Building Superfans in the Streaming Era of Spotify – Expert Advice for Musicians with Nick Holmsten - Music Business Insider Podcast

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
On today's podcast, we dive into the mind of music visionary

(00:03):
Nick Holmsten, the powerhouse behind some of Spotify's most
innovative features. From redefining how we discover music to
enabling artists like never before, Nick shares insider
knowledge of a world of transition from the old copy model to the
modern streaming landscape. We'll explore the transformation of fans
into super fans and deep dive into the intricacies

(00:25):
of technological shifts and the rise of a superpower called
AI. Whether you're an artist or an industry aficionado,
you won't wanna miss Nick's insights into the future of music and how
you can harness these trends. Insiders, are you ready?
Welcome to MUBUTV's Music Business Insider Podcast, where

(00:45):
our mission is to educate, empower, and engage artists and
music business professionals who are dedicated to having a successful career
in the new music industry. Here are your hosts, Ritch
Esra and Eric Knight. Welcome back, insiders, insiders, to another
episode of the MUBUTV Music Business Insider Podcast,
where our mission is to educate, empower, and engage your

(01:07):
music career. Today, we have a truly exciting conversation with Nick
Holmsten, a dynamic force in the music industry who has led the
charge in shaping how we experience music in this digital
age. From his pioneering work at Spotify to the groundbreaking
insights in his book, Fan Powered Future, Nick takes us on a
journey through the shifting tides of music consumption and the

(01:29):
emergence of the attention economy. We dive deep into personal
storytelling and vulnerability and connecting with fans and how
AI and machine learning are revolutionizing the industry. With
Nick's unique perspective on the role of fans as today's A and
R and his vision for the future of fan artist interaction, this is an
episode filled with critical insights for anyone navigating the music

(01:51):
business landscape. If you're an artist looking for strategies to thrive in this
digital age or curious about how technology shapes artistic
success, you won't wanna miss this. But first, a word from our
sponsor. Hey, Insiders. Are you an aspiring musician,
artist, band, or future music business professional looking to take your
career to the next level? Well, look no further. At MUBUTV, we

(02:13):
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(02:35):
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(03:20):
your songs, the strategies to grow your audience, and the confidence to
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Don't let uncertainty hold you back. Join us for your free fifteen minute
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That's book.mubutv.com.

(03:43):
Hi. This is Jessica Entner of Warner Chappell Music, and you're listening
to the MUBUTV Music Business Insider Podcast.
Welcome back, insiders. Today's featured guest is Nick Holmsten, a
music visionary with a long extensive career in the music
industry. He was one of the people who started working at Spotify
and who wrote an incredible book called Fan Powered Future.

(04:05):
This was a fascinating and insightful conversation,
Eric, for a couple reasons. Nick is somebody who's been on the forefront of
seeing what we always talk about that transition. Right. The
revolution as I call it. You know, a revolution I define is, you know, a
radical upheaval of the established order Right. Which was, you know, the
copy model selling things. Right. To an access

(04:27):
model. To an access model. And two outcomes of every revolution are
a change of habits, but on a more profound level, which is really what his
book is about, is a change of values. That's what I found
about that that was so fascinating about his book is
that this is a man who really understands that. That today, it's
all about building your fan bases, having an understanding

(04:49):
of who your audience is and the power of storytelling. You hear
me talking about this all the time. We we we talk about this on the
show a lot that one of the things that's so important is the
music is free. Whether it's your band or Beyonce, it's
free. Correct. Okay. We don't pay for it anymore like we used to in the
old model. So the power of storytelling is who are you? What are you

(05:10):
about? Where are you coming from? What do you stand for? What don't you stand
for? This is the future of how you build fans. You know, you and I
have talked about that extensively. We talked about that with, you know, with your single
that you've put out on mental health and how you will attract people with those
similar values who care about that. That's what it's all about. And the
fascinating and revolutionary part of this, Eric, is that the

(05:32):
fandom is not just built on the song
or the album, but it's built on who you are. The personality.
Yeah. Not only the personality, but the values and the story you're telling about who
you are behind it. That was one of the most interesting aspects of the
whole shift that I thought in our conversation. It's interesting that you would start off
with that point because mine is kinda segueing into same thing. You talk about the

