
and that's what I talked talked about. It was like,
oh wow, um, I'm not half as good as I thought.
I was, Okay, you graduate, you get your degree, what's

(29:50):
the next step? Um. Even before I finished the degree,
I had the part was a U internship internship and
so I took an intern at a company called Uniquate
Music and that was a publishing company and a music
production company. And they had this artist called lu Biga

(30:12):
who didn't know five yeah, and so that was two
thousand one, so that was just like one and a
half years ago. So they were like the biggest thing.
And I was like, Okay, this is my chance because
I knew I wanted to become a music producer. That
was my goal. UM, So I simply worked my ass
off there like I worked like crazy and was like

(30:34):
I wasn't intern first then, and like a year after
they hired me as an intern, I was like head
of the interim music production there and I run the production. Ah. Yeah,
that was the next step. And I can tell you
a lot about that that company and what I learned there.
If you want, um, how to like how not to

(30:58):
what not to do when you have to says the company.
So the the owner of the company, he was not
creatively involved in Mambo number five, but after the big success,
he thought like, oh, I want to be like the mastermind.
I want to be the creative chief. So he took

(31:18):
things in his own hands creatively, and that's simply ruined
the entire the entire process. That killed the creativity. UM
and yeah, I mean there's like no value or very
little value to the the brand today. And there there
wasn't like a long time career that developed out of

(31:39):
Mambo Number five because that idiot simply ruined everything. Okay,
so where do you go from that production company? UM?
I was there for like four years and then I
um worked like crazy, fourteen hours a day and made
like five bucks per month that's what they paid me.

(31:59):
And then I decided I want to go independent, so
I started. I was like, okay, I'm ready. I'm not
going to do like or it's independent, like I would
want to build start my own business, become an entrepreneur,
which didn't go so well at first, because the one
thing that made me money was and was making ring
tones for um Zeemens. So those mobile phones when you

(32:21):
would buy a mobile Zemens mobile phone back in two
thousand and six, the ring tones that were on the
phone were I wrote those ring tones and produced those
ring tones, and that was the one source of income
that I had. And then ben Q had bought Zeemens
I think in two thousand six maybe or so, and
then two thousand no, I think two thousand four maybe,

(32:44):
but they they let the mobile part of it, they
let it go bankrupt purpose because they only wanted their
technology and they wanted to lay off all the employees
and everything. So that's that happened exactly at that time.
So they still owed me a lot, a lot of money.
So one month after I decided I wanna start my

(33:05):
own business, that happened. So I had like I started
with seven thousand euros in depth and I had like
no income so that was my my start at that time,
keep going down the narrative yea, well um, And then
it was just you know, it's aistential crisis and thinking
about if music production was the right thing, because everybody

(33:26):
wronged me. You know, people finished, like all the people
that I knew, they were like finishing their their university
and everybody was like starting families. And I was just
bankrupt basically almost like my parents had me had to
help me out. And then I just I there was
one guy that I knew from the company, and he said, hey,
I also want to go away, and do you have
some music like I wanna UM could help you. And

(33:50):
I just played him a couple of songs and he
for one song that I had produced, he found me
a deal at Content Records, which is a German dance label. Uh,
it flowed out, but he got me another deal for
another record, and that's how we started. And then we
founded a company together. And that was a good thing

(34:10):
because so I was producing a lot of dance music
and I was doing like everything that I could simply
get my hands, like every job, anything that I could do,
any production, we're the stuff, so still ring Tones, and
then we had those big ring tones, like people would
sell ring tones on television. That was a thing. So
I did that um and for example, publishing company of

(34:34):
that owned h take Me Home Tonight by Share for
example for Germany. They hit me up and said, hey,
you know, cascadas like a big thing at the moment,
this euro dance is blowing up. Can you make a
cascada is a version of take Me Home Tonight? And
that's what I did for ext some and then they
paid me like eight hundred bucks or stuff like that.
So I would do all those things and slowly, you know,

(34:56):
make my way into the business. And then I signed
a publishing deal with Chrysalis back then, I think that
was two thousand nine already, and we decided that we
want to reach out to the Yes because the dance
music thing was blowing up, and we had like at
that time it was possible from Munich to get in

(35:16):
touch with Island in New York and you know Atlantic
recket and all, because everybody was like searching for European producers.
They were like, oh, like dance music is blowing up,
and like you know, the hip hop producers they were
not there quite yet. They learned so quickly the U
S producers, but there was like the small window of
time where they were not there and we already had
the sound. Um. Yeah. And then we in two thousand nine,

(35:41):
what we did is we booked K and A Studios
in Brill Building in New York for a week for
I don't know, ten thousand dollars or something like that,
without having any session, and then we we reached out
to I don't know which one it was like one
of the maybe Atlantic or so, and said, hey, we're
in like we're in New York, we're in cam A
studios like you know, doing sessions, and we still have

(36:03):
like one spot open. Do you have any artists that
you want to send around and they will do? Okay?
Cool you have like I know Winter Gordon for example,
maybe you could do a session with her. And then
we would go to the next like to Island saying hey,
by the way, we're in came A students and we're
working with at Landing on their artists, you know, but
we have still one spot open and maybe do you
have an artist? Yeah. That's that's how we did it,
and then we had like the entire scheduled booked and

(36:26):
came a studios, and then we went to New York
and wrote a lot of songs. I think none of
that ever got released, but we that was the first
time it came to the U. S almost thirty years old,
but it was amazing and it's like the Yeah, we
realized how different the US mentality is, especially in the
entertainment industry, and how how quickly things can happen. They're

