January 26, 2026 • 61 mins
In this episode, Molly Neuman joins Michael Nevins to share how CD Baby has changed (and what’s coming next), why the artist “DIY” journey is way more complex than people think, and how platforms earn trust when the experience is intuitive and fair. They also get into the pressure artists feel to do everything (music, content, business), and why it’s worth being honest about what success can look like.
Along the way: Riot Grrrl, music scenes, and community-building; drumming as both craft and metaphor (multiple limbs / multiple priorities); and the mindset Molly uses to navigate a long, evolving career in music and tech.
00:00 - Kick & Snare intro
00:18 - Meet Molly Neuman (CD Baby President)
02:43 - Squiggly careers
04:53 - What CD Baby does today (and why “DIY” is more complex than it sounds)
06:59 - Molly’s Downtown journey: Songtrust → CMO → CD Baby
08:58 - Repositioning CD Baby: infrastructure, operations, and competing in a crowded market
11:24 - “By artists, for artists” + modern artist needs (global scale, new expectations)
12:38 - UX is the brand: why product experience beats logos
14:05 - Labels as filters: identity, taste, and trust (Discord, scenes, discovery)
18:26 - Labels as filters: identity, taste, and trust (Discord, scenes, discovery)
22:40 - Scenes, movements, and Riot Grrrl: how it grew (and what it wasn’t)
37:15 - Representation and visibility: why it changes people’s lives
42:12 - Career growth via new environments (Kickstarter lessons, scaling Songtrust)
44:36 - Untapped opportunity: supporting more women creators
45:51 - Getting her start as a drummer: learning by watching the kick drum
52:28 - Getting better in your 50s
53:51 - Drumming and leadership: multitasking, anticipation, staying in time
55:36 - Artist tools: being real about what artists need now
58:05 - What Molly’s listening to right now + closing
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
It's the Kick & Snare Podcast. Let's count it off.
(00:17):
Welcome to Kick & Snare. I'm Michael Nevins, and my guest today is Molly Newman.
Molly is the president of CD Baby, a distributor of independent music,
but that's just the latest chapter in her story. Welcome, Molly. Thanks for being here.
Thank you. I'm so happy to be here.
Well, I'm glad to have you. I should quickly thank Josh Johnson who helped put this together
(00:39):
because it took a while to find schedule. Thanks for him. And so shout out to Josh for making this
happen. And I also have to mention my wife, Cathy Nevins, who originally recommended that I have
you on and she was persistent. I told her I wanted to wait a little while until I got better at it.
And she said, I think you're ready. I think you're ready.
That's so sweet. And Cathy and I worked together, I think, 18 years ago for many years. I started
(01:04):
working with her in 2006. And so it's a joy. I think it's one of the things that I try to connect
with in, especially some of the challenging moments in one's career, that music has given me
connections with people that have lasted decades. And it's amazing to see people continue to thrive.
(01:27):
And even though we haven't worked together for a long time, it's always such a treat when I
get to see her in person. And so it's what is great about this industry.
Got it. I agree with you. It's funny because I've been in and out of the music industry.
And for the time I was away, I didn't always run into people because I wasn't at the same
(01:49):
conferences. But once I started doing it again, it was very fun to pick up on some of those
relationships all over again and see some of the people that I really enjoyed doing deals with back
in 1995 or earlier. Exactly. And we've all been through a lot. I mean, I think universally,
we have been through it in these last five years, these last 10 years, all the different ways.
(02:14):
And the fact that we are still in one another's orbit. And a lot of people have had challenging
moments and have turned those around. And I think, and some others, when you realize,
oh, you're back doing this, it's just great. So I'm very grateful for that in my career
(02:36):
and journey in music for having mostly the relationships that it's given me.
That's great. I feel the same way. It's interesting because
while I have good relationships from my time outside the industry, I think my favorite ones
and most gratifying are those from within the industry. And I met my wife through the industry.
(02:57):
Right, right, right. Exactly. Well, I met my husband at work when Kathy and I were working
together. Right. She mentioned that to me. That's a cool thing. So that's one good thing. We were
able to, I think it was not an issue, but 18 years later, it's all worked out. It was worth it.
These days, it's much harder to hook up with people at work and then explore relationships
(03:21):
and get married. He didn't report to me or vice versa, but it just would not have.
We have different guardrails now. Yeah, absolutely. And for the right reasons,
I'm sure. But I'm glad that it was looser when it needed to be for people like you.
That's a good thing. So I'd like to start, I mean, look, you've had this fascinating career,
(03:45):
right? And so I'm excited to dig in with you in various places. And I'll probably mess up
the timeline, so I'm not going to attempt that. And I don't think we have to do it in a linear
fashion. It's a long time, so it's hard not to get it right. Also, I'm fascinated by squiggly
careers, which I have to always make sure I give credit to Matt Cartmell at Music Tech UK,
(04:06):
who first used that phrase to describe the sort of their circuitous routes that people sometimes
take in their careers. Even when they're very driven, they're not always driven in a linear
fashion and in a straight line. And so my career hasn't been that for sure. And I find people who
(04:26):
have been opportunistic or who have planned certain things, but been eager to see around
corners and do new things as particularly interesting to talk to, which is definitely
part of your history, from what I can tell. So I thought it would be fun to do this. So let's
start with the current, because that's probably smart, and then we'll go backwards to some degree.
So let's start with your role as president of CD Baby. I'd like to understand their business.
(04:51):
I think I have an understanding, but it's good to do for the audience. I'd love to touch on how
it's evolved over the years, because I remember when they first started out. And then also
understand how it fits into the downtown universe. Yeah. So CD Baby first launched in 1998. So almost
28 years of being in business, which for me, in this industry, with the amount of change that
(05:19):
we've gone through in the last three decades, to have a business that has been leading in its
service to independent artists and artists who are, I think, you know, one of the distinctions
that we think about a lot is, you know, there's an inherent sort of professionalism when you decide
(05:41):
to make a recording and release it out into the world. Most people think about our sort of general
profile of artists as, you know, maybe less professional, more of a hobbyist or something
like that. And that might be true. But there's this sort of fundamental business element of
I'm making a decision to share and share it widely, not just in my inner circle or in my own bedroom,
(06:08):
that requires us to think about our artists in a way that, you know, it might be simpler, say,
oh, we're just a DIY, you know, indie hobbyist kind of, you know, persona that we're supporting.
But it is much more nuanced than that. And so inherently, it's very complex, because there are
(06:30):
a lot of needs that the business, the industry requires from artists of any profile. Now that
are, you know, your metadata standards need to be in place, you have to have, you know, validation,
you are who you say you are, you have to have, you know, an infrastructure to receive payments and
make payments in certain cases, if you're collaborating. So there's just so much complexity
(06:53):
on top of basically that original simple idea of, I made a recording, and I want to share it with the
world on, you know, a streaming platform. And so I've been in this role, personally, since
June of 2024. So just about a year and a half. And I've been part of the downtown company
(07:16):
in various other roles for eight years. I was originally, I originally joined to grow the
business of SongTrust. So the independent, sort of more platform business for Music Publishing
Administration, and then became president of SongTrust in 2019. And in 2022, became CMO of
(07:43):
Downtown Music Holdings, our parent sort of overarching company. And I did that for two years.
And then after sort of sort of being in a different lane of work, not very operational,
small team, thinking more broadly about how we present downtown to the world and, and some of the
(08:05):
changes that we had gone through, you know, growing as a company that had added different
business lines to, to originally a boutique music publishing company with this weird side
hustle thing called SongTrust to now, you know, we acquired CD Baby in 2019. And we added Fuga in 2020
and, and grew in all these different ways. So trying to shape that story and, you know, think
(08:31):
a little bit differently. It was a great opportunity for me personally, because it was something that I
think, I hadn't necessarily said, I want to be a CMO. That wasn't in my bingo card.
Mine either when I did it.
What you say, right? But it was like, oh, that makes sense. Because what's the actual,
you know, there's, that's a pretty amorphous title, but it can it can have so many different
(08:53):
elements to it. But if you think about it as trying to grow the value for the entire
group, and connecting, you know, the dynamics and the stories and the and the work that we do
and helping support all of our companies, that was really something that felt very compelling
at the time. And, and then the opportunity to come back into a more operational role at CD Baby,
(09:19):
where, you know, it's a very crowded space in music distribution for independent artists,
platform experiences now. And I think, you know, what my, you know, our executive team at
downtown had realized is that it just needed a different approach that we had been very
(09:41):
stable, but maybe not as competitive as we hoped to be, and to kind of reposition
the company. And, and that's kind of what we're doing right now thinking a little bit more about
how we can be organized, how we can work within the downtown group of companies for some of the,
the things that are not as visible to artists, so they don't know, necessarily what your
(10:06):
engineering team looks like, or where your, you know, distribution supply chain management
goes to, you know, the, the DSPs, they want to know that the music is on the DSPs on the
certain day that they selected. And managing that experience is a much more critical
(10:27):
area of what we should be doing. And it needed us to think about our approach differently. And so
that's what we've been doing, sort of like a lot of things that might not seem very glamorous,
and really wouldn't be seen at all, but they're very behind the scenes, like reorganization,
moving infrastructure kind of things, and then kind of positioning, you know, getting ready to
(10:49):
position ourselves differently, mostly in 2026, where we can start marketing a little bit more
intensely again. And I think, you know, learning from, from ourselves,
that the motto for CD Baby has, has for many years been by artists for artists. And that
(11:09):
was reflective of the true reality of, you know, the group in Portland, you know, they were
musicians in bands playing every week, and a lot of them became part of the executive team.
And I think what has shifted is the profiling sort of character and attributes of artists now
(11:31):
are so, you know, they're global, they are in, you know, the genre opportunities are
so vast. Right. And we just have to kind of think about a lot of those things differently. And,
and certainly with modern approaches to, to how you connect with, with your, you know,
(11:54):
the artist opportunity. So that's a, that's a lot of what we're working on now.
Got it. No, that's cool stuff. And I'm excited to see what happens in 2026.
Yes. Brand.
I'm sure there's some new look and feel, obviously a new product experience on the,
you know, the sort of the front end experience that an artist would, would work with. So that's
(12:15):
all exciting stuff. When I see like, you know, from something from like a design to a working
prototype to code, and it's like, incredibly intuitive and pleasant. And, you know, some of
the things that, you know, we get a lot of feedback on are, you know, it's, that's not the case. And
some of the current flows, it's, it's really exciting.
