David Junk - BOOK - Rockin’ the Kremlin

Episode Transcript

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This election, I could do thisjob mistakes if this race couldn't be hired
this store president hastab immunity is changingby them minute. What came out today
fifty five krs the talk station Atosix here at Pick five KRCD talk station.
By the time, I swishing youa very happy Friday. Been looking

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forward to this all morning since Isaw him on the rundown. David Junks
his name, is the first CEOof Universal Music in Moscow, and for
a decade he promoted international artists inRussia. You know the stars Mariah Carey,
Elton, John You, Two,Sting, Banjoe, just to name
a handful. He was Vice PresidentEastern Europe at Universal Music back in two
thousand and three, opened the firstUniversal Music office in Kiv, Ukraine,

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developed music real reality shows for UkrainianTV, and is a founding member of
the Russian Music Industry Association and theUS Ambassador's Task Force on Intellectual Property Rights.
Author he is David Junk, authorof Rock and the Kremlin, My
incredible true story of gangsters, oligarchsand pop stars in Putin's Russia. David,

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it's great to have you on theprogram this morning. Good Morning,
Brian. It's an honor to beinvited on. I appreciate it. I
just I'm a huge, huge musicfan. I just love music. I'm
jealous of your life in the musicindustry, and I guess you got to
see it. And I don't wantto call it demise. I know there's
still music being made out there,but the entire landscape of the music industry

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has been so radically changed since theadvent of the Internet and music sharing.
But this predates all that, doesn'tit, Yes, it does. This
is when compact discs were the numberone cherrier for music, and then prior
to that, obviously in Russia itwas mainly Vinyl that they boot legged in
from Eastern Europe. So this predatesmodern technology for sure. Well, and

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I've seen you know, articles,those reviews, political analysis of maybe how
in some of the reasons why theBerlin Wall fell, which is the metaphor
for the Soviet Union collapsing. Butthe Western influence seeped its way into the
Iron Curtain for years and years.You know, VHS tapes were snuck in
with Western content. It was underhigh demand. I remember the old days

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talking about how they loved Levi's jeans, remember that sneaking those in. So
what was the mood like when yougot there, because it seemed from the
outsider's perspective, and you know,we won the Cold War, it seems
like it was a pretty exciting timefor the people. Was it optimistic?
What? What? What was itlike? It was amazing, Brian.

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It was one of the great momentsof the of the century for sure,
when when the Berlin Wall came downand and and the Soviet Union collapsed,
and people like me went over thereto help Russians transition from communism and command
economy principles to market and supply anddemand and capitalism. It was. It

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was really the peak of US Russiarelations, and a lot of people went
to Russia to help in finance,oil and gas exploration, things like that.
I went and helped develop their musicindustry. So it was totally different
from a lot of other folks.But but what I did had a lasting

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impact, just as much as anyother assistance Americans provided to the Russians after
the end of the Cold War.Well, it seems to me you had
a pretty much built in, almostguaranteed demand for this content. Oh sure,
I mean, for for a longtime. For decades, Russians have
been listening to Western music, justyou know, hiding from the censors,

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right, They would sneak in thesealbums, you know, when someone visited
Eastern Europe, one person would bringback an album they would hide, and
then they would make copies of itat a house party and share it.
And and and that was the originalcounterfeit pirating of music right there. But
but but they loved it, andand and they they devoured Rolling Stones,

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Beatles, Pink Floyd albums, nowMotown. Funny enough was allowed in the
Soviet sensors would allow music because theyliked songs, you know, showcasing inner
city strife in America. It wasgood for the Soviet ideology to show,
you know, and Marvin Gay sayingabout what's going on, you know,

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the Russians loved that. Bobby Woomack, yeah, yes, yes, yes,
yes, all right, well,well so that that's what happened.
But then, but then when Westernmusic came in the modern era, they
devoured it. They were ready forit, they were hungry for it.
And I was there to bring thebest of American pop and rock and hip