(05:54):
power of storytelling, and my thing that I really loved in this conversation
was about building fan bases and what he talked about that. And he said, you
know, he stresses the importance of building a dedicated fan base from
the ground up, starting with finding the first hundred fans and growing from
there. And all of that is due to what you're saying, that first step, that
power of storytelling, the idea of that hero's journey, what have you been

(06:16):
through, what are people gonna connect with that are gonna latch on besides the
music. The music is the obvious thing. If the music is not if the music
is not connecting, you're not gonna have much of a fan base. You need to
make sure that music is incredible, that you're creating. That's number one. That's just the
baseline. But the second part of that is building that fan base and it all
goes back to what you were saying with the power of storytelling is building

(06:38):
that story and you as the artist that's out there listening to this, taking
the time to build out what that story is, really thinking about it, who
you are, like Rich said, what do you believe in, what do you stand
for, what causes are you behind, you know, all of these kind of things that
paints that picture. And then the second part of that journey is finding out who
your avatar is. What do you most sound like? What are the the

(07:00):
top 10 artists that you most? Start looking at what they're doing. Look at how
they're building their social media. Look at how they're speaking to their
audience. And of course, not stealing directly from them, but
taking things, bits and pieces of what you like from certain artists, what you don't
like, and then molding that into your own thing. I think that's crucially important,
and we talk about this in this episode. And I think just to add to

(07:21):
what you're saying, one of the things that doing what you just suggested will
do, it will give you an understanding. And as simple as this may
sound, you wouldn't you wouldn't believe how many people don't. I mean, artists don't
really get this. We'll give you an idea of who your audience is. Yeah.
Are they men? Are they women? Are they older? Are they younger? Are they educated?
Are they not? Are they, you know, married? Are they single? Are they

(07:44):
rural rural people? Are they city
dwellers? Right. Where are they living? Yes. I mean, this stuff is cool.
Demographic part and the psychographics. And it's important. We can get all
that today. Yeah. You know, it's amazing when you talk to artists, like, who is
your audience? I don't know. Well, know, whenever an artist says that to me, I
always say, well, you should start to learn who your audience

(08:06):
is. Doesn't mean it's gonna be your only audience, but it's a great place
to start. And with that, insiders, sit back, relax, and
enjoy our featured conversation with Nick Homestead.
Nick, welcome. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you so much for
taking the time to speak with us. You know, your professional journey
has been incredibly multifaceted, you know, from being an

(08:28):
artist to leading innovations at Spotify that
redefined how music is discovered and consumed. So
given that, how would you define this era
that we're currently in? Yeah. I think that's a good question. I
I said, you know, a long time ago, and this is probably, like, I would
say, like, ten years ago, that if you think the music industry has changed a

(08:51):
lot in the last five years, this is nothing about what's gonna happen in the
next five. And I would I would even say that today. I think we just
did the start of a dramatic change in so many different ways. And
the reason for that is that we had a transition
from retailing to streaming and engagement. And when
everything has come into these big systems, the biggest challenge right

(09:12):
now is really about the amount of music that's being
released and how to manage to cut through that noise and get some
attention. That's gonna be, I think, a new challenge and a
really interesting way to see how that's gonna be sorted out. Yeah. It's you know,
as I'm listening to you, I'm realizing that's not only a problem for music.
It's exacerbated in music. It's a problem for a lot

(09:34):
of areas of media. It's a problem for movies. It's a problem for
books. It's certainly a problem for television. You know, there's so many
other areas besides music. I think it's greatest in music because of its
volume. But, yeah, you're you're identifying something that is a
bigger, more profound problem than just in
music. It's it's it's a media problem worldwide. Yeah. I

(09:56):
couldn't agree more. I think we are in this attention economy. As an artist,
you're not just competing with other artists. You're competing about
anything today, anything that takes time. I think people kind of
have two different kind of things they're doing, and I usually
refer them into, like, there's a there's a world of, like, utility apps
and stuff like that that gives you basically time back that helps you. It could