(12:37):
That is exciting. I've been fascinated. I mean, it's not a brand new phenomenon,
but when you're working with software that ultimately ends up in some sort of user experience
that where you can get feedback on it directly, it becomes part of the brand that that entire
experience is the brand. It's not just a logo and a look and feel anymore. It needs to carry
through all the way through the, through the experience of using the products. And so
(13:01):
it's cool how branding has and, and user experience have sort of become more unified
than they were at another time in, in, in tech businesses. Yeah. And I think that's, you know,
in our, in the music industry, it's, it's funny because, and I assume because we're like in the
(13:22):
similar, you know, demo going through, you know, you know, big discovering music and discovering
like labels and, and the eighties and nineties and, and realizing how much, you know, the name
of the label identified with a, with a genre or sort of a whole, like think about factory or
discord or any of these other things. Yeah. And they're so validating and give you so much
(13:48):
confidence in the fact that, you know, it was going to be something that you were likely to
at least appreciate on some level you might, they might not become your most, you know,
your number one, most favorite band, but it will at least kind of, and it wasn't so there wasn't so
much of it. So it was a little more digestible. You know, I remember like in college, you know,
(14:10):
using either like a paycheck or some savings that I had and just sending like $120 to discord and
just getting, you know, just getting 10 records. Right. I didn't know the bands. I didn't know
what they, I didn't know anything really about them because all I had was a list with prices
and then coming back and having it, you know, some of them really transformed my whole, you know,
(14:36):
way of being in lots of ways, you know, and like just fundamentally, and some of them were like,
oh, that's not really my thing, but I appreciate that this person played on that one. And,
you know, it's also a friend of this or got thanked or did backups or whatever it was
and, and labels, you know, now, I think still sort of offer that I, that's one of my,
(14:59):
my great hopes is that in this moment of we're overwhelmed by the volume of music,
we're overwhelmed by this kinds of music, who's creating it, what's creating it, even if it's
not human, that there is some filter that gives you that confidence with
(15:20):
independent music labels, and they're still going strong and they have this really strong identity
and, and back to branding. It's not about a logo. It's not about I mean, you know, there might be
some logos that are so iconic that, you know, from a mute to a rough trade or whatever it's
going to be. But really, it's that all of those elements together that give you that confidence.
(15:46):
Yeah, it's interesting to hear you put it that way. And intuitive yet still interesting, right?
I don't want to make it sound like it's too obvious. I mean, certainly, the it became
interesting to me when the major labels decided to put up online stores. Back in the days of CD
stores in the first days of physical media, sold online. And the idea that you would go to
(16:09):
B music to figure out, you know, to find stuff that was on BMG, or whatever their brand was that
they were using, always seemed kind of silly. Nobody knows what was on BMG. They didn't, you
know, maybe beyond classical music, they didn't have a reputation. And I mean, no disrespect to
BMG at the time, or Sony or anybody else. But they didn't have a vibe. They didn't have a sensitive
(16:31):
of I hesitate to use the word brand, but identity in terms of our editorial. Yeah, and our sort of
aesthetic, where a discord is a perfect example of if you liked a couple of discord artists,
or a couple of discord records, the risk you took in sending that paycheck was much smaller
than if you were to, you know, send a similar amount of money off to say, Hey, BMG, send me
(16:54):
some stuff, you know, it wouldn't work. Exactly. And I think, you know, it's interesting, because
CD maybe, you know, this, the origin was more of a platform for direct e commerce, you know, like a
store more than anything, but that just kind of put these, this profile of artists together,
(17:16):
in a way that kind of did give them that context of independence and self, you know, autonomy,
and all of these other things. And then, with the evolution of the industry, when, you know,
that would allow, you know, a path to retail or path to, to digital, you know, that that is this,
this journey that the company has been on. And, and it makes me really proud to be here now,
(17:42):
in this moment of, you know, fundamental uncertainty that we're all kind of going through
together. So people seem to be a little more certain than me, but I also take that with a
grain of salt, like, you really know what you're talking about? Who knows what we're talking about?
But they, but that there's the, you know, the fact that we have been able to, to navigate this,
(18:09):
you know, all of these moments of evolution. Now, what's different is that there are many more
options. And I think companies have to be using some of those modern methods of, you know,
supporting customers, because we're dealing with a new generation. Like, I can't tell you the number
(18:29):
of times that I've had a chance to meet someone, and they are from a generation older than me,
who has used CD Baby as a customer. And, and that is like, both very, very rewarding and
heartwarming. And also like, okay, but that's not really who's listening to music actively right
(18:50):
now. That's not who's making music actively right now. And there are new things that we have to do
to connect with the generation of our kids, and their kids, certainly, you know, if that happens,
mine's too young, and yours is too. But like, you know, we're, we're thinking about all of those
things and trying to be, you know, much in a position to respond better. And I think that's,
(19:14):
again, you know, maybe just, you know, how things are made kind of side of things. When you look at,
you know, a business that has been in place for so long, it's hard to make those investments,
because things are working okay. It's very profitable. It's like, you know, it does what
it does. But if you really want to be in a position to adapt, you kind of have to reorient.
(19:39):
Take a longer horizon on what you're considering.
And so what's been great about this past 18 months is also bringing in some new people along with me
who have, you know, different experiences and expertise and looking at the same fundamental
goals that I think the company's always had, which is be fair, be supportive. I think what
(20:00):
we're also pivoting into in a little bit of a way is it's so overwhelming to be an artist,
and there's maybe some expectation of success that our companies and companies like ours
manage like, oh, if it's on Spotify, it's gonna, someone's gonna listen to it. We know that's not
true. We know that it's still and we have this sort of micro campaign going on right now called
(20:26):
The Journey to 1000 Streams, because Spotify made some decisions a year ago, almost two years
ago now, to, you know, if you don't reach 1000 streams, your music isn't monetized for royalties
and so you know, are eligible for royalties. So right, you know, that, that's where all my music
is, by the way. Right. And a lot of you have like a lot of our music, and it changed the shape of
(20:48):
our business in many ways. And, and it's also maybe not the thing that you think about,
when you're making a record that you do need to ask your friends and family to listen to it.
And you do need to, it's not just being available as not the the way that you're going to have
(21:09):
engagement. And, and you also, you know, don't think that there's a shortcut. Don't think that
you can pay 50 bucks or 500 or whatever these things cost, and all of the different ways to
find streams. And, and think that that's going to work out because now we know that that is not only
is it not going to work out, it will be very punitive and detrimental. And if you are serious,
(21:35):
it's going to, you know, upset the whole operation. So right, that either.
Right. So it's interesting, you know, I've, I did an interview, a couple interviews,
recent interviews come up. One is Richard Burgess talking about indie labels, and how without indie
labels, certain genres probably wouldn't exist. And that was a sort of compelling thing to be
(21:56):
reminded of, like, you know, without Tommy Boy and and Tommy Silverman, would hip hop really
have taken off the way it did? And it's, it really is a special thing to think about that
an indie label with a good sense of what the music should look like, and a good vibe, and a good,
you know, fair business ethic. In general, it's always important, but to treat artists well,
(22:19):
and to take risks. I mean, a lot of people probably wouldn't have put out a Public Enemy
record at some point, you know. So when they had the the wisdom to do that, I guess, Columbia,
right? You know, they're, so Def Jam, too. Yeah, Def Jam. Yeah. So, like, in those cases, like,
when you have an organization that can get behind a genre, and particularly indies are good at that,
(22:44):
right, they, they enable something that might not exist otherwise in the marketplace. And think of
what we might have missed if they hadn't, you know, been adventurous. And so I have a lot of
respect for anybody operating within the independent sector for that reason. Because there's a lot,
I mean, I'm a jazz fan, tremendous amount of music that wouldn't have been out there otherwise,
had it not had a strong advocate, you know, at some point along the way. But I'm also thinking
(23:07):
about these days, you know, I play in a band, and we put our stuff out, and nobody listens,
and that's fine. You know, we're not here to become rich and famous, it's not going to happen.
But the amount of work involved, even operating at our ridiculously small level,
is huge. And this idea, now I realize, you know, you're, you were an artist first, right? And
(23:32):
you did a lot of stuff to promote yourself. And we'll get into that and to promote
your band, Bratmobile, which is by far the coolest name for a band I've ever heard. So
wow, we could stop right there. It could also be the dorkiest name for a band you've ever heard,
but I appreciate your take. Yeah. So maybe I'm a dork. But I think it's cool.
But, you know, you had to do some things. And I don't know how much of that was deliberate
(23:55):
for the sake of the band, you were involved in a lot of things that sort of built a scene around
you. And these days, and I want to talk more about scenes, because I'm fascinated by that,
like the elements that go into a scene or a movement happening, you know, in a creative space.
But these days, I think I, there's an entrepreneur I know, an entrepreneur I know, who is building a
(24:16):
platform to help artists who are swamped with all the ancillary content creation that they have to
do in order to be able to promote their music. And that seems like a tremendous amount of pressure,
you have to be inspired, create music, get out there and perform in a lot of cases,
and also be a social media expert in order to get your thing off the ground. That seems like
(24:42):
an impossibility for a lot of artists.
And if you're lucky enough to have any commercial impact, then you have to have,
you know, business responsibilities and infrastructure to support that. And,
yeah, there is a lot. I mean, I think those things were always the case in some way or another. But
(25:04):
yeah, I mean, our band started because we were punk rockers, and we went to shows,
and we were also feminists and students. So we were studying, you know, intentionally studying
women's history and women's studies. And I was also studying sociology and ethnic studies and
(25:26):
sort of, so the, the, and the time of in history, right, or the time of the world in the early 90s,
where, you know, the coming out of the Cold War, and, you know, Middle East conflict, and,
you know, Roe being challenged in those, you know, early days. And, you know,
(25:47):
they're all of these, you know, end of apartheid, like there's, in South Africa, there's all,
all of these different things sort of happening concurrently. And obviously,
we're in a very acutely tense political climate right now. But I think, you know, being privileged
enough, I suppose, to be in college and learning and, you know, having exposure and, and peers who
(26:13):
were also, like, inspired in new ways and learning about other things that kind of fed into each
other. And then we had, you know, my, my best friends, and biggest sources of inspiration,
also made fanzines. So they would kind of, you know, take the things that they were thinking
about and learning about, as well as the music that they were inspired about, inspired by and
(26:37):
put it into their fanzine. And we were doing the same thing. And so that kind of, you know,
non-media, un-media, but artifact kind of creation, was a really, you know, and you're
always sort of, I think, motivated by, is my friend going to be impressed by the thing that I do?
(26:59):
And if, if I have them in mind, when I'm writing this thing, and I'm putting it into the fanzine
and making a copy of it, is it when they read it, are they going to say that's stupid? Or is that
great? Or whatever, you know, like, so those were part of the dynamics that we were working in. And
I don't think when we decided to make the Riot Grrrl fanzine and share it with people, and that
(27:24):
became an easy to remember, you know, Riot Grrrl is catchy, and people, you know, it's easy to say
I'm a Riot Grrrl, even if, you know, there are a lot of people like, I am not a Riot Grrrl. I don't
know what that is. Please don't call me that. I am, I'm a punk rocker. And, you know, I'm good.