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hop music to the Russians and ofcourse, first CEO Universal Music in Moscow.
You brought a corporate presence and organizedmoney making ability with a team in
place. How did you navigate anddeal with the political sort of post fall
chaos. I just get this impression. As soon as the structure of the
Soviet Union's and all of these mobsters, gangsters and oligars just rushed to fill

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in the void on that they seeyou making profit outside Western entity making profit.
I gotta imagine you got you knowthe shakedown number done to you?
Or am I wrong? Well?You know, it's interesting because there was
no proper music industry when I gotthere. You know, there was no
real ideas of royalty payments to artistsor songwriter rights, copyrights, none of

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that. None of that was that'shere too, and it all had to
be built from scratch. But thebiggest obstacle Brian was the Russian mafia had
moved in so fast that they hadcontrolled They took control of ninety percent of
the music industry by the time Igot there, Oh jeez. And they
yeah, they were manufacturing these counterfeitCDs that they were selling for a dollar

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two dollars and on the black market, and you could have Elton John's greatest
hits plus his new record, plusanything else you wanted for Melton John.
They would just put it on oneseat, you know. They would cherry
pick all the great songs and andand put it out there, and and
and and they would export that musicalso to UH to Europe and China,

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and they would use the money UHto to fund terrorism and and sex trafficking
and drugs trafficking. So it wasa really terrible situation when I got there.
Well, how did you wrestle thatone to law and order or did
you? Well, we did havesuccess. We that we definitely were able
to put pressure on the Kremlin tofinally do something about it because they were

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you know, the Russians weren't takinguh they weren't considering the possibilities of their
own music industry. I I Iused to always use Abba in Sweden as
a great example. I would say, you know, Abba, you know,
Sweden sells more Abba records than itdoes Volvo cars or anything else,
and and so could Russia, youknow. And it's a great tax base,

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it'll bring bring money, it'll createan industry, jobs, et cetera.
And and that was my Mantra.I was constantly reinforcing that. But
the biggest step we took was Imet with the US ambassador in Moscow and
asked and pleaded with him honestly todo something about the situation. And he
uh, he persuaded George Bush toblock Russia from entering the World Trade Organization

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until they did something about music piracy. And and that's and that really worked.
That definitely had an impact. Wow, it's you were in a sort
of a help me, help youenvironment in that that particular situation exactly exactly,
and in a vibrant music industry isvery good for any economy, but
especially one transitioning out of out ofcommunism. Well, of course it's good

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for the soul. I mean,what brings people together better than music,
You know, it's uplifting or sometimesmaybe it's not, but the idea that
you can embrace something and uh andand especially when you've been so void of
a presence that has been out inthe rest of the world for so long,
I just imagine what it was likejust being there and being flooded with
all of this new material. Justagain, I go back to the sort
of the exciting environment that I perceivedit was. You also helped develop local

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Russian talent while you were there,didn't you. I did, and that's
very important for a record company,not just to bring in Elton John and
Brian Adams and Metallic, but alsoto sign and develop local talent. And
what I did is I found afew artists that I could actually sell abroad
too, So I was selling Russianmusic throughout the world, as far away

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as Brazil to Japan, Australia toNew Zealand. And of course the biggest
goal of all was I always wantedto be the first record American record executive
to bring a Russian band to theUnited States, and I did that.
So that was the biggest thing forme, is to bring Russian music to
the US. Well, Rock inthe Kremlin my incredible true story of gangsters,

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olig archs and pop stars and Putin'sRussia the name of the book.
My guest today, David Johnk's storycareer in the music business. Did it
end? I mean, I guesswe saw that we've seen the direction,
we've just gone to authoritarianism, andwe thought this was going to be maybe
a democratic reality in Russia. Theymight end up being a great trading partner
or friends, who knows. Imean, hell, in the aftermath of