(36:49):
compared to Germany, where every it's so slow. Here. I'm
not I have like almost nothing to do with the
German entertainment industry, but I remember how baffled I was
and how amazed that was when it came the first
time to the US and things happened, especially in New York,
had happened so quick it was just crazy. Yeah. And
then I was in New York four I don't know,

(37:12):
eight weeks or so. So we did other sessions and
you know, socializing and everything, and we was, yeah, we
originally we had planned to fly back, but then we
had a we had a in Art Island. He said
he wanted us to work with his artist, and we flew.
He flew us to Los Angeles and then I was
away there for three weeks and then I decided in

(37:33):
the end of two thousand nine, almost missed the flight
back on Christmas but made it. And then we just okay,
we're gonna move to l A and see how far
we can get there. And that's the next thing that
we did. So what happened in l A? And how
long were you in l A? Three years? And yeah, learning,
learning as I had amazing Like I mean, it's creatively,

(37:58):
it's incredibly professional. I was in the studio with people
like Tovlo, b b Rexa, Um, even Bogart who wrote
like Halo, Fifore Beyonce, with um the underdogs who are
like also like Justin Bieber Beyonce and amazing. Yeah, a
lot of amazing people. I learned so much from it.

(38:21):
But I also get like Piste or Piste by annoyed
by the music industry, like how how political it is
and how especially what bothered me is like how many
people started talking into my music, Like you know, I
put so much like work and thought into it, and
then you have like the artist has an opinion, which
is legit, and then the manager artist manager has an opinion,

(38:44):
and then there in our has an opinion, and then
the label head and this person and that person and
the publisher, and everybody's like, hey, let's change this, let's
change that. Can you do this? Can you do that?
And then at the end of you like everything's kind
of ruined. And that really was annoying. And also that
some of the best songs I thought I had were
never released just because they didn't fit anywhere. But I

(39:06):
still thought they were amazing songs. And some songs where
I thought like, oh, that's not that good, We're actually
raised because we were done with the right people at
the right time, the right studio you know. Um, yeah,
that was the time two thou eleven. Oh, actually it's
it's now exactly ten years ago, because thousand eleven, summer
two thousand eleven. There's okay, I'm just gonna put out

(39:27):
some ideas that I have by myself, just gonna put
it before you go there. You moved to l A.
How do you end up working with these artists? Sheer
hustle or does somebody else make the arrangement? You come
to l A? You don't really know many people even Yeah,
like I said, so we did this this move that
has had in New York with came A studios, um

(39:50):
and that was our like you know, there was our
step into the industry. So we started knowing people then,
and like I said, we had this a are from
Ireland who flew us UH to l A. He also
the second time he said like, hey, I want you
guys in l A. Actually, now that I remember, the
second time I wanted to come to the years we
wanted to come to New York. We also already had

(40:12):
the flights booked and I think three days people, no,
there was this volcano thing, if I remember correctly, we
couldn't fly, and then the flights were delayed and in
that time we had the call from Ireland and they said, hey,
we want to work you to work with our artists
in Los Angeles. So then we canceled those flights into Okay,
two questions when you say we who are you talking

(40:34):
about and who was in l A? And b how
are you making money in this period in Los Angeles? Yeah,
so we that that was the the guy that I
talked about who like brought me those first UH dance
deals like with Contour Records when I started starting my
own business. So I had this guy. He was working

(40:55):
at the company were Lubka was also signed the publishing company.
He moved away from that company as well, and we
started our own business and he was he was the
person uh that kind of did all the like management stuff.
So it was one company, but basically I was doing
the music production. He was doing like all the rest.
Um yeah, and we just did it together. How did

(41:16):
you make money in that life? Yeah? Um, well, actually
we had a huge, pretty huge hit in Europe exactly
at that time. One of those ring tones that we did,
um it was it was released as a full so
it went really well in France and it then was

(41:37):
released as a full song and it became it got
the number one spot in France for thirteen weeks um
and it was best selling single of the year in France,
and that was one of the things. And then we
still had the publishing deal with the advance and stuff
like that, and then we had like cuts, a couple
of cuts, like some K pop songs and then some

(42:00):
I think it was also Atlantic Records, so so some
some smaller placements and stuff. Okay, so you wake up
one day and you say you're gonna do your own music.
Continue from there, yes, So it was started kind of
a side project. So it was just it was more
a creative thing, and for me it's aweso important. I was.

(42:22):
I was annoyed by how complicated everything was, including well
now that came a little bit a litt bit later,
but that that started then that it was annoyed by
how complicated was for people to listen to my music.
But yeah, it started that. I simply put out an
EP on SoundCloud, and I sent it to a couple

(42:42):
of blocks, and then I went into holidays, and then
I came back and was curious to see how many
plays I have And I had seventy three plays into
on the entire EP over two weeks, so that wasn't
too crazy. But so what I did then I hit
up people on SoundCloud directly personally. Uh, you could wait,

(43:08):
how did it work? On sound ticks? You could see
like you could open up an artist like let's say Scritics,
who was like blowing up at the time. You could
open up Scritics and then it would show you people
who would listen to Scrilics. I would show those profiles.
So I would search for some artists, for example, Potter
Robinson here like a little bit similar sized that at
that time as well, similar to the stuff that I

(43:28):
was doing complex shrow. So I would look up those
people and see who was following them and then send
them a personal message. So a lot of those were
produced as well. So I would listen to their songs
and say like, hey, I listen to your song like
this and or maybe you could do this different. I
have those ideas and maybe you want to check out
my songs. So it was it like really doing this.