So all of those sorts of things, but, but things take a life of their own. And that was
(27:47):
sort of an intentional element of what we were doing, because we did not embrace leadership,
as a, you know, or having like a figurehead of, you know, there's certainly women in our community
who were so talented, and so compelling and charismatic that they become sort of a de facto,
(28:12):
you know, primary figurehead, right, like Kathleen Hannah is just someone that is so
compelling and charismatic, and people just kind of have always been drawn to her, I think,
ever since she first appeared on the scene, right in our world. And it's, and it's amazing. And
that's, that's something that you can't really plan for. But she had no interest in being the
(28:36):
leader. You know, I mean, I think that's just like a thing. And I think that's all that to say,
maybe to the point of what you're, you know, getting at is, it was not something that was
so calculated, that it became that, that it fell in on itself. In some ways it did, because it was,
(28:59):
it had no structure, it had no order. Girls were meeting in towns all around the world,
mostly in the US, but all around the world, and calling themselves Riot Grrrls, and talking about
the fact that they deserved to have safety, creativity, and space. Right. And that is so
(29:20):
genuine, and so powerful, that it just became its own thing. And, you know, 25, 35, maybe almost 35
years later, has its resonance. And I was not a genre necessarily in the same way of, you know,
and, you know, punk, you could argue has so many micro dimensions to it, you know,
(29:43):
subsective punk, for sure. But subset, but it's, that's something that I think is really,
if I was going to apply that same thought to, you know, the current challenge that artists might have,
you just have to be real. You just, you know, I mean, I think that the calculation of, you know,
(30:08):
starting a movement is almost, you know, set up to fail, for sure. You know, you're only with its
most sincere objective, and, you know, wanting to create space for yourself, and your friends,
(30:29):
and a community does something as, you know, kind of generationally impactful as, as that
kind of emerge. And so that is, but I would say, being generationally impactful was not
the objective, right? Okay. That was not in the manifesto, the manifesto was safety, space,
(30:51):
creativity, you know, and, and, you know, making sure that there was an, you know, an imbalance
that was recognized and could be an a correction to be worked on. Now that all to say that,
that was very white, it was very, you know, middle class in most cases, although I think a lot of my
(31:13):
peers in bands were, you know, much more working class than I was. And so having that awareness of,
you know, these different dynamics and dimensions to, you know, a community was also really
important. And it's also, you know, on reflection important to recognize that there are things that
(31:34):
were not fully representative, but that's, that's life, right? Right, right. And this is something
that evolved, you didn't set off to start a movement, per se, right? I mean, so if you'd
architected it, you would have, you would have put a person of every color at the table.
That the inspiration of, you know, the Black Panther movement, and other, you know, first wave
(31:57):
feminism, and, and even, you know, other, you know, things that were generationally defining
were certainly in the inspiration zone, right? Because we were learning about them and reading
these, you know, texts and, and following on with, you know, what all of those things
had yielded and all of the, you know, challenges, I would say, you know, when Pussy Riot
(32:22):
had their action in, in Moscow, you know, all those years ago, that put them in jail
for, you know, a performance protest was really, it really struck me that I had never put myself
in position to be put in jail. I don't know if that's necessarily true in the current political
climate in the United States, like, maybe that's different now. But, you know, when we were
(32:47):
starting, I don't think that we felt, I think we felt the safety of expression. And that that was
not a fundamental risk of our freedom. And, and that is something that, you know, so the bravery
that those women had in and going to jail, and, you know, a Russian prison is, you know,
(33:12):
unfathomable, and, you know, so overwhelmingly, you know, just emotionally heavy to think about.
But, you know, I think, yeah, and it's also kind of like, yeah, that could happen now. Why?
Yeah. Suddenly, suddenly, it seems to be urgent again, at least, you know, here in the US for the
(33:36):
first time in a while is, you know, certainly there have been, I don't want to compare movements
or things like that, or, you know, struggle too hard for an analogy. But certainly, there are at
least creative waves that happen. And I was involved in management, the band Living Color,
for example, and when they first came on the scene, like, you know, of course, there were
(33:56):
black rock bands in history, but they weren't talked about very often. And, you know, right,
they didn't have hits. Yeah, they didn't. They were not taken seriously by major labels or anything
like that. And, and I'd like to think that Living Color made a big difference. I know,
based on experience that they did. Yeah, but it didn't exactly force the door open that was held
open for all others to come afterwards. To see on was it his first show back that Jimmy Kimmel
(34:22):
had them perform on Jimmy Kimmel Live? Yeah, in Brooklyn. Yeah. And I was I watched that,
you know, and it was really emotional to think, I mean, he's a, he's a very astute
person who understands, you know, it's interesting that you bring that up, just that,
you know, he was able to connect, you know, an artist of that impact to his situation in this
(34:49):
time. And, you know, and then they were, they still killed it. They did. I'm glad you bring
that up. But I should add a little bit of insight. Okay. That's just me as an observer. No, no,
you're on target. It doesn't refute what you're saying whatsoever. But I just want to be clear
for the record. My understanding is that they were booked and confirmed before it happened.
(35:12):
Nice. Well, that's even smarter. It doesn't change. It doesn't. You're absolutely right.
Doesn't change. But I don't want somebody to think that, oh, this happened to me. Let me go
get Living Color. That was no, no, no. Right. Right. Well, that's cool. No, I mean, I guess
I didn't know. I assume knowing, you know, what you and I know about how things work and how hard
it is to book things. I guess I knew that too. But it was, I guess it maybe it was just more,
(35:33):
you know, cosmic in a way. It's great. It's great. For whatever reason. I mean, I, I don't
want this to be about me and Living Color, but I still have a lot of gratification. You know,
hey, we had a successful project and, you know, band made a huge impact in many ways.
But what's most gratifying is when I meet somebody said, oh, I remember the first time I saw them,
(35:56):
or, you know, I was a, you know, a teenager and I, you know, nobody, I didn't know anybody else
who was playing guitar. I'm African American. I didn't know anybody else who was playing,
you know, rock songs, and everybody laughed at me. And then Living Color came on and completely
validated, you know, where, what I was doing and how I was feeling. And so I get little bits and
pieces of gratification from having been involved in that. And it still makes me feel great. And
(36:21):
they're great guys, and they're still doing their thing. And so it's nice that it's happening.
But at the time, we thought we were doing something significant. I wasn't sure that it
would have a sense of permanence. And again, while it didn't change the world, I wouldn't be
so bold as to say that. It did change some people's worlds. You know what I mean? And to
(36:41):
have that come back periodically, when somebody finds out I have a connection to them is still
really nice. And I have to say that, you know, as much as identity politics has, you know, become
such a toxic zone of discourse, it is fundamentally proven over and over again, that visibility
(37:04):
and representation matters. And when you have people who are not the norm, do something,
it's inspiring, and can change even on the smallest level. And I think that has been part of
my motivation in my career where, you know, there weren't a tremendous amount of examples of women
(37:30):
in, you know, certainly, the original inspiration was there weren't that many women on stage.
And there weren't that many women when you started to go the layer below writing songs,
and there still are not enough in this sort of recognized celebrated category. But then there
weren't that many women producers or engineers or mastering agents or anything like that. And then
(37:50):
booking agents. And they're different. So you would kind of see in these early days, like, oh,
there seem to be more booking agents that are women, there seem to be more, you know, promoters
of over indexing versus heads of labels, or other sort of, you know, being an artist manager,
those things were all when we started our band, and we had our fanzine, it was about kind of
(38:17):
recognizing those ones that we found. So our fanzine was called girl germs. And it was really
about, oh, there's a woman in a band. She's Kim Coletta from job box. Let's do an interview with
her. Oh, this is a band called Calamity Jane. That's all girls from Portland. And they're
playing in Eugene, where we were going to college, let's interview them. And all of that kind of
(38:38):
expanding from there, or and when I would see a woman, like I would be at a show, and I said,
oh, there's this woman selling merch, like, and she looks like she's the tour manager to I just
kind of like lodged it in my brain. And when I finished college, and was deciding to kind of and
I had an opportunity to get a job in the music industry, that became my kind of let's say yes
(39:03):
to everything basically kind of plan. Because usually there wasn't someone who was a woman in
that role, at our peer company or in another space, or if there were there weren't enough,
there's still right. And, and so to just kind of use that as the simplest
(39:24):
game plan. That's really kind of how I lasted in the industry.
Well, that's, I mean, you have to deliver also. And clearly you have.
You figured some things out. I mean, I'm fascinated by that aspect of, of
I don't want to say career planning and career management, but let's say career
(39:45):
operation, where, you know, you've I have some quotes here where you've talked about
your ability to sort of jump in and figure things out, essentially. And I'm fascinated by that.
That's candidly where I've gotten, you know, just by looking around the corner a little bit and
saying, Oh, that sounds interesting, or here's an opportunity, or this could be the next thing,
it needs to be figured out, let me jump in and just having enough confidence and also having the,
(40:09):
in my case, at least having the support of, you know, parents who would pick me up if I failed
and went broke, you know, they would help me, I wasn't going to starve.
It's not, it is a, you know, important thing to recognize and a fundamental curiosity, right? Like
you're just interested in things. And, you know, if, if you had a, you know, I think where sometimes
(40:33):
in my career where I've, you know, said, Oh, should I have gone to law school? And would I be
in this position if I did that? Or should I have gotten my MBA and would have been in that position?
I think the, the freedom of not having kind of assigned a complete concrete path has served me
personally pretty well. I do still think it would have probably been fine, or even it could have
(40:58):
been more different and interesting if I had decided to pursue something that was a little
bit more specific. But, but the, the gift of not having that is, yeah, being in a position to,
to do things that are new. And so the, I think the thing when I look back on what's helped me
(41:18):
grow the most, I was at, I did work at HYM for two years, and I was interim president for five
months or so right before Richard became president for the last 10 years. And CEO,
and then, and then the two years after that, I went to Kickstarter for two years, which was a
(41:39):
completely different environment from most of the music companies that I had been, you know,
even though I had been at some, some tech oriented organizations, they were so, so primarily
focused on music. This was not, this was, you know, music's just one category among the 17.
And they were not a startup anymore, but not quite, you know, a full on scaled,
(42:08):
you know, high growth kind of enterprise and by their own charter, were not aspiring to be that.
So, you know, it's kind of kind of different. And the exposure to, you know, a lot of those
sort of organizational elements, some of the leadership that we had at Kickstarter, who are
coming from wildly different environments than I had ever been exposed to. So I'm not going to say
(42:33):
I loved that, sort of that bureaucracy or structure necessarily, but it was really
valuable to observe and to learn from and to see on some cases like, you know, not for me.
And then things that I was able to, when I was able to join downtown eight years ago,
(42:54):
and had this kind of opportunity to grow something and support from management and our board and,
you know, the finance or CFO, you know, to kind of like grow and apply all of these different things
and to have that be successful. It wasn't actually successful under my management.
(43:14):
It's now something that's kind of yielded all of this amazing impact that is in ways
more gratifying because you see where applying some of these, you know, the things that I did,
which were maybe like more in the high risk, like growth phase of a company. And then when you kind
(43:36):
of say, all right, we have to kind of start to tighten that up and run things more effectively.
But that investment that we made in those years before now kind of took it into the
zone of like, wow, that company is like really successful and really doing, you know, really well
and has gone through some of the challenges of growth where things go off the rails and sideways
(44:02):
and uncorrected. And now it's sort of like as a brand in a position that's so much more,
you know, validating than ever. And I think that's the inspiration that I have for my work now,
you know, and in a much larger opportunity because CD Baby has, you know, is very pretty
significant business and has, you know, a lot of, you know, incredible strengths. And so now
(44:30):
thinking about that and optimizing those and looking at, you know, this new generation of
creators and looking at where our industry, I think, still has some gaps in, you know, again,
in the representation, right? Like we know maybe less than 20% of our artists are women,
are identified as women. And, you know, we see more and more kids that are, you know,
(44:58):
girls are identified as girls who are making music. And so that to me is this like untapped,
you know, opportunity to help recalibrate and strengthen. I think there's room for so much more.