(10:18):
be everything from banking to other solutions that you use to bake things. And
but then I think when you come into the entertainment piece, it's like you're up
against everything. And we also know that the attention span, especially for
younger today, is so short. So you have to,
in some way, find a way to attract these in a very short period of
time. And as you said, it goes for for anything, you know, and

(10:40):
everything, I would say, like, when it comes to most of the pop culture and
entertainment today. Nick, welcome to the show. This is Eric. So so glad
to have you on the show. I wanted to ask you, in your experience, how
is the shift from the copy model selling individual albums or
tracks to the access model, which is now streaming and subscription
services, impacted the way that artists connect with their fans over the

(11:02):
past decade? Yeah. I think it's, it went through phases. So I
think we're kind of back to where it all started. I think fans
are extremely important today. I think they are the ones who
actually are your marketeers and the ones you need to focus on. I think there
was a time, and I remember this specifically, especially after
I joined Spotify and innovate on playlist and new systems,

(11:24):
you know, like, to to launch music. It felt like the industry was in
some kind of strategy where everything came down to, like, just get on
these playlists that will solve everything. And then I think it gets
crowded, and it's too much bangs, and it's too much today, it's a
different systems. It's more machine learning, AI, merge
personalization, and stuff like that. You cannot really relay on the

(11:47):
streaming services to help you with that in a way it might have been in
the beginning. So I think that everybody in the music industry need to rethink the
strategies. And I think we're kind of back to, you know, you have to build
the fan base, and you have to start somewhere. If that is finding your first
hundred fans, that's what you do. And if you can find thousand fans or
10,000 fans, that's how you build. And I think the streaming services is

(12:09):
way, way more kind of a mirroring of what you're doing. And just
to be fair, you know, the services like Spotify is really tracking a lot of
external data. They everybody keep asking me, like, what is the
strategy right now? And I always said, like, if you're a new artist, emerging artist
into the market, prove yourself. Your job is
basically get the first thousand fans, you know, like but

(12:31):
everybody will find out if you move the needle. And eventually,
these streaming services will be really good of amplifying your
music once they start to see that it's getting traction.
Yeah. It's so interesting listening to you because, you know, the answer
you just gave is a fascinating one when we think of the
historic aspect of signing artists to labels

(12:53):
Mhmm. And putting their music out. When I think of that, and I've been in
the music business for forty seven years, I think of the fact
that, you know, you had to be chosen to get a record deal. A record
label put your music out. And even in that old model where we had far,
far, far less, only 10 to 15% of that
model actually succeeded and connected in getting attention

(13:15):
or was was a hit or or or made its money back in in the
physical world. And, you know, one of the things that that you're
speaking about, which I wanna sort of further and go a little deeper with you
on, is that in your work, Nick, you've highlighted the
power of personal storytelling and vulnerability in
forging deeper connections with fans. Can you talk about the importance of

(13:37):
this for artists who are building fan bases? Because I think it's it's a very
relevant issue to what we're speaking about. Absolutely. I mean, I also been in
the music industry for quite a long period of time, and I've also experienced
the fact that in the old industry, how could we think
about it? It was a really small industry. What I mean with that
is very few people made a lot of decision. That is a decision actually

(13:59):
what's end up in the in the record stores. You know? And another
thing to think about as well is that we keep forgetting about the fact that
maybe 25% of the people that listen to music actually went
into record stores. And most of the people that listen to music maybe got it
from radio, TV, or maybe they went into, like, a department
store at Christmas and bought records. And what happens when streaming

(14:21):
enter, it kind of combines, you know, radio
with retail. And suddenly, you know, the the hypothesis
from the beginning was that you're gonna get a lot of new users eventually
after the real music box has entered and created a
playlist and find and search and stuff like that. They're looking for some kind of
creative experience. The second phase of that will be that I think

(14:43):
the industry as it is right now is better than ever. And what
I mean with that is that I think it's a meritocracy, but it's a
marathon. It takes a lot of time and a lot of
effort to be there. But the beauty about it, as you know this as well,
like, there was always, like, a copy paste version in the
music industry. Like, today, we're looking for a young, you