(43:51):
I would like hit up ten people per day, and
a lot of people got back to me like, Hey,
your music is amazing, thanks so much for reaching out.
And that was where I felt like, hey, I'm not
doing annoying advertisement. What I'm doing is like actually people
enjoyed when I reached out to them. And one of
those artists he sent my music to his manager and
to another band. The other band was The Knox. I

(44:12):
don't know if you know them. It's like an indie
band from New York and his manager. So The Knox
reached out to me saying, hey, your music is amazing,
can you do remis for us? And then this manager
who was tour manager for the Knox, but he was
also manager for another artist, he also reached out to
me see he said like, hey, I want to manage
your music. Amazing, I think I could do something for you.
So did. There's readings for the knocks, and back then

(44:33):
high Machine was a big thing. I don't know, like
probably remember, like was the music block charts sort of thing.
And that remix became immediately went top ten in the
High Machine charts. Okay, how did it go top ten? Um?
So the manager that that that wanted to work for me.

(44:55):
I think he brought up one block article um, and
so a blog wrote about it, and then it simply
clicked with the people. People like that. They click like
you know, and then the algorithm pushes it up. And
it took a while. I think there there's a small
time window where you can get into the high Machine shuts.
I think it's only three days, and after three days

(45:15):
you drop out automatically. So every song you see saw
on the High Machine charts still see it's not older
than three days. So yeah, that happened. And then this
manager say, hey, you can do a remix for Foster,
the people who just blew up with pumped up kicks um.
And so I did the remix and I wanted to

(45:37):
give it to like sell it too, foster the people.
But I still had my business partner, and my business
partner said, okay, we we are ruining ruining our prices
if you give away the remix cheap. So he asked
for four K, four thousand dollars and the label said, no,
we are only going to pay five and so that

(45:59):
didn't so we agreed that I could simply put out
the remix for free. That's what I did, and it
immediately hit number one on the high Machine charts. Um
it simply some blocks wrote about it, and simply it
clicked with the people. It's just kind of went viral
on its own. And funny story is um that back
then a I got a message on SoundCloud from a

(46:21):
guy called Billy and he said, Hey, I'm having this
new channel on YouTube. It's called No Copyright Sounds, and UM,
can I upload your remix there? Is that okay for you?
And I was like, yeah, cool, no problem. I looked
at the channel and had like three hundred subscribers or something,
and it was one of the driving forces behind the
channel in the beginning to grow that channel, and the

(46:44):
channel I think now has over thirty million subscribers and
that's the channel where Alan Walker and a lot of
like huge also huge gaming artists came from and as
uh yeah, one of the biggest YouTube channels. Now they
really started of my music. Yeah. Then I made another
bootleg remis for Levels for VT which also on when

(47:05):
number one Hype Machine, and made another remix for Gautier,
the somebody that I used to know, also bootleg remix um. Yeah.
Then then I got remix requests from Static Revenger and
from Chris Brown for example, So I made an official
remix for Chris Brown. And that was the point. By
the way, we're really got annoyed with copyright protection systems

(47:29):
and how major labels work, because what happened is I
made this official remix for Chris Brown, and for some reason,
the labels were releasing it in the UK first on iTunes,
so people in the UK could buy it on iTunes,
but in the rest of the world. So what happened
was some people in the UK who are friends of
mine bought it and they blocked about the right. Oh

(47:50):
there's the fat Red remix for Chris Brown. Brown. It's amazing,
you should listen to it. But it wasn't available in
the rest of the world. So I had a lot
of people coming in, Yeah, I want to buy your
remics but it's not available, and like, yeah, there's nothing
I can do about it. But I found this incredibly
annoying because I thought, eight people want to listen to
my music, but the labels they won't let them listen

(48:11):
to it. Yeah, and so that was also and then
this this is interesting thing happened. So the small channel
called no Copyright sound uploaded this Faster the People remas
for free, and then I got uh comments on my
SoundCloud the Great Space Butterfly. I was like what, and
then another comment, yeah, great Space Blatterfly. Yeah, I kind

(48:31):
of from the Great Space buttering It's I googled it
and I found out that it was a YouTube I think,
let's play uh serious or where they would use the
Fast of the People bootleg remins as background music. And
I realized that this video serious YouTube series was driving
a lot of traffic um to my to my SoundCloud.
So that's a point where I realized that, yeah, background

(48:53):
music on YouTube can be like a good promotional tool. Okay,
so you're interfacing with other people, other companies, how do
you decide ultimately to go totally independent. How do you
build even bigger on sound and when do you get
YouTube involved? Uh? Well there was. First of all, I

(49:16):
got into trouble with my business partner obviously because I
had a conflantly of interest because it was like pursuing
my own artis story. I started playing shows and stuff
and I I want to do more of my own music.
But then it's the same time had like other producers,
and I was actually my career and I was really
starting I would like get bigger sessions, you know, like
I totally like bb Rex back then way still with

(49:36):
Pete Wentz. They had to do black cards I think
was called, so we would get like bigger artists in
the student I would My missus partent was really annoyed,
so I had to go through this like phase of
like saying goodbye to him. And then I was there
was two thousand thirteen. Then already I was like thirty
two years old, our thirty three, and I want to

(49:59):
have family and we were in LA but for us,
it was never an option to have a family in
Los Angeles also because we wanted to have our family around,
so we moved back to Germany. That was the next
thing that happened. Okay, your wife manager, she was with
you in l A, Yes, exactly. So she's from getting

(50:21):
in um. That's a very different story. We know each
other since she was fifteen and I was seventeen, but
we were just best friends and at the time when
I moved to l A. Uh, so we were not together,
just with friends. But at the time when I moved
to l A, um I offered her to visit me,

(50:44):
so I would pay her a visit and then we
got together. So she kind of moved to l A
when I started moving to so she was there with me.
We married while I wasn't a while I was living
in l A. Yeah, but after we were married, we
were like, okay, count and we want to have kids
and we're not going to have them in l A.
So yeah, and she was not managing me at that time.