Doesn't mean that any of our business has to be like focused on women. It just means that there's
(45:18):
like a lot more space for it. And that's opportunity. I mean, on the business side,
it's straight up opportunity, but it must be especially gratifying for you to think about it.
Yeah. Yeah. I can imagine you would. So I want to shift if it's okay. I want to talk about
you as a musician a little bit. Is that okay? Yeah. So you're known primarily as a drummer,
(45:40):
but not exclusively a drummer. Am I right? You play guitar as well?
Yeah, but it's really, I'm not very good at guitar. Yeah.
Me either. I'm not a very good drummer either, but I still enjoy doing it.
I think I'm pretty good drummer. Yes, you are. Yes, you are. You have a career as a drummer.
That's a cool thing. You know, you're talking about space for women in roles that they wouldn't
(46:04):
necessarily be in. And otherwise, I'm sure I'm not the first person to ask you about being a woman
and being a drummer. Did you have anybody who was encouraging you, a mentor, a hero as a performer,
anybody like that that you said, Hey, I want to be like, or do what someone is doing?
One of my best friends is the drummer of Bikini Kill, Toby Vail. And she is like an incredible
(46:30):
drummer and, and, and styles that I don't think she ever gets to play as much, but she is like a
very versatile, skilled drummer. But mostly she's known as a punk rock drummer and she's, you know,
right. But so she was my, in all categories of, like, how, how am I going to do this? I was very
(46:53):
observant of her, you know, she when I read what she wrote, I listened, you know, to her records,
I asked her questions, but she did not want to be my teacher. And I remember when I was first
starting to play, because I when we started our band, I was playing guitar. And there were some
moments where she played with us a little bit. And then it turned out that, you know, I played a
(47:18):
little bit of drums, but then it turned out that the person who was going to be our drummer wasn't.
And we were just like, let's just keep this focused. Like we keep trying to have people in
the mix, not working out. I can just I'll do that part. Because also our community was not
professionalism, technique, and mastery.
(47:38):
Wasn't part of the aesthetic. And yeah, not the value. Sure.
So we were, you know, pretty much okay with, you know, like, whatever it was just just having a
beat. And I remember asking her, like, would you would you give like, I think, you know, meek,
and sweet way, like, would you like give me a drum lesson? And she's like,
no, just watch drummers and watch them watch the kick drum. And I was like, Okay,
(48:05):
like, I was so intimidated. And, and, but I was like, Okay, and that's what I did. So I would go
to every show I went to, I would like watch the drummer, and I would watch the kick drum. And I
would try to just figure out all these different patterns that they were doing. And even and that's
not my style, per se, like, I don't play, I'm not like a master of the kick drum. But having that
(48:29):
be the solid, you know, base of your, you know, your patterns or whatever was definitely, I guess,
what informed how I learned to play. And so that it's always been kind of like, I don't get a
chance to sit on the side of the stage or be in small enough places too much to watch a lot of
(48:52):
drummers and their and their kick. But that is, that's, that's my, that was my approach.
Nothing wrong with that, particularly for the genre. It makes total sense. Yeah, I am. So I have
my own observation over the years, it's certainly not unique to me, that there's a certain sort of
machismo attitude in drumming, that I sometimes find regrettable, like, that we have drum battles,
(49:20):
what is that about? And there's a whole sort of, you know, overly muscular,
you know, hard hitting, let me bleed while I do it sort of
approach. And so I have to, and I observe because I'm in drummer communities, and I see how people
(49:43):
react to women playing drums sometimes. And there's, I just for the record, yeah, there's,
there's tremendous drummers out there, male and female, I could name a list of them. I mean,
but the abuse that Meg White went through that Annika Nielis is going to be going out with
rushes is facing. It's, it's painful, it's painful to watch it. So I wonder, it's ridiculous. Yeah,
(50:05):
it is, it is. And, you know, it's, it's, it's embarrassing for me as a drummer. It's like,
no, I don't, I don't think that way. And I don't feel that way. But you must have gone through
some of that. I mean, I guess there's like a continuum, like, if you're if a woman is singer,
no problem. If a woman's a keyboard player, no problem. If a woman picks up a guitar or a bass,
that's weird. I'm talking about coming from, you know, patriarchal side. Yeah. And a woman is a
(50:30):
drummer. That's two eyebrows raised, right? Like, did you experience it that way? Not really. I
mean, I think I'm just, I'm just, you know, because we were in the early 90s, like, I think
we kind of, and we were so self contained in our community, where it was more present to see
(50:51):
women playing music and all instruments and to see more drummers, I would say, I mean, still
definitely not balanced, right. But it was not a freak show. And so I didn't have that. And,
you know, I mean, I think one of the things that when I think about my own playing, and, you know,
(51:14):
becoming more like, where I was like, I'm a drummer, instead of, you know, whatever that,
you know, self assessment is, right, I didn't learn on the job, you know, like, we, we wrote
these songs. We, so we wrote these songs in the beginning of 1991, or a bunch of our first batch
of songs, and then recorded our first single in August of 1991. And so, you know, we, you hear
(51:44):
like, oh, you know, that's not how I would, that's not how I play now, especially because we've been
playing shows again, these past few years, right, you know, and I some, some things I modified,
because like, Oh, that wasn't a good idea anyway. So I'll just play it totally different. And
something that's just better, and then more solid. And so, you know, and then you think about
like, we, because we've had these sort of phases of our band, and I had other bands, too, that made
(52:09):
records, and you just kind of hear, oh, like, yeah, I'm getting it over the course of the years,
like how I want to be as a drummer. But it's kind of amazing to be in my 50s and be like, I'm,
you know, I think I'm better than I ever was. And that's awesome.
I think it's great.
But I don't like to practice by myself. Like, that's not a thing I do. I don't, you know, try
(52:35):
to, you know, I either I have some aspiration of just like, some learning, there's this woman,
you probably know, Dorothy, Dorothea Taylor, who's on like, all the media. And, you know, she's such a
pro, like, you know, snare. She's rudimentary, rudimentary drummer. Yeah, she knows all of the
(52:58):
patterns. And you're just like, I mean, I just can't do that. But why not? You know, just it's
practice. Yeah, I mean, I think the thing about drumming that's true is some people literally
cannot get it. And it is, you know, whether it's the multiple limbs at the same time as your brain,
like they just do not have that. That ability, or I mean, that probably could be worked through
(53:27):
in most cases, too. But I like to think so. But yeah, I get your point. It's a challenge,
right? Like, that is just the last thing I could ever imagine doing is like something with my left
foot and my right. And some people can sit down and do it right away. My son was that way. He
pretty much sat down and could play. I mean, and you see some of these prodigy kids on the
(53:47):
internet, too. And you're like, Oh, my God, like that. They make me want to quit. But I think if
we're kind of reaching the end of our chat, I think it is part of the, you know, the multiple
limb kind of thing that drums give you has some application into my career, I think, you know,
(54:11):
having to be constantly multitasking and looking at things in a kind of anticipating what the next
thing is, but you're in where you're at, that somehow, sort of metaphysically seems to make
it some sense to me. I think that's a great metaphor. I think that's great. I've never
thought of that before. Honestly, as all my years as a drummer, into a million things, I've never
(54:35):
really thought about the independent limb thing as applying itself, you know, being applied to a
career otherwise. So thank you for that. I mean, just for what it's worth, like, you may not be
somebody who sits around and practices rudiments all day. I'm not either. I mean, I have some of
that background, and I've taken lessons, and I study certain things, and I do practice deliberately
to some degree. There are tons of people who do that stuff all day long, and never get on stage,
(55:04):
and never play with others, and never do what you've done. And that's far more important.
That's a very known fact to me. I mean, I think, again, if we're going to connect it to business
and, you know, the reality of the music industry, there are so many people who
(55:24):
are just, you know, and I think, you know, being parents, you observe this in, you know,
when they start developing interests, and you want to support their interests, and maybe they're
better, maybe they're not, but they're still interested in it. And all the things that we
spend time, and money, and energy on to support even the germ, it's not even a dream. It's just
an idea of, and a way to spend time. And so this whole entire kind of, you know, spectrum of ways
(55:52):
of thinking about what we do. I do think about that quite a bit, actually, because I see it in
our results, how many people have released music, how many people have listened to that music,
and how many people are just, you know, hitting it out of the park. So all of those things are
really clear. And there's an opportunity for everyone, you know, and I think that's one of
(56:18):
the things in our industry, we focus a lot about, you know, you were mentioning your friend who's
building a tool for artists to manage things. And I think, you know, my sort of like challenging
question is, who's willing to buy that? How many people are really thinking about
(56:40):
that in the face that you think it might be really helpful? How many people really need that?
And who can do it themselves? And who really can't and really needs those levels of support?
And certainly the ability to pay for it.
Kind of confusing dynamic that we manage in the music industry, because we focus a lot on like
(57:01):
great ideas, I'm sure that's a great idea. And he's probably building a great product, and there is
a market for it. But it's, you know, the vast part of our of our industry is really not yet
engaging with a lot of ears.
Right.
I think if we're, you know, thinking about it, like, you know, sort of in
(57:26):
in this journey, and is, it's okay to be real with people. And I think in in the music business,
and in some of, you know, my company and others, you might be like, oh, you could be a star,
and you can use your tools. And, you know, and I think where we're kind of finding our comfort
(57:47):
is, let's be real about where you're at. And let's give you what you need right now. And it's
like, very fair, very affordable, very, like, you know, intuitive, pleasant experience. But
don't think that that's going to get you to, you're not Chapel Rowan.
Right. And maybe that's okay. Right?
Absolutely. It's okay.
Yeah, I
(58:07):
must be real with it about it.
Yeah. Henry Rollins spoke in an interview with Jason Feinberg at Mondo NYC, back in October.
And it was an interesting conversation. And it was like the artist enterprise and that kind of
thing. I know we're gonna run out of time, but I want to share this. Henry made the point that
(58:28):
you could have a business that is self sustaining and smaller and still be successful in your own,
in your own way. And that, you know, be careful what you wish for, you don't have to be big in
order to be successful and sustainable if you, you know, are willing to put in the effort and
do things in that way. So I think that, you know,
if artists are realistic, that the only, you know, pat, it isn't the only path to go to get a
(58:50):
record deal with a big label and spend tons of money and have a great moonshot of a career.
You know, even those who do have the moonshot typically can't sustain it. And, you know, it's,
it's easier to maybe easier, maybe.
In every direction.
Yeah. So I'm intrigued by that. So before we go.
Yeah.
(59:11):
One question. What are you listening to right now that's, that's got you excited?
Well, I have to say today is the saddest day because Manny from the Stone Roses passed,
or it was announced that his death.
I saw that.
And, you know, he is such a legend. And so I have not, I've been at work since that news,
(59:34):
but I will be listening to Stone Roses and Primal Scream a lot today. In terms of new music,
it's, it's, it's so interesting, because my friends still make a lot of music. So I still
love listening to, you know, what my friends release and support them. But because I have a
tween, I listen to a lot of pop radio. And so I feel pretty up on, you know, what is completely
(01:00:02):
out of the CD Baby land of, you know, genre, but I know most of the current pop artists and
hip hop stars and right. You know, some of the and then some of the things that are popping back
up because of Tick Tock and things like that. You're like, oh, now we Wowie and the whole thing,
(01:00:23):
you know. But you know, so I my, my, but my happy place, like when my kid lets me listen to
my own music, which is not often I tend to listen to, you know, 80s new wave.