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World War Two, you didn't reallynecessarily think that Germany be a long term
trading partner. Look what happened Japan, the same thing. But what of
the Soviet Union post Cold War?It's really tragic, right. My wife's
father was one of those there withBoris Yeltsen in the early nineties when he
was up on the tank. Ohyeah, clamoring for democracy in the end

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of the Soviet Union, and therewas so much hope for democracy and a
future, a really bright future forRussia. You know, the Russians have
one of the highest literacy rates inthe world, to some of the smartest
people in the world. It reallycould have been a tremendous thing for their
economy to keep growing. But becauseof well, Boris Jelsen was quite drunk

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all the time, and yes hewas, and and and then there was
a Chechen War, a war inChech that was really causing a lot of
problems for Russian So that that ledto the ascendancy of Putin into the Kremlin
and things have never been the samesince. And that that put Russia on

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the authoritarian track. Uh, does. Is there still a presence of Universal
music in Moscow in Russia these days? No, there's not, unfortunately,
uh well, but but it's proper. With the war and the invasion,
Western companies have moved out, Recordcompanies have moved out, and Universal have
definitely moved out. There's still ahip hop industry there that I played a

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role in creating twenty five years agowhen we brought in Eminem and Doctor Dre
and Snoop Dogg. That really ledto the to the development of a local
hip hop artist community and and bryMy. My hope is it's that community
of young people that will eventually leadRushia to better days and perhaps they'll take

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back the country from the Kremlin somedays. How about that. It's amazing what
music can do to change the countryand the landscape. Saw it in the
late sixties, without question, Wellreal quick before we part. Comedy David
Johnes loved the conversation. The book'sgoing to be a great read for my
listeners. You can get it onmy blog page fifty five Caresey dot com.
Rockin the Kremlin? What's your perception? And I brought it up at
the outset, But what's your perceptionof the modern music industry. Is it

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even an industry anymore? Given that, Hell, when I was going to
laugh at this, when I wasa kid, the one of the neatest
things that was available at music storesthey had a little cassette. It was
a four track recording studio. Miniaturethings, so you could put four tracks
on a cassette tape and record athome and even over dub at home.
Now I know modern you can geta ninety seven track or whatever, an

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unlimited number of track computer software youcan download online and just do all the
layering with separate tracks. It's justit's home based music. I don't need
a pretty auction studio anymore. Ican just put my own music online.
What's this done to the music industry? And is it still an industry?
If I may put it that way, David, I have mixed feelings about
that. I'm old school. II come from the era of the supergroups,

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you know, Journey, Rush,Pink Floyd, you know the reb
Zeppeline and I and I honestly believebands like that are not going to happen
in today's modern industry because there's notpeople gatekeepers like I was trying to develop
them, but also having to tonot release every single record that comes out
from somebody's you know computer, right, That's that's what happens now is all

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music is out there. There's there'sno gatekeepers, there's no filters. You
just get everything. And some peoplelike that. Some people like it that
there's thousands, thousands and thousands ofmore songs per year released than there ever
was in the seventies or eighties.But I think we've lost that that super

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group mentality, you know, wherewe'll really appreciate artist artistry of a really
great band or a really great artist, and they sell millions of records instead
of thousands of records. So Ithink it's I don't like it myself,
but I have two sons who makemusic themselves and put it put it on

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the internet, so you know,it's a generational thing. It really is.
Well, I'm in your camp,David. I think you and I
sound like we're roughly got around thesame age. You mentioned a lot of
the bands that I like and grewup with, so I have a sense
of appreciation for where you're coming from. David johnk author of Rocking the Kremlin,
My Incredible True Story of Gangsters,Oligarchson and pop stars and Putin's Rush.
You get a fifty five Karsey dotCom. David, it's been a

(13:41):
real enjoyable conversation. I know we'reall gonna love the book. Thank you,
Brian, it's been a real greattalking to you. Really really grateful
for it. My pleasure, sir, My pleasure. Good luck with all
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