(51:04):
She only started managing in two thousand nineteen. What was
she doing in the interim and you asked, yeah, yeah,
she was. She wanted to become an author, like writing novels,
so she was working on a novel. Okay, So you
moved back to Germany to have kids yea. So then
what goes on with your career yeah, yeah, that that

(51:27):
was what I was wondering about, like what's happening now? Um?
And what I did? Once again, I split up from everybody,
So I so my management got a little slower. They hired,
they had a they wanted some big artists as clients,
which I realized, Okay, they're now really priority for them,
which was okay. So I split up and saying, hey,

(51:49):
you know, everybody, let's go separate ways. And I split
up from the publishing, split up from everybody, just sitting
in Germany. I still had like some passive income from
the stuff that I had released. Then was really wondering, Okay,
what am I gonna do now? And then I said,
you know what, I'm just gonna try for a year
just putting up my own music originals this time and

(52:12):
see what happens. And that's what I did. And then
what happened what ensued? Well, um, I focused on uh
on YouTube because at some point in the internet had
I've seen like where do people find I think was
in the US, like where do people find me? In music?

(52:33):
That was like I think number one of those radio
and like thirty thirty six percent there was YouTube. I
was like, wow, a lot of people are finding their
music on YouTube now, and I already had this experience that, um,
I would get so much sound out traffic from YouTube,
so I thought, okay, cool, I'm gonna focus on that
and I made some music for for example, my songs

(52:56):
Windfall and Unity, and I had this thing that I
would make music that I liked. But it was like
this is but this is not really, like this is
not e d M. I'm not sure, like who's actually
gonna listen to that because it's too playful for DJs
to play it on a festival, right, two thousand thirteen
was like hotwell and you know David Gheta and everybody, uh,

(53:18):
and then they're not going to play this, but yeah,
let me just put it out and yeah, I put
it out and it didn't explode, but I got really
good responses. And what happened is I back then you
could see the place on a YouTube channel. You could
see like on a video, you could see over time
how the place would develop. That features not around anymore,
but it was back then, and what really I could see.

(53:41):
So there were those taste maker channels, like the first
one was Tasty Records and for example Mr suicide Cheeps.
So Tasty Records I had like I think four hundred
thousand subscribers, and they would simply every two days or
like three times a week, they would upload some music
and say, here's like new music that you can discover.
So I hit up Tasty Tasty Network, this YouTube channel

(54:03):
and say, hey, here I have some songs. Maybe you
like them. They're like, yeah, cool, this is amazing. They
uploaded on their channel, and like I said, it didn't explode.
But what I saw, like you could see every video
how it started really high and then the place would
go towards zero. And my songs they started went a
little bit lower, but then remained on a really high
level and slightly started moving up. And they put out

(54:25):
the next song, and that happened again, and they put
out the next song. That happened again. And what else
that happened is I did not put my at that time.
I did not put my songs on iTunes and on Spotify.
Everybody had told me, you're not gonna make any money there, right,
it's so small, like it's just especially on the street
that's Spotify. You make like no money. It's not worth

(54:49):
the effort. So I didn't put it there, and I
didn't put it on iTunes. But then Tasty, this YouTube channel,
said hey, we're making a label, now can we like
release your music? Say okay, say cool, let's do it.
And I let them release Windfall on a fifty split,
and then I put out the next songs, you know, Genesis,
same thing split, and then next one Never Belong, and

(55:10):
then monthly I think was January two thousand fourteen. Then,
so I had been releasing my own music for three
or four months. Now, hey, we have the first numbers
coming in. I thought, okay, this is gonna be like
putting me down to probably be like twenty sales, right,
it's gonna be but never mind, Okay, what are the numbers?
And he's like, yeah, it's six thousand sales. Like oh,

(55:33):
that was the moment where I wait, everybody said there's
no money. It's like just one song. And the first
month it was like six thousands. So it's like still,
I don't know how much did I make like thirty
cents per sale? So what's that? Uh yeah, exactly some wait,

(55:54):
that's not that bad. And then I turned on monetization
on my own channel. I remember, I think the first
day was like fourteen bucks. By wait, if you over
entire month, this actually makes sense. Yeah, there was a
really fascinating time because I started putting out more music
and all the numbers started growing and growing and growing
bigger on its own, even when I didn't put out music,

(56:17):
and that was funny. There was the time where my
daughter was born February two thousand fifteen now, and uh,
she had a serious sleeping disorder, like serious. She would
rarely sleep longer than an hour, usually like thirty minutes.
Now we know she's like the reflux that her like,

(56:38):
she's like the from yeah, acid reflux, but we didn't
know back then. Yeah. So so there was sleepless time,
but not for a career reasons, and was really kind
of observed because I was like completely sleep deprived. I
would start crying like for no reason, like carrying out
the garbage and then just really start crying because it

(57:01):
was so sleep deprived. But sometimes they looked at their
numbers and like, yeah, everything kept growing and the and
the income kept growing. And I remember the time, I
think March March April, around the time me and my
wife said, hey, wait if it goes on like that
by the end of the year, we might be have
like ten thousand a month income and it ended up

(57:21):
being twenty grand per month. It's simply because it kept
growing and growing and yeah, that's yeah. And then I
kept putting out songs and then made some experiences with
major record companies and with management. That would be the
name the next chapter. Then, okay, how do you ultimately
get five and a half million subscribers on YouTube? Slowly?