Got it. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah. Both the sad news, but also the good side of
(01:00:44):
still listening to music. So yeah, thank you very much. This was a lot of fun. I know we
went a little bit long. I hope I didn't ruin your schedule in your day.
No, no, it's fine. It's lunchtime. I just have to go grab something. Sorry. You must.
That's important for having me, Michael. It's wonderful.
It was my pleasure. And I'll say goodbye for now, but I'll be in touch. And thank you so
(01:01:05):
much for joining me. I really appreciate it. Cool. Thanks.
It's the Kick & Snare Podcast. Let's count it off.
(00:17):
Welcome to Kick & Snare. I'm Michael Nevins, and my guest today is Molly Newman.
Molly is the president of CD Baby, a distributor of independent music,
but that's just the latest chapter in her story. Welcome, Molly. Thanks for being here.
Thank you. I'm so happy to be here.
Well, I'm glad to have you. I should quickly thank Josh Johnson who helped put this together
(00:39):
because it took a while to find schedule. Thanks for him. And so shout out to Josh for making this
happen. And I also have to mention my wife, Cathy Nevins, who originally recommended that I have
you on and she was persistent. I told her I wanted to wait a little while until I got better at it.
And she said, I think you're ready. I think you're ready.
That's so sweet. And Cathy and I worked together, I think, 18 years ago for many years. I started
(01:04):
working with her in 2006. And so it's a joy. I think it's one of the things that I try to connect
with in, especially some of the challenging moments in one's career, that music has given me
connections with people that have lasted decades. And it's amazing to see people continue to thrive.
(01:27):
And even though we haven't worked together for a long time, it's always such a treat when I
get to see her in person. And so it's what is great about this industry.
Got it. I agree with you. It's funny because I've been in and out of the music industry.
And for the time I was away, I didn't always run into people because I wasn't at the same
(01:49):
conferences. But once I started doing it again, it was very fun to pick up on some of those
relationships all over again and see some of the people that I really enjoyed doing deals with back
in 1995 or earlier. Exactly. And we've all been through a lot. I mean, I think universally,
we have been through it in these last five years, these last 10 years, all the different ways.
(02:14):
And the fact that we are still in one another's orbit. And a lot of people have had challenging
moments and have turned those around. And I think, and some others, when you realize,
oh, you're back doing this, it's just great. So I'm very grateful for that in my career
(02:36):
and journey in music for having mostly the relationships that it's given me.
That's great. I feel the same way. It's interesting because
while I have good relationships from my time outside the industry, I think my favorite ones
and most gratifying are those from within the industry. And I met my wife through the industry.
(02:57):
Right, right, right. Exactly. Well, I met my husband at work when Kathy and I were working
together. Right. She mentioned that to me. That's a cool thing. So that's one good thing. We were
able to, I think it was not an issue, but 18 years later, it's all worked out. It was worth it.
These days, it's much harder to hook up with people at work and then explore relationships
(03:21):
and get married. He didn't report to me or vice versa, but it just would not have.
We have different guardrails now. Yeah, absolutely. And for the right reasons,
I'm sure. But I'm glad that it was looser when it needed to be for people like you.
That's a good thing. So I'd like to start, I mean, look, you've had this fascinating career,
(03:45):
right? And so I'm excited to dig in with you in various places. And I'll probably mess up
the timeline, so I'm not going to attempt that. And I don't think we have to do it in a linear
fashion. It's a long time, so it's hard not to get it right. Also, I'm fascinated by squiggly
careers, which I have to always make sure I give credit to Matt Cartmell at Music Tech UK,
(04:06):
who first used that phrase to describe the sort of their circuitous routes that people sometimes
take in their careers. Even when they're very driven, they're not always driven in a linear
fashion and in a straight line. And so my career hasn't been that for sure. And I find people who
(04:26):
have been opportunistic or who have planned certain things, but been eager to see around
corners and do new things as particularly interesting to talk to, which is definitely
part of your history, from what I can tell. So I thought it would be fun to do this. So let's
start with the current, because that's probably smart, and then we'll go backwards to some degree.
So let's start with your role as president of CD Baby. I'd like to understand their business.
(04:51):
I think I have an understanding, but it's good to do for the audience. I'd love to touch on how
it's evolved over the years, because I remember when they first started out. And then also
understand how it fits into the downtown universe. Yeah. So CD Baby first launched in 1998. So almost
28 years of being in business, which for me, in this industry, with the amount of change that
(05:19):
we've gone through in the last three decades, to have a business that has been leading in its
service to independent artists and artists who are, I think, you know, one of the distinctions
that we think about a lot is, you know, there's an inherent sort of professionalism when you decide
(05:41):
to make a recording and release it out into the world. Most people think about our sort of general
profile of artists as, you know, maybe less professional, more of a hobbyist or something
like that. And that might be true. But there's this sort of fundamental business element of
I'm making a decision to share and share it widely, not just in my inner circle or in my own bedroom,
(06:08):
that requires us to think about our artists in a way that, you know, it might be simpler, say,
oh, we're just a DIY, you know, indie hobbyist kind of, you know, persona that we're supporting.
But it is much more nuanced than that. And so inherently, it's very complex, because there are
(06:30):
a lot of needs that the business, the industry requires from artists of any profile. Now that
are, you know, your metadata standards need to be in place, you have to have, you know, validation,
you are who you say you are, you have to have, you know, an infrastructure to receive payments and
make payments in certain cases, if you're collaborating. So there's just so much complexity
(06:53):
on top of basically that original simple idea of, I made a recording, and I want to share it with the
world on, you know, a streaming platform. And so I've been in this role, personally, since
June of 2024. So just about a year and a half. And I've been part of the downtown company
(07:16):
in various other roles for eight years. I was originally, I originally joined to grow the
business of SongTrust. So the independent, sort of more platform business for Music Publishing
Administration, and then became president of SongTrust in 2019. And in 2022, became CMO of
(07:43):
Downtown Music Holdings, our parent sort of overarching company. And I did that for two years.
And then after sort of sort of being in a different lane of work, not very operational,
small team, thinking more broadly about how we present downtown to the world and, and some of the
(08:05):
changes that we had gone through, you know, growing as a company that had added different
business lines to, to originally a boutique music publishing company with this weird side
hustle thing called SongTrust to now, you know, we acquired CD Baby in 2019. And we added Fuga in 2020
and, and grew in all these different ways. So trying to shape that story and, you know, think
(08:31):
a little bit differently. It was a great opportunity for me personally, because it was something that I
think, I hadn't necessarily said, I want to be a CMO. That wasn't in my bingo card.
Mine either when I did it.
What you say, right? But it was like, oh, that makes sense. Because what's the actual,
you know, there's, that's a pretty amorphous title, but it can it can have so many different
(08:53):
elements to it. But if you think about it as trying to grow the value for the entire
group, and connecting, you know, the dynamics and the stories and the and the work that we do
and helping support all of our companies, that was really something that felt very compelling
at the time. And, and then the opportunity to come back into a more operational role at CD Baby,
(09:19):
where, you know, it's a very crowded space in music distribution for independent artists,
platform experiences now. And I think, you know, what my, you know, our executive team at
downtown had realized is that it just needed a different approach that we had been very
(09:41):
stable, but maybe not as competitive as we hoped to be, and to kind of reposition
the company. And, and that's kind of what we're doing right now thinking a little bit more about
how we can be organized, how we can work within the downtown group of companies for some of the,
the things that are not as visible to artists, so they don't know, necessarily what your
(10:06):
engineering team looks like, or where your, you know, distribution supply chain management
goes to, you know, the, the DSPs, they want to know that the music is on the DSPs on the
certain day that they selected. And managing that experience is a much more critical
(10:27):
area of what we should be doing. And it needed us to think about our approach differently. And so
that's what we've been doing, sort of like a lot of things that might not seem very glamorous,
and really wouldn't be seen at all, but they're very behind the scenes, like reorganization,
moving infrastructure kind of things, and then kind of positioning, you know, getting ready to
(10:49):
position ourselves differently, mostly in 2026, where we can start marketing a little bit more
intensely again. And I think, you know, learning from, from ourselves,
that the motto for CD Baby has, has for many years been by artists for artists. And that
(11:09):
was reflective of the true reality of, you know, the group in Portland, you know, they were
musicians in bands playing every week, and a lot of them became part of the executive team.
And I think what has shifted is the profiling sort of character and attributes of artists now
(11:31):
are so, you know, they're global, they are in, you know, the genre opportunities are
so vast. Right. And we just have to kind of think about a lot of those things differently. And,
and certainly with modern approaches to, to how you connect with, with your, you know,
(11:54):
the artist opportunity. So that's a, that's a lot of what we're working on now.
Got it. No, that's cool stuff. And I'm excited to see what happens in 2026.
Yes. Brand.
I'm sure there's some new look and feel, obviously a new product experience on the,
you know, the sort of the front end experience that an artist would, would work with. So that's
(12:15):
all exciting stuff. When I see like, you know, from something from like a design to a working
prototype to code, and it's like, incredibly intuitive and pleasant. And, you know, some of
the things that, you know, we get a lot of feedback on are, you know, it's, that's not the case. And
some of the current flows, it's, it's really exciting.
(12:37):
That is exciting. I've been fascinated. I mean, it's not a brand new phenomenon,
but when you're working with software that ultimately ends up in some sort of user experience
that where you can get feedback on it directly, it becomes part of the brand that that entire
experience is the brand. It's not just a logo and a look and feel anymore. It needs to carry
through all the way through the, through the experience of using the products. And so
(13:01):
it's cool how branding has and, and user experience have sort of become more unified
than they were at another time in, in, in tech businesses. Yeah. And I think that's, you know,
in our, in the music industry, it's, it's funny because, and I assume because we're like in the
(13:22):
similar, you know, demo going through, you know, you know, big discovering music and discovering
like labels and, and the eighties and nineties and, and realizing how much, you know, the name
of the label identified with a, with a genre or sort of a whole, like think about factory or
discord or any of these other things. Yeah. And they're so validating and give you so much
(13:48):
confidence in the fact that, you know, it was going to be something that you were likely to
at least appreciate on some level you might, they might not become your most, you know,
your number one, most favorite band, but it will at least kind of, and it wasn't so there wasn't so
much of it. So it was a little more digestible. You know, I remember like in college, you know,
(14:10):
using either like a paycheck or some savings that I had and just sending like $120 to discord and
just getting, you know, just getting 10 records. Right. I didn't know the bands. I didn't know
what they, I didn't know anything really about them because all I had was a list with prices
and then coming back and having it, you know, some of them really transformed my whole, you know,
(14:36):
way of being in lots of ways, you know, and like just fundamentally, and some of them were like,
oh, that's not really my thing, but I appreciate that this person played on that one. And,
you know, it's also a friend of this or got thanked or did backups or whatever it was
and, and labels, you know, now, I think still sort of offer that I, that's one of my,
(14:59):
my great hopes is that in this moment of we're overwhelmed by the volume of music,
we're overwhelmed by this kinds of music, who's creating it, what's creating it, even if it's
not human, that there is some filter that gives you that confidence with
(15:20):
independent music labels, and they're still going strong and they have this really strong identity
and, and back to branding. It's not about a logo. It's not about I mean, you know, there might be
some logos that are so iconic that, you know, from a mute to a rough trade or whatever it's
going to be. But really, it's that all of those elements together that give you that confidence.
(15:46):
Yeah, it's interesting to hear you put it that way. And intuitive yet still interesting, right?
I don't want to make it sound like it's too obvious. I mean, certainly, the it became
interesting to me when the major labels decided to put up online stores. Back in the days of CD
stores in the first days of physical media, sold online. And the idea that you would go to
(16:09):
B music to figure out, you know, to find stuff that was on BMG, or whatever their brand was that
they were using, always seemed kind of silly. Nobody knows what was on BMG. They didn't, you
know, maybe beyond classical music, they didn't have a reputation. And I mean, no disrespect to
BMG at the time, or Sony or anybody else. But they didn't have a vibe. They didn't have a sensitive
(16:31):
of I hesitate to use the word brand, but identity in terms of our editorial. Yeah, and our sort of
aesthetic, where a discord is a perfect example of if you liked a couple of discord artists,
or a couple of discord records, the risk you took in sending that paycheck was much smaller
than if you were to, you know, send a similar amount of money off to say, Hey, BMG, send me
(16:54):
some stuff, you know, it wouldn't work. Exactly. And I think, you know, it's interesting, because
CD maybe, you know, this, the origin was more of a platform for direct e commerce, you know, like a
store more than anything, but that just kind of put these, this profile of artists together,
(17:16):
in a way that kind of did give them that context of independence and self, you know, autonomy,
and all of these other things. And then, with the evolution of the industry, when, you know,
that would allow, you know, a path to retail or path to, to digital, you know, that that is this,
this journey that the company has been on. And, and it makes me really proud to be here now,
(17:42):
in this moment of, you know, fundamental uncertainty that we're all kind of going through
together. So people seem to be a little more certain than me, but I also take that with a
grain of salt, like, you really know what you're talking about? Who knows what we're talking about?
But they, but that there's the, you know, the fact that we have been able to, to navigate this,
(18:09):
you know, all of these moments of evolution. Now, what's different is that there are many more
options. And I think companies have to be using some of those modern methods of, you know,
supporting customers, because we're dealing with a new generation. Like, I can't tell you the number
(18:29):
of times that I've had a chance to meet someone, and they are from a generation older than me,
who has used CD Baby as a customer. And, and that is like, both very, very rewarding and
heartwarming. And also like, okay, but that's not really who's listening to music actively right
(18:50):
now. That's not who's making music actively right now. And there are new things that we have to do
to connect with the generation of our kids, and their kids, certainly, you know, if that happens,
mine's too young, and yours is too. But like, you know, we're, we're thinking about all of those
things and trying to be, you know, much in a position to respond better. And I think that's,
(19:14):
again, you know, maybe just, you know, how things are made kind of side of things. When you look at,
you know, a business that has been in place for so long, it's hard to make those investments,
because things are working okay. It's very profitable. It's like, you know, it does what
it does. But if you really want to be in a position to adapt, you kind of have to reorient.
(19:39):
Take a longer horizon on what you're considering.
And so what's been great about this past 18 months is also bringing in some new people along with me
who have, you know, different experiences and expertise and looking at the same fundamental
goals that I think the company's always had, which is be fair, be supportive. I think what
(20:00):
we're also pivoting into in a little bit of a way is it's so overwhelming to be an artist,
and there's maybe some expectation of success that our companies and companies like ours
manage like, oh, if it's on Spotify, it's gonna, someone's gonna listen to it. We know that's not
true. We know that it's still and we have this sort of micro campaign going on right now called
(20:26):
The Journey to 1000 Streams, because Spotify made some decisions a year ago, almost two years
ago now, to, you know, if you don't reach 1000 streams, your music isn't monetized for royalties
and so you know, are eligible for royalties. So right, you know, that, that's where all my music
is, by the way. Right. And a lot of you have like a lot of our music, and it changed the shape of
(20:48):
our business in many ways. And, and it's also maybe not the thing that you think about,
when you're making a record that you do need to ask your friends and family to listen to it.
And you do need to, it's not just being available as not the the way that you're going to have
(21:09):
engagement. And, and you also, you know, don't think that there's a shortcut. Don't think that
you can pay 50 bucks or 500 or whatever these things cost, and all of the different ways to
find streams. And, and think that that's going to work out because now we know that that is not only
is it not going to work out, it will be very punitive and detrimental. And if you are serious,
(21:35):
it's going to, you know, upset the whole operation. So right, that either.
Right. So it's interesting, you know, I've, I did an interview, a couple interviews,
recent interviews come up. One is Richard Burgess talking about indie labels, and how without indie
labels, certain genres probably wouldn't exist. And that was a sort of compelling thing to be
(21:56):
reminded of, like, you know, without Tommy Boy and and Tommy Silverman, would hip hop really
have taken off the way it did? And it's, it really is a special thing to think about that
an indie label with a good sense of what the music should look like, and a good vibe, and a good,
you know, fair business ethic. In general, it's always important, but to treat artists well,
(22:19):
and to take risks. I mean, a lot of people probably wouldn't have put out a Public Enemy
record at some point, you know. So when they had the the wisdom to do that, I guess, Columbia,
right? You know, they're, so Def Jam, too. Yeah, Def Jam. Yeah. So, like, in those cases, like,
when you have an organization that can get behind a genre, and particularly indies are good at that,
(22:44):
right, they, they enable something that might not exist otherwise in the marketplace. And think of
what we might have missed if they hadn't, you know, been adventurous. And so I have a lot of
respect for anybody operating within the independent sector for that reason. Because there's a lot,
I mean, I'm a jazz fan, tremendous amount of music that wouldn't have been out there otherwise,
had it not had a strong advocate, you know, at some point along the way. But I'm also thinking
(23:07):
about these days, you know, I play in a band, and we put our stuff out, and nobody listens,
and that's fine. You know, we're not here to become rich and famous, it's not going to happen.
But the amount of work involved, even operating at our ridiculously small level,
is huge. And this idea, now I realize, you know, you're, you were an artist first, right? And
(23:32):
you did a lot of stuff to promote yourself. And we'll get into that and to promote
your band, Bratmobile, which is by far the coolest name for a band I've ever heard. So
wow, we could stop right there. It could also be the dorkiest name for a band you've ever heard,
but I appreciate your take. Yeah. So maybe I'm a dork. But I think it's cool.
But, you know, you had to do some things. And I don't know how much of that was deliberate
(23:55):
for the sake of the band, you were involved in a lot of things that sort of built a scene around
you. And these days, and I want to talk more about scenes, because I'm fascinated by that,
like the elements that go into a scene or a movement happening, you know, in a creative space.
But these days, I think I, there's an entrepreneur I know, an entrepreneur I know, who is building a
(24:16):
platform to help artists who are swamped with all the ancillary content creation that they have to
do in order to be able to promote their music. And that seems like a tremendous amount of pressure,
you have to be inspired, create music, get out there and perform in a lot of cases,
and also be a social media expert in order to get your thing off the ground. That seems like
(24:42):
an impossibility for a lot of artists.
And if you're lucky enough to have any commercial impact, then you have to have,
you know, business responsibilities and infrastructure to support that. And,
yeah, there is a lot. I mean, I think those things were always the case in some way or another. But
(25:04):
yeah, I mean, our band started because we were punk rockers, and we went to shows,
and we were also feminists and students. So we were studying, you know, intentionally studying
women's history and women's studies. And I was also studying sociology and ethnic studies and
(25:26):
sort of, so the, the, and the time of in history, right, or the time of the world in the early 90s,
where, you know, the coming out of the Cold War, and, you know, Middle East conflict, and,
you know, Roe being challenged in those, you know, early days. And, you know,
(25:47):
they're all of these, you know, end of apartheid, like there's, in South Africa, there's all,
all of these different things sort of happening concurrently. And obviously,
we're in a very acutely tense political climate right now. But I think, you know, being privileged
enough, I suppose, to be in college and learning and, you know, having exposure and, and peers who
(26:13):
were also, like, inspired in new ways and learning about other things that kind of fed into each
other. And then we had, you know, my, my best friends, and biggest sources of inspiration,
also made fanzines. So they would kind of, you know, take the things that they were thinking
about and learning about, as well as the music that they were inspired about, inspired by and
(26:37):
put it into their fanzine. And we were doing the same thing. And so that kind of, you know,
non-media, un-media, but artifact kind of creation, was a really, you know, and you're
always sort of, I think, motivated by, is my friend going to be impressed by the thing that I do?
(26:59):
And if, if I have them in mind, when I'm writing this thing, and I'm putting it into the fanzine
and making a copy of it, is it when they read it, are they going to say that's stupid? Or is that
great? Or whatever, you know, like, so those were part of the dynamics that we were working in. And
I don't think when we decided to make the Riot Grrrl fanzine and share it with people, and that
(27:24):
became an easy to remember, you know, Riot Grrrl is catchy, and people, you know, it's easy to say
I'm a Riot Grrrl, even if, you know, there are a lot of people like, I am not a Riot Grrrl. I don't
know what that is. Please don't call me that. I am, I'm a punk rocker. And, you know, I'm good.
So all of those sorts of things, but, but things take a life of their own. And that was
(27:47):
sort of an intentional element of what we were doing, because we did not embrace leadership,
as a, you know, or having like a figurehead of, you know, there's certainly women in our community
who were so talented, and so compelling and charismatic that they become sort of a de facto,
(28:12):
you know, primary figurehead, right, like Kathleen Hannah is just someone that is so
compelling and charismatic, and people just kind of have always been drawn to her, I think,
ever since she first appeared on the scene, right in our world. And it's, and it's amazing. And
that's, that's something that you can't really plan for. But she had no interest in being the
(28:36):
leader. You know, I mean, I think that's just like a thing. And I think that's all that to say,
maybe to the point of what you're, you know, getting at is, it was not something that was
so calculated, that it became that, that it fell in on itself. In some ways it did, because it was,
(28:59):
it had no structure, it had no order. Girls were meeting in towns all around the world,
mostly in the US, but all around the world, and calling themselves Riot Grrrls, and talking about
the fact that they deserved to have safety, creativity, and space. Right. And that is so
(29:20):
genuine, and so powerful, that it just became its own thing. And, you know, 25, 35, maybe almost 35
years later, has its resonance. And I was not a genre necessarily in the same way of, you know,
and, you know, punk, you could argue has so many micro dimensions to it, you know,
(29:43):
subsective punk, for sure. But subset, but it's, that's something that I think is really,
if I was going to apply that same thought to, you know, the current challenge that artists might have,
you just have to be real. You just, you know, I mean, I think that the calculation of, you know,
(30:08):
starting a movement is almost, you know, set up to fail, for sure. You know, you're only with its
most sincere objective, and, you know, wanting to create space for yourself, and your friends,
(30:29):
and a community does something as, you know, kind of generationally impactful as, as that
kind of emerge. And so that is, but I would say, being generationally impactful was not
the objective, right? Okay. That was not in the manifesto, the manifesto was safety, space,
(30:51):
creativity, you know, and, and, you know, making sure that there was an, you know, an imbalance
that was recognized and could be an a correction to be worked on. Now that all to say that,
that was very white, it was very, you know, middle class in most cases, although I think a lot of my
(31:13):
peers in bands were, you know, much more working class than I was. And so having that awareness of,
you know, these different dynamics and dimensions to, you know, a community was also really
important. And it's also, you know, on reflection important to recognize that there are things that
(31:34):
were not fully representative, but that's, that's life, right? Right, right. And this is something
that evolved, you didn't set off to start a movement, per se, right? I mean, so if you'd
architected it, you would have, you would have put a person of every color at the table.