(57:46):
Simply simply two thousand subscribers a day, very very constant growth, simply. Okay,
So the labels start calling, and then what happened, Well,
let me say, you go with Tasty label when you
see how much when you see how much money is involved,
do you then go to direct or do you stay
with Tasty? Well? I went direct, uh, simply because they

(58:11):
were like small things with Tasty that so it's it's
one person basically back then, right, or maybe two, very
very small and he's he's a nice guy and he's fair,
but it was just those small things that he wouldn't pay.
He with value added tax in German, you have, it's
very taxes in Germany is incredibly complicated. So I needed

(58:33):
like a certification from his side, but he didn't have
his company registered, so he couldn't give me that certificate,
which made me I would have to pay additional twenty
percent text because he didn't have that. Like those small details,
those were the reasons why I didn't keep signing with him,
not that I not the money, just because that's sort
of those sort of things like and he wouldn't pay

(58:55):
for the paper fees and stuff like that. Um, even
though he was a nice guy, but that was where
I was like, you know what, I'm just going to
do myself. Just was a little annoying. And yeah, and
then I simply tried putting out a song by myself
and discovered tune Core. Simply uploaded it on tune Core,
and I have had a very good reputation now at
a different taste maker channels as well, Like different YouTube

(59:16):
channels were asked asking me, hey, do you have new songs?
We would like to upload them. Yeah, that's what it is. Okay.
So then at what point the managers and label start
calling you? What's the experience there? I think they started
calling after like four Like after I started, I had
put out my origins for about half a year, so

(59:38):
I'll to a record called and Cloud nine and like,
and I put them on like I said no all
the time, I think like fifteen times. So so I
was always like, no, I'm not gonna sign. I'm just
gonna do it independently. That's it. And then at some
point I thought, hey, I might get myself a manager
because it's so much work with the like administrative stuff,

(59:59):
and I come at the things that I wanted to do.
So I meant went with the management again from New York,
l A. They have both cities. Yeah, and they they
talked me into a record deal. Again. I mean, it's
not their fault, but because it was always my decision
of course. Um, but they were like, yeah, we have

(01:00:20):
this Universal Music reached out they had reached out to
me before, right, and I was just straight up no,
not interested, thank you very much. And then they reached
out again from Sweden and it's very very great. You
should at least meet them and so on and so forth. Yeah,
then I discovered how record it was work. You know.
There they invited me, which was the biggest like the

(01:00:43):
biggest upside of the deal was that they invited me
to Ibtha to each his last show where he will
he quit touring and then nobody would know. Of course
knew that he would die, but I was like, hey,
he's going to play his last life show and then
he because he's gonna stop touring, so we want to
invite you. So that was amazing. Was in the VP
lounge drinking the record labor champagne, and I was meeting

(01:01:07):
in New York with Republic, which was amazing because the
first time when I went to New York was finally
or we were always trying to get a record deal
right or place artists play songs, and now they were
inviting me to New York. And when they want to
sign you at Republic, we're really good at that. Like
you they bring you up in the elevator and they
have screens all of the place that they're like, welcome

(01:01:29):
the fat Rat, and they would play my song in
the entire building and you're the star. Yeah and yeah.
So I signed for only licensing deal for ten songs,
and then realized, yeah, it's a little different once you signed.
Next time you come there, they don't play your songs.

(01:01:49):
They also don't put your face on the screens anymore.
Um uh yeah. So that was quite an experience and
now we almost sued them, but I think it's still open.
Maybe I will maybe not, we will see. Um yeah,
but now independent again, fully independent and two thousand nineteen,
two thou eighteen, I think I fired my management and

(01:02:09):
thought I'm going to do everything by myself. And then
I had had the idea which turned out to be
really pretty good. Do you have my wife managing me? Uh,
which was I think the best decision from you talk
about you might too Universal on what grounds? On the
grounds that they have no uh, they're not allowed to to.

(01:02:32):
They had don't have the rights for SoundCloud right there,
excluded soundclouds excluded in the agreement. What they did is
they well, you know Sweden, I have the agreement with Sweden.
They they made sure they wouldn't claim it on SoundCloud,
but then you know, in the university system gets like
sub licensed, and I think some of them still put

(01:02:53):
it in the SoundCloud copyright protection system. So I would
upload the song immediately get to claim on my own song,
which then we removed. But recently I found out that
the claim was kind of removed, but still the song
was administrated by Universal, was also monetized by Universal and

(01:03:14):
not by me without me knowing it, and it was
GEO blocked in almost the entire world. So I was
really surprised because one of my most successful songs, fly
Away Uh, did incredibly well on YouTube, did incredibly well
on Spotify, and did almost nothing on sound plot. It
was like, what's going on with sounds like the platform

(01:03:35):
falling apart of what I thought that would be the case,
I recently found out, No, it's the songs GEO blocked
in almost the entire world. So I was like, hey,
remove it police, and they didn't even answer, you know,
like I said, wants the deals through, it's yeah, they're
not gonna they're going to treat you differently. Yeah. They
didn't respond, and then I was like, okay, cool, this

(01:03:56):
is like, uh, you're violating the riem and I'm not
going to our terminate the agreement, which was what I did.
So I terminated the agreement, which then they of course
said no. Then suddenly they responded yeah, and now we're
trying to figure it out. Okay, So did they do
anything good for you? They tried. I have to say

(01:04:18):
they tried. So there were some people that were really
uh motivated at University Sweden. They said like Hey, we
really want to get into the gaming space. And they
did this collaboration with the Electronic Sports League, so they
put me on those shows, like right before the finale
of a Big counter Strike for example event or a