That the inspiration of, you know, the Black Panther movement, and other, you know, first wave
(31:57):
feminism, and, and even, you know, other, you know, things that were generationally defining
were certainly in the inspiration zone, right? Because we were learning about them and reading
these, you know, texts and, and following on with, you know, what all of those things
had yielded and all of the, you know, challenges, I would say, you know, when Pussy Riot
(32:22):
had their action in, in Moscow, you know, all those years ago, that put them in jail
for, you know, a performance protest was really, it really struck me that I had never put myself
in position to be put in jail. I don't know if that's necessarily true in the current political
climate in the United States, like, maybe that's different now. But, you know, when we were
(32:47):
starting, I don't think that we felt, I think we felt the safety of expression. And that that was
not a fundamental risk of our freedom. And, and that is something that, you know, so the bravery
that those women had in and going to jail, and, you know, a Russian prison is, you know,
(33:12):
unfathomable, and, you know, so overwhelmingly, you know, just emotionally heavy to think about.
But, you know, I think, yeah, and it's also kind of like, yeah, that could happen now. Why?
Yeah. Suddenly, suddenly, it seems to be urgent again, at least, you know, here in the US for the
(33:36):
first time in a while is, you know, certainly there have been, I don't want to compare movements
or things like that, or, you know, struggle too hard for an analogy. But certainly, there are at
least creative waves that happen. And I was involved in management, the band Living Color,
for example, and when they first came on the scene, like, you know, of course, there were
(33:56):
black rock bands in history, but they weren't talked about very often. And, you know, right,
they didn't have hits. Yeah, they didn't. They were not taken seriously by major labels or anything
like that. And, and I'd like to think that Living Color made a big difference. I know,
based on experience that they did. Yeah, but it didn't exactly force the door open that was held
open for all others to come afterwards. To see on was it his first show back that Jimmy Kimmel
(34:22):
had them perform on Jimmy Kimmel Live? Yeah, in Brooklyn. Yeah. And I was I watched that,
you know, and it was really emotional to think, I mean, he's a, he's a very astute
person who understands, you know, it's interesting that you bring that up, just that,
you know, he was able to connect, you know, an artist of that impact to his situation in this
(34:49):
time. And, you know, and then they were, they still killed it. They did. I'm glad you bring
that up. But I should add a little bit of insight. Okay. That's just me as an observer. No, no,
you're on target. It doesn't refute what you're saying whatsoever. But I just want to be clear
for the record. My understanding is that they were booked and confirmed before it happened.
(35:12):
Nice. Well, that's even smarter. It doesn't change. It doesn't. You're absolutely right.
Doesn't change. But I don't want somebody to think that, oh, this happened to me. Let me go
get Living Color. That was no, no, no. Right. Right. Well, that's cool. No, I mean, I guess
I didn't know. I assume knowing, you know, what you and I know about how things work and how hard
it is to book things. I guess I knew that too. But it was, I guess it maybe it was just more,
(35:33):
you know, cosmic in a way. It's great. It's great. For whatever reason. I mean, I, I don't
want this to be about me and Living Color, but I still have a lot of gratification. You know,
hey, we had a successful project and, you know, band made a huge impact in many ways.
But what's most gratifying is when I meet somebody said, oh, I remember the first time I saw them,
(35:56):
or, you know, I was a, you know, a teenager and I, you know, nobody, I didn't know anybody else
who was playing guitar. I'm African American. I didn't know anybody else who was playing,
you know, rock songs, and everybody laughed at me. And then Living Color came on and completely
validated, you know, where, what I was doing and how I was feeling. And so I get little bits and
pieces of gratification from having been involved in that. And it still makes me feel great. And
(36:21):
they're great guys, and they're still doing their thing. And so it's nice that it's happening.
But at the time, we thought we were doing something significant. I wasn't sure that it
would have a sense of permanence. And again, while it didn't change the world, I wouldn't be
so bold as to say that. It did change some people's worlds. You know what I mean? And to
(36:41):
have that come back periodically, when somebody finds out I have a connection to them is still
really nice. And I have to say that, you know, as much as identity politics has, you know, become
such a toxic zone of discourse, it is fundamentally proven over and over again, that visibility
(37:04):
and representation matters. And when you have people who are not the norm, do something,
it's inspiring, and can change even on the smallest level. And I think that has been part of
my motivation in my career where, you know, there weren't a tremendous amount of examples of women
(37:30):
in, you know, certainly, the original inspiration was there weren't that many women on stage.
And there weren't that many women when you started to go the layer below writing songs,
and there still are not enough in this sort of recognized celebrated category. But then there
weren't that many women producers or engineers or mastering agents or anything like that. And then
(37:50):
booking agents. And they're different. So you would kind of see in these early days, like, oh,
there seem to be more booking agents that are women, there seem to be more, you know, promoters
of over indexing versus heads of labels, or other sort of, you know, being an artist manager,
those things were all when we started our band, and we had our fanzine, it was about kind of
(38:17):
recognizing those ones that we found. So our fanzine was called girl germs. And it was really
about, oh, there's a woman in a band. She's Kim Coletta from job box. Let's do an interview with
her. Oh, this is a band called Calamity Jane. That's all girls from Portland. And they're
playing in Eugene, where we were going to college, let's interview them. And all of that kind of
(38:38):
expanding from there, or and when I would see a woman, like I would be at a show, and I said,
oh, there's this woman selling merch, like, and she looks like she's the tour manager to I just
kind of like lodged it in my brain. And when I finished college, and was deciding to kind of and
I had an opportunity to get a job in the music industry, that became my kind of let's say yes
(39:03):
to everything basically kind of plan. Because usually there wasn't someone who was a woman in
that role, at our peer company or in another space, or if there were there weren't enough,
there's still right. And, and so to just kind of use that as the simplest
(39:24):
game plan. That's really kind of how I lasted in the industry.
Well, that's, I mean, you have to deliver also. And clearly you have.
You figured some things out. I mean, I'm fascinated by that aspect of, of
I don't want to say career planning and career management, but let's say career
(39:45):
operation, where, you know, you've I have some quotes here where you've talked about
your ability to sort of jump in and figure things out, essentially. And I'm fascinated by that.
That's candidly where I've gotten, you know, just by looking around the corner a little bit and
saying, Oh, that sounds interesting, or here's an opportunity, or this could be the next thing,
it needs to be figured out, let me jump in and just having enough confidence and also having the,
(40:09):
in my case, at least having the support of, you know, parents who would pick me up if I failed
and went broke, you know, they would help me, I wasn't going to starve.
It's not, it is a, you know, important thing to recognize and a fundamental curiosity, right? Like
you're just interested in things. And, you know, if, if you had a, you know, I think where sometimes
(40:33):
in my career where I've, you know, said, Oh, should I have gone to law school? And would I be
in this position if I did that? Or should I have gotten my MBA and would have been in that position?
I think the, the freedom of not having kind of assigned a complete concrete path has served me
personally pretty well. I do still think it would have probably been fine, or even it could have
(40:58):
been more different and interesting if I had decided to pursue something that was a little
bit more specific. But, but the, the gift of not having that is, yeah, being in a position to,
to do things that are new. And so the, I think the thing when I look back on what's helped me
(41:18):
grow the most, I was at, I did work at HYM for two years, and I was interim president for five
months or so right before Richard became president for the last 10 years. And CEO,
and then, and then the two years after that, I went to Kickstarter for two years, which was a
(41:39):
completely different environment from most of the music companies that I had been, you know,
even though I had been at some, some tech oriented organizations, they were so, so primarily
focused on music. This was not, this was, you know, music's just one category among the 17.
And they were not a startup anymore, but not quite, you know, a full on scaled,
(42:08):
you know, high growth kind of enterprise and by their own charter, were not aspiring to be that.
So, you know, it's kind of kind of different. And the exposure to, you know, a lot of those
sort of organizational elements, some of the leadership that we had at Kickstarter, who are
coming from wildly different environments than I had ever been exposed to. So I'm not going to say
(42:33):
I loved that, sort of that bureaucracy or structure necessarily, but it was really
valuable to observe and to learn from and to see on some cases like, you know, not for me.
And then things that I was able to, when I was able to join downtown eight years ago,
(42:54):
and had this kind of opportunity to grow something and support from management and our board and,
you know, the finance or CFO, you know, to kind of like grow and apply all of these different things
and to have that be successful. It wasn't actually successful under my management.
(43:14):
It's now something that's kind of yielded all of this amazing impact that is in ways
more gratifying because you see where applying some of these, you know, the things that I did,
which were maybe like more in the high risk, like growth phase of a company. And then when you kind
(43:36):
of say, all right, we have to kind of start to tighten that up and run things more effectively.
But that investment that we made in those years before now kind of took it into the
zone of like, wow, that company is like really successful and really doing, you know, really well
and has gone through some of the challenges of growth where things go off the rails and sideways
(44:02):
and uncorrected. And now it's sort of like as a brand in a position that's so much more,
you know, validating than ever. And I think that's the inspiration that I have for my work now,
you know, and in a much larger opportunity because CD Baby has, you know, is very pretty
significant business and has, you know, a lot of, you know, incredible strengths. And so now
(44:30):
thinking about that and optimizing those and looking at, you know, this new generation of
creators and looking at where our industry, I think, still has some gaps in, you know, again,
in the representation, right? Like we know maybe less than 20% of our artists are women,
are identified as women. And, you know, we see more and more kids that are, you know,
(44:58):
girls are identified as girls who are making music. And so that to me is this like untapped,
you know, opportunity to help recalibrate and strengthen. I think there's room for so much more.
Doesn't mean that any of our business has to be like focused on women. It just means that there's
(45:18):
like a lot more space for it. And that's opportunity. I mean, on the business side,
it's straight up opportunity, but it must be especially gratifying for you to think about it.
Yeah. Yeah. I can imagine you would. So I want to shift if it's okay. I want to talk about
you as a musician a little bit. Is that okay? Yeah. So you're known primarily as a drummer,
(45:40):
but not exclusively a drummer. Am I right? You play guitar as well?
Yeah, but it's really, I'm not very good at guitar. Yeah.
Me either. I'm not a very good drummer either, but I still enjoy doing it.
I think I'm pretty good drummer. Yes, you are. Yes, you are. You have a career as a drummer.