(01:04:39):
Dota to UM they would put me onto the stage
playing a set, and the set got really great reactions.
They tried that, like s I'll tried that before with
other DJs and they had like a really pretty bad
feedback on that. But since I'm from the gaming space,
I kind of knew a little bit what I could do,
what what reason resonated with the audience, and that went
really well, and that that definitely helped me grow and

(01:05:03):
help me gain an audience. Yes, but when you look
at the percentages that they get and then how much
they help you grow, which you can like kind of
measure a little bit, it's it's not a good deal.
How much did they help your uh screams grow? Well,
it's hard to tell on the streams, but well, I

(01:05:24):
mean I think I had an increase when I played
those shows. So I had like this plateau before on
a certain song, and then I played the shows ahead
and like ten increase on streams on the YouTube and
Spotify and those things. Okay, did you get any money
from them? Yeah? They paid in advance of course. Okay,

(01:05:47):
So if you look at it at the end of it, now,
would you've made more money or less money if you
stayed independent the whole time? Of course, it's always difficult
to make those scenarios. But from my from my calculation
at the moment, I think I would have like at

(01:06:08):
least a million more when I in case I wouldn't
have signed. Okay, So presently, how much money are you
making in a year? Uh so revenue? It's about I
think about a million. Okay. So you have a new
project that's totally independent, which one do you mean you're

(01:06:33):
putting out like these? You have this story album that
you're putting out. Is that totally independent? Yes, it's totally independent.
And it's even more than that, it's completely controlled by me,
which means which is a really interesting thing because like
I said, I'm doing this thing where a lot of
a lot of my music is free to use for creators,

(01:06:55):
Like it's free to use on social media, is free
to use on YouTube, it's free to use. Most of
the stuff is free to use on Twitter and stuff.
So my approaches that creatives. Creators are free to use
my music. Um, I think it's also kind of fair
to do like that. So to do that, what I

(01:07:15):
realize it's it's not that easy. It's not that you
simply do not claim. You have to actively not claim
because the entire system now is built in a way
that it's claiming automatically, and if you don't watch out,
it's like it's like a mine field if you do
one wrong step, every like everything gets claimed everywhere. So yeah,

(01:07:36):
that's a thing that I learned now. So I'm very
very careful and I'm very uh so what we're doing
is like I have the entire publishing control, so I
have a publishing company. Now I only work with people
who can give the songs into my publishing, which has
nothing to do with the money we're paying out hundred
percent on most things like accept licensing, which because we

(01:07:58):
do that actively, but the rest of you simply them
out percent. It's not that we want to make any
money from that, but we have to have control over
it because once you have another public that you have,
like I don't know, Sony and Warner involved, and you say, yeah,
I don't claim on YouTube but they'll be like, yeah,
but we're gonna claim on YouTube and yeah, there there
goes your strategy and your Okay, So going going forward,

(01:08:21):
what's the business model, what's the strategy, what's the dream? Yes? Um,
so so what I did this album is, well, what
I what I generally did started is I used sci
fi fantasy art art as artworks, and together with the

(01:08:42):
artists that I had first, Jordan Grimmer was his name,
we started putting like the same characters and some like
objects and stuff into it where we start telling little
stories with the artworks together with the songs, and defense
reacted really great to that thing. Hey there's a story,
that's amazing. They started like discussing the story and discussing

(01:09:02):
the lore and everything. So what I did with this
album now is that I took this to the next
level and be more conscious about the story that we're telling.
So it's a ten song album and every songs it's
coming out over ten weeks, So every Friday, one song
is coming out together with the new artwork, and the
artworks together tell a story, um, and a more obvious

(01:09:26):
story than we told before. Um. The next the big
dream is too, U take this to the next level.
So I'm working on the next album already and this
is supposed to come with a the same thing again,
so artworks telling a story, but also with the comic
where you have way more detailed story. So it's kind

(01:09:48):
of a entertainment storytelling process that starts with the music. Right,
Usually have like movies, you have the the story and
what you have the pictures first, and yet then you
add the music. So it's a little bit the other
way around. So you have a story, but then you
read the music and then you add the pictures on top.
And the comics with those beyondline or physical or boat,

(01:10:10):
I think they're going to be both. We have a
partner that we're working starting to work with now and
that's the plan to have both. Who's doing the images?
We have some like artists, uh like candidates at the moment,
it's not higher persential yet what's gonna do them? Okay,
So obviously your publicists reached out to me about doing this,

(01:10:32):
although we've had contact previously. Let's just assume you made
this music and you posted it on YouTube. Is that
enough marketing to make it so people aware of it
will be streamed or you have to do other things.
You hired a PR firm, which is spreading the word.
So how did you decide to hire a PR firm?

(01:10:54):
What is the marketing plan and do you need that
to make the thing go it all? Or is the
marketing just a cherry on top? Well, the marketing, I
would say is the it's sort of a cherry on top. Uh.
It's also getting into new like like getting more audience. Um.