That's a cool thing. You know, you're talking about space for women in roles that they wouldn't
(46:04):
necessarily be in. And otherwise, I'm sure I'm not the first person to ask you about being a woman
and being a drummer. Did you have anybody who was encouraging you, a mentor, a hero as a performer,
anybody like that that you said, Hey, I want to be like, or do what someone is doing?
One of my best friends is the drummer of Bikini Kill, Toby Vail. And she is like an incredible
(46:30):
drummer and, and, and styles that I don't think she ever gets to play as much, but she is like a
very versatile, skilled drummer. But mostly she's known as a punk rock drummer and she's, you know,
right. But so she was my, in all categories of, like, how, how am I going to do this? I was very
(46:53):
observant of her, you know, she when I read what she wrote, I listened, you know, to her records,
I asked her questions, but she did not want to be my teacher. And I remember when I was first
starting to play, because I when we started our band, I was playing guitar. And there were some
moments where she played with us a little bit. And then it turned out that, you know, I played a
(47:18):
little bit of drums, but then it turned out that the person who was going to be our drummer wasn't.
And we were just like, let's just keep this focused. Like we keep trying to have people in
the mix, not working out. I can just I'll do that part. Because also our community was not
professionalism, technique, and mastery.
(47:38):
Wasn't part of the aesthetic. And yeah, not the value. Sure.
So we were, you know, pretty much okay with, you know, like, whatever it was just just having a
beat. And I remember asking her, like, would you would you give like, I think, you know, meek,
and sweet way, like, would you like give me a drum lesson? And she's like,
no, just watch drummers and watch them watch the kick drum. And I was like, Okay,
(48:05):
like, I was so intimidated. And, and, but I was like, Okay, and that's what I did. So I would go
to every show I went to, I would like watch the drummer, and I would watch the kick drum. And I
would try to just figure out all these different patterns that they were doing. And even and that's
not my style, per se, like, I don't play, I'm not like a master of the kick drum. But having that
(48:29):
be the solid, you know, base of your, you know, your patterns or whatever was definitely, I guess,
what informed how I learned to play. And so that it's always been kind of like, I don't get a
chance to sit on the side of the stage or be in small enough places too much to watch a lot of
(48:52):
drummers and their and their kick. But that is, that's, that's my, that was my approach.
Nothing wrong with that, particularly for the genre. It makes total sense. Yeah, I am. So I have
my own observation over the years, it's certainly not unique to me, that there's a certain sort of
machismo attitude in drumming, that I sometimes find regrettable, like, that we have drum battles,
(49:20):
what is that about? And there's a whole sort of, you know, overly muscular,
you know, hard hitting, let me bleed while I do it sort of
approach. And so I have to, and I observe because I'm in drummer communities, and I see how people
(49:43):
react to women playing drums sometimes. And there's, I just for the record, yeah, there's,
there's tremendous drummers out there, male and female, I could name a list of them. I mean,
but the abuse that Meg White went through that Annika Nielis is going to be going out with
rushes is facing. It's, it's painful, it's painful to watch it. So I wonder, it's ridiculous. Yeah,
(50:05):
it is, it is. And, you know, it's, it's, it's embarrassing for me as a drummer. It's like,
no, I don't, I don't think that way. And I don't feel that way. But you must have gone through
some of that. I mean, I guess there's like a continuum, like, if you're if a woman is singer,
no problem. If a woman's a keyboard player, no problem. If a woman picks up a guitar or a bass,
that's weird. I'm talking about coming from, you know, patriarchal side. Yeah. And a woman is a
(50:30):
drummer. That's two eyebrows raised, right? Like, did you experience it that way? Not really. I
mean, I think I'm just, I'm just, you know, because we were in the early 90s, like, I think
we kind of, and we were so self contained in our community, where it was more present to see
(50:51):
women playing music and all instruments and to see more drummers, I would say, I mean, still
definitely not balanced, right. But it was not a freak show. And so I didn't have that. And,
you know, I mean, I think one of the things that when I think about my own playing, and, you know,
(51:14):
becoming more like, where I was like, I'm a drummer, instead of, you know, whatever that,
you know, self assessment is, right, I didn't learn on the job, you know, like, we, we wrote
these songs. We, so we wrote these songs in the beginning of 1991, or a bunch of our first batch
of songs, and then recorded our first single in August of 1991. And so, you know, we, you hear
(51:44):
like, oh, you know, that's not how I would, that's not how I play now, especially because we've been
playing shows again, these past few years, right, you know, and I some, some things I modified,
because like, Oh, that wasn't a good idea anyway. So I'll just play it totally different. And
something that's just better, and then more solid. And so, you know, and then you think about
like, we, because we've had these sort of phases of our band, and I had other bands, too, that made
(52:09):
records, and you just kind of hear, oh, like, yeah, I'm getting it over the course of the years,
like how I want to be as a drummer. But it's kind of amazing to be in my 50s and be like, I'm,
you know, I think I'm better than I ever was. And that's awesome.
I think it's great.
But I don't like to practice by myself. Like, that's not a thing I do. I don't, you know, try
(52:35):
to, you know, I either I have some aspiration of just like, some learning, there's this woman,
you probably know, Dorothy, Dorothea Taylor, who's on like, all the media. And, you know, she's such a
pro, like, you know, snare. She's rudimentary, rudimentary drummer. Yeah, she knows all of the
(52:58):
patterns. And you're just like, I mean, I just can't do that. But why not? You know, just it's
practice. Yeah, I mean, I think the thing about drumming that's true is some people literally
cannot get it. And it is, you know, whether it's the multiple limbs at the same time as your brain,
like they just do not have that. That ability, or I mean, that probably could be worked through
(53:27):
in most cases, too. But I like to think so. But yeah, I get your point. It's a challenge,
right? Like, that is just the last thing I could ever imagine doing is like something with my left
foot and my right. And some people can sit down and do it right away. My son was that way. He
pretty much sat down and could play. I mean, and you see some of these prodigy kids on the
(53:47):
internet, too. And you're like, Oh, my God, like that. They make me want to quit. But I think if
we're kind of reaching the end of our chat, I think it is part of the, you know, the multiple
limb kind of thing that drums give you has some application into my career, I think, you know,
(54:11):
having to be constantly multitasking and looking at things in a kind of anticipating what the next
thing is, but you're in where you're at, that somehow, sort of metaphysically seems to make
it some sense to me. I think that's a great metaphor. I think that's great. I've never
thought of that before. Honestly, as all my years as a drummer, into a million things, I've never
(54:35):
really thought about the independent limb thing as applying itself, you know, being applied to a
career otherwise. So thank you for that. I mean, just for what it's worth, like, you may not be
somebody who sits around and practices rudiments all day. I'm not either. I mean, I have some of
that background, and I've taken lessons, and I study certain things, and I do practice deliberately
to some degree. There are tons of people who do that stuff all day long, and never get on stage,
(55:04):
and never play with others, and never do what you've done. And that's far more important.
That's a very known fact to me. I mean, I think, again, if we're going to connect it to business
and, you know, the reality of the music industry, there are so many people who
(55:24):
are just, you know, and I think, you know, being parents, you observe this in, you know,
when they start developing interests, and you want to support their interests, and maybe they're
better, maybe they're not, but they're still interested in it. And all the things that we
spend time, and money, and energy on to support even the germ, it's not even a dream. It's just
an idea of, and a way to spend time. And so this whole entire kind of, you know, spectrum of ways
(55:52):
of thinking about what we do. I do think about that quite a bit, actually, because I see it in
our results, how many people have released music, how many people have listened to that music,
and how many people are just, you know, hitting it out of the park. So all of those things are
really clear. And there's an opportunity for everyone, you know, and I think that's one of
(56:18):
the things in our industry, we focus a lot about, you know, you were mentioning your friend who's
building a tool for artists to manage things. And I think, you know, my sort of like challenging
question is, who's willing to buy that? How many people are really thinking about
(56:40):
that in the face that you think it might be really helpful? How many people really need that?
And who can do it themselves? And who really can't and really needs those levels of support?
And certainly the ability to pay for it.
Kind of confusing dynamic that we manage in the music industry, because we focus a lot on like
(57:01):
great ideas, I'm sure that's a great idea. And he's probably building a great product, and there is
a market for it. But it's, you know, the vast part of our of our industry is really not yet
engaging with a lot of ears.
Right.
I think if we're, you know, thinking about it, like, you know, sort of in
(57:26):
in this journey, and is, it's okay to be real with people. And I think in in the music business,
and in some of, you know, my company and others, you might be like, oh, you could be a star,
and you can use your tools. And, you know, and I think where we're kind of finding our comfort
(57:47):
is, let's be real about where you're at. And let's give you what you need right now. And it's
like, very fair, very affordable, very, like, you know, intuitive, pleasant experience. But
don't think that that's going to get you to, you're not Chapel Rowan.
Right. And maybe that's okay. Right?
Absolutely. It's okay.
Yeah, I
(58:07):
must be real with it about it.
Yeah. Henry Rollins spoke in an interview with Jason Feinberg at Mondo NYC, back in October.
And it was an interesting conversation. And it was like the artist enterprise and that kind of
thing. I know we're gonna run out of time, but I want to share this. Henry made the point that
(58:28):
you could have a business that is self sustaining and smaller and still be successful in your own,
in your own way. And that, you know, be careful what you wish for, you don't have to be big in
order to be successful and sustainable if you, you know, are willing to put in the effort and
do things in that way. So I think that, you know,
if artists are realistic, that the only, you know, pat, it isn't the only path to go to get a
(58:50):
record deal with a big label and spend tons of money and have a great moonshot of a career.
You know, even those who do have the moonshot typically can't sustain it. And, you know, it's,
it's easier to maybe easier, maybe.
In every direction.
Yeah. So I'm intrigued by that. So before we go.
Yeah.
(59:11):
One question. What are you listening to right now that's, that's got you excited?
Well, I have to say today is the saddest day because Manny from the Stone Roses passed,
or it was announced that his death.
I saw that.
And, you know, he is such a legend. And so I have not, I've been at work since that news,
(59:34):
but I will be listening to Stone Roses and Primal Scream a lot today. In terms of new music,
it's, it's, it's so interesting, because my friends still make a lot of music. So I still
love listening to, you know, what my friends release and support them. But because I have a
tween, I listen to a lot of pop radio. And so I feel pretty up on, you know, what is completely
(01:00:02):
out of the CD Baby land of, you know, genre, but I know most of the current pop artists and
hip hop stars and right. You know, some of the and then some of the things that are popping back
up because of Tick Tock and things like that. You're like, oh, now we Wowie and the whole thing,
(01:00:23):
you know. But you know, so I my, my, but my happy place, like when my kid lets me listen to
my own music, which is not often I tend to listen to, you know, 80s new wave.
Got it. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah. Both the sad news, but also the good side of
(01:00:44):
still listening to music. So yeah, thank you very much. This was a lot of fun. I know we
went a little bit long. I hope I didn't ruin your schedule in your day.
No, no, it's fine. It's lunchtime. I just have to go grab something. Sorry. You must.
That's important for having me, Michael. It's wonderful.
It was my pleasure. And I'll say goodbye for now, but I'll be in touch. And thank you so
(01:01:05):
much for joining me. I really appreciate it. Cool. Thanks.
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