(01:11:19):
Most so so far, my career took off just on
its own. Um. The best example for that is China.
At I played shows in New York and people came
to me after the show and we're like, hey, do
you know your music is really big in China. I
was like, no, I have no idea. And then at
some research and I thought out that there's this big
platform which is called net ease and over it's like

(01:11:44):
Spotify in in China and on the entire platform, two
of my songs were in the top fifty and I
didn't even know. And the funny things, I didn't even
release it. There was like just pirated. So people just
grabbed my music then put it on the platform. But
this is the best best example because I didn't even
so there was the absolutely zero effort from my side,

(01:12:05):
but the music just did its thing. And yeah, now
I mean now the situation change. They have like a
team there and everything. Um. But of course I can
never know that for every song because they are It's
like maybe of my songs they do that where they're
just they. I always say they grew grow legs they

(01:12:26):
like they which which for me means so you have
a certain point whether the song starts right on release date,
then it goes down and if it ever gets over
that starting point, that's where I say, Okay, that song
really grew legs, so it really it becomes bigger than
at the start. And I think I would say, of
my songs do that, Okay, So give me some numbers

(01:12:46):
so that people can relate to the twenty or thirty
percent that go big. How big are they? Um? They are?
So the biggest song I think it's fly Away. It has,
like Honey, around hundred thousand plays on Spotify per day, um,
which maybe it's not that much for a couple of artists,
but the key is that it's it's now four years

(01:13:09):
old and it has now a hundred thousand place on
Spotify per day, and that's the highest that ever got,
so it still keeps growing. That so the daily place
still keep growing. And that's the same for by some
monity for example, or the calling and yeah, so so
there's a hundred thousand places. The next my I think
is probably eighty thousand place, and next rounds probably you know,
forty thou place a lot of around. The stronger is

(01:13:32):
also Stronger started at I think thirty thousand place per
day when I put it out in two thousand nine.
Now it has eighty thou nine place per day. And
what are the cum numbers cumulative on Spotify? It's at
the moment I think a rundred thousand and fifty thousand
around that. Okay, So what are your biggest tracks on

(01:13:54):
Spotify and how many times have they been streamed? The
biggest is Flyaway. It has around hundred million place at
the moment. Okay. So you're saying you're getting a eight
hundred thousand streams a day. Yeah, okay. You you talk
about your music being big in Vietnam, etcetera. This is

(01:14:15):
purely organic or you're working it, um, I mean I'm
working it's more now. So the reason for example, why
have we have this PR company now and more stuff
going on is my management now, which is my wife.
And it's also the the attempt to you know, reach
new audiences as well. Um, because it's spreading in a

(01:14:37):
certain community and it's going a lot of music is
going viral viral, not a lot, but like I said, roughly, um,
it's doing its own thing. Uh. You have, But I mean,
you want to keep growing and keep getting bigger. But
I could I could completely stop any marketing simply put
out songs and if it's the right song and would
still do very well. What kind of marketing are you doing? Uh? Yeah,

(01:15:01):
So we have this amazing PR company now I think
they're We're really really happy with them. Uh. Then we
have a like making like ads now on on Reddit
ads and YouTube ads and Facebook ads and stuff like that.
But all that that's all my wife. So I'm not
that much into it. She's like trying to figure out
stuff and I think doing a really good job. But

(01:15:25):
I have to say after I I after my wife
became a manager, I think within one year my streaming
numbers doubled, which they never did well in the very
beginning of the first year that happened. But but I
think in the in the Union when I was signed
with Universal. Over the two years roughly had a growth

(01:15:45):
of maybe thirty percent. And then I kicked out the Universe.
I kicked on my manager. My wife started managing me,
and we had a growth of d percent within a year.
And what about live gigs? I played some, uh, not
a lot. Also for family reasons. I'm very like a
very you know, a family guy. Uh and you know,

(01:16:07):
to a life it's not it doesn't go so well
with with family. So yeah, I played some. I played
Electric Forest for example, I played the like the small
venue on Webster Hall for example, Avalon in Los Angeles
and stuff like that. I prayed to the Roxy in
Los Angeles for example. Um, but that's sure, it has
been a while. I don't even know how long it's
ago because of COVID and everything. And what's the creative

(01:16:29):
process for me making songs? Oh, it's making a lot
of a lot of songs and throwing away most of it.
I tried to make one new song every day at
least like what I kinda lay out, uh, putting out,
putting together some beats, some melodies and stuff, and then

(01:16:50):
do it all over again the next day until something
sticks with me when I'm like totally fall in love
with it, because I have to be in love with
it to go through the finishing process, which can be
slow and tedious. For I don't put out a lot
of songs that we I mean, now I'm putting out
ten songs in a row, but usually often has been
for me, it's been like three or four songs a year.
And that wasn't like three singles a year, and that

(01:17:10):
was my year. So you're working ten hours a day,
you only work like you know sometimes no, no, no,
I'm pretty structured. So usually I stand up and I
hit the STUDI immediately, So the first thing during the
morning is like ten ten two hours of music production.
Then I do work out, then I do like, uh,

(01:17:32):
having breakfast and everything, and then I go back to studios.
So it's more and more a morning person now, which
another thought. When I started, I was always working late night.
But I realized that I'm you know, there's this thing
that you'd really productive at late night, and a lot
of people discover at some point that you're actually even
more productive it really early morning, when it's kind of

(01:17:52):
similar that being close to sleep thing where you're very
creative where you're not distracted and everything. So, yeah, I
try to be as productive that can be four twelve,
uh before noon, and then uh there's business stuff, you know,
and then uh, spending time with my daughter, and then
I usually get back into the studio around evening doing
a little bit of office stuff and then also being

(01:18:13):
creative and listening to a lot of music. Yeah, and
it's very yeah, very structured and very home based and
also not that crazy star. You say it takes a
long time to finish the song. How long does it
take to finish That depends. So when it's fast, it's
around a month. When it's slow. For example, my song Monitory,

(01:18:34):
you took me five months or every day. I was
working on it every day for five months. What are
you doing for five months? Um? So in the end,
you know, a song can have like hundred fifty tracks,
and for every of those hundred fifty tracks, I have
like ten other tracks that I made, and I was like, Okay,
it could be done better, whatever it might be, you know,

(01:18:56):
just going through all the options that you have, like, Okay,
this step could be like the step sound could be
a guitar, and I'm trying with the guitar sound. Maybe
it should be more brass, and putting in brass. Now
maybe it should be more orchestra, and then I'm putting orchestra.
And so yeah, just going through a lot of ideas
that I have until I have the one where I'm like, Okay,
this is the right one. But you're doing it all

(01:19:16):
yourself on electronic equipment. Yeah. Sometimes I used this platform
that is owned by Spotify, and I think it's called
sound Better. Why you can hire pretty good musicians online.
Uh So I'm for example, four strings or guitars, and
or I produce it and the computer and then I

(01:19:38):
send it out and then they recorded and send it back.
And if you how do you know when it's finished?
And can you tell when it's done what tracks are
going to resonate most? If I can tell what tracks
are going to resonate most h yes and no. Um.

(01:20:01):
Usually I have a pretty good feeling a lot of times,
but sometimes sometimes I'm very wrong. Simply Sometimes sometimes I
have a track while like they're like, okay, I'm gonna
put it out, Well, it's like barely good enough for
me to put it out. For example, my track Flyaway,
which then totally blew up. That sometimes happens. What really
happens is that I love a song and then it

(01:20:21):
doesn't do well. I kind of had this one time
a song Maydeay. I thought it would be really outstanding.
It did well, but not as good as I expected it.
But that rarely happens. And then most of the time
I'm kind of know where it's where it's going to be.
So how do you know what a song is finished?
Simply when there's nothing left to change? At some point

(01:20:42):
I'm like, okay, no, I have like all ideas that
I have, there's nothing bothering me, there are no ideas slip.
We're like, okay, I should try this. Like I said,
it's not that I I you know, with today's way
of working, you change something and you can always change
it back. So every idea I have, it would try
it until at some point I have like, okay, now
I have absolutely no idea what could be done better?

(01:21:02):
And nothing's bothering me anymore. Okay. The other thing I
noticed in your music, unlike traditional E d M, is
there's more melody. You conscious of that, yes, very much.
Just I had a time I was making like beats,
you know, I d M. It was when I moved

(01:21:23):
to l A. I was like, Okay, I'm gonna do
the beats, and we're gonna have the top liners. And
what read was interesting for me. In Europe, it's this
this thing I was I was working with sweets. They
would spend so much time on the melodies and then
they would write some random lyrics within ten minutes. And
then I moved to the US and they would write

(01:21:44):
the melodies in ten minutes and then spend Yeah, they
would spend hours on the lyrics, which was really fascinating,
which I realized, Okay, lyrics are important because I'm from Germany, right,
and we when you grow up you don't even understand
that English lyrics and it's just you need some punch
lines in it. But I realized in the U s
that there can be a lot of deep meaning and

(01:22:06):
lyrics can be really meaningful and they're really important and everything.
But what bothered me was that they spend a little
time on the melodies. The top lineers were more like
the lyricist. And then I said, okay, now I'm simply
going to do the melodies and when the top line
is come to the student, I'm gonna have some melodies prepared,
and my business partner back then, he was like, no,
don't do it, Like can you even do that? And

(01:22:28):
I started studying melodies. I started a lot of Max Martin,
for example. I listened to a lot of music, his songs,
and I analyzed everything and I transcribed a lot of stuff.
And then I started doing it. And first my business
partner I said that it's not good, but then I
think after two weeks. No, it was actually the first
session where insisted that we use my melody and we

(01:22:51):
finished the song, we sent it around and we immediate
immediately got Jason Rulu to the record it and was like, okay,
maybe I should keep making the melodies. Yeah, and ever since,
I just uh worked on it very consciously. And one
big inspiration for me has been Vici as well as well.
That was the incredible thing how he incorporated melodies into

(01:23:12):
idiom music. And you have this ten song album, And
if it takes you so long to finish your track,
how long did it take you to do the ten
song album. Yeah, that was a little bit faster because
I consciously decided I'm going to do some album songs.
So before I had a really high bar that a
song had to get over to actually get released, which

(01:23:36):
also my wife said, hey, you have so many great
songs that are really good. Maybe they are not a single,
but you still should still release them. So that was
simply I said, Okay, I'm gonna do an album. I'm
also going to release some songs that are more experimental,
which are not a single, which probably will not stand
on their own way. I think like, Okay, they're gonna
grow legs and they're gonna do big things on their own,
but still people might a lot of people might simply

(01:23:58):
still enjoy listening to them, to them, and yes, some
songs just took like two weeks, so yeah, it wasn't
that long. Okay, do you consciously shit in your studio
and say I want to make a hit single? Sometimes
not all the times. Yeah. I sit there and then
I think that, and then I realized it's completely blocking

(01:24:21):
me creatively, and then I tried to figure it out,
and then I do weird stuff, and then I think, oh,
I'm doing completely weird stuff. I should focus more on
making a hit single. And that's kind of a cycle
where it always moves and once in a while, randomly
a good song comes out of that process. Okay, if
I snap my fingers and we're in a perfect world,

(01:24:42):
what is your career look like? What's the ultimate dream?
I have this question recently, which record like which? Uh yeah?
Which which like Guinness World Record? Would you like to
uh break? Have? And I simply said, I would like
to have the most stream song and the and I
think that would still be a goal for me, simply

(01:25:06):
number one on on every single chart. Okay, well, I
hope you reached that. This has been fascinating. I mean,
you're very articulate and you know where you're going, and
you experimented a lot in the American way to get
where you are today. Yeah, it was very beneficial for
me to be in the US, I have to say, right,

(01:25:26):
it learned so much there. Okay, it's been great talking
to you. Until next time. This is Bob left Sex

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Host

Bob Lefsetz

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