(15:05):
know, girl, you know, like, that's gonna do this. Now it's a boy band. Now
it's a rock, whatever it is. It was like a templatized version of
it. I don't think we will have, you know, like, the the Billie Eilization,
the insurance if it wasn't for streaming, if it wasn't
about, like, it's actually the fans that make the decision, not the
record labels and an A and R. So I think that that shift have

(15:27):
totally changed. I would say, like, the fans are today's A and R's. Like, it's
definitely not the record labels that make this decision anymore. Yeah. It
it's a it's not a push economy in music. It's a
pull economy. That's a that's a very, very true
statement, and it's one that was a radical shift from
the old model to the new model. And I think one of the things that

(15:49):
created that was streaming. We don't pay for it anymore. We pay for it
not with cash, but with our attention. It's in you know, and whether it's
Beyonce or the new kid who's your neighbor, it doesn't matter.
It's all free. So our criteria is gonna be
radically different. I mean, it's it's it's always been said that, you know, any kind
of revolution produces two outcomes, a change of habits,

(16:11):
which is we don't listen to radio, we listen to, you know, streaming. But the
other one is more profound, which is there's a change of values.
And that's what you were just talking about, which I think is so important to
highlight. Absolutely. The amount of music that comes up today, it's
crazy. But I think I would say it is, like, we we talk about this
enormous amount of uploading music on on the on on the

(16:33):
streaming platforms today. I think we just need to realize that it's
not really hundred thousand new emerging
artists that uploads music every day. There's everything from
different kind of noise and moods and sounds, and there's also a lot of
public domain, you know, like, that people reupload and hoping
to, in some way, catch the attention. You know? So I think it would be

(16:56):
interesting to really find out what the real number is on if you
look at it from from the old world, like, how many new songs
that actually goes into competition. The number is still staggering, you know, like
but it's not hundred thousand, you know, new
emerging artists that or artists in general
that upload music everyday on Spotify. I don't have, you know,

(17:18):
like, the exact number, but I'm % sure that you can you can probably
erase the massive amount of these uploads as music that
never ever gonna touch the user. You know, Nick, I wanna get into your book
now, Fan Powered Future. And in your book, you explore the
shift from passive consumers to active engaged
super fans. What are some of the key strategies or examples you

(17:40):
can recommend for new and emerging artists to tap into? Yeah. I
mean, I have spent a lot of time thinking about this. This is from from
even before Spotify. And and what I came to the conclusion
is that there's a lot of shift that happens. On one side, you
have 40 artists is the way you produce music and and the
fact that it's technology is available in different ways, and it doesn't cut

(18:02):
that fortune to do it. So you have the ability to actually produce it. The
second thing is that the platforms, you know, gives the ability
to anyone to really get the music uploaded. At the same
time, the marketing piece of it is the most interesting
aspect because we all know that in the old industry,
record labels usually spend about 20% on marketing. And

(18:24):
when they did the deal and transition happened from retail to
streaming, they basically put in their agreements that a lot of that
marketing should be happening from the DSPs. That was one of the ways to
negotiate these deals. So I would say their record labels eventually
kind of stopped marketing music in the traditional way, and
and the responsibility ended up on on the streaming services to do

(18:47):
it. At the same time, you could also see a dramatic
shift when it comes to, like, what marketing is. The traditional media and
stuff like that disappear, and suddenly, it becomes really about,
like, finding ways, you know, buying social media ads
or ways to find attention about it. But the most efficient
way has always been fans communicating

(19:08):
this. So my hypothesis around this and the shift
that's gonna happen is more based on the fact that when artists, as we all
know, is taking control over their rights today, most of the biggest
artists have already or will, in the near future, control their
rights and license the content back to a record label. That
means that the record labels are not gonna have the kind of deal they used

(19:30):
to have. So they are not gonna spend the money on the market day. So
the way I see it is that on one side, the fans
has become extremely engaged with their artists. It's almost
like an extension of themselves. We see that in this kind of
world. I would say, like, it's more like a friendship and
community. So the so the fan base has started to become more like a

(19:52):
friendship thing. We can see it on the Taylors, on the BTS, and a lot
of others that have been successful in building that relationship. These
fans are now, like, asking for way, way more. I
mean, if you had a photo of a celebrity twenty years ago, it was
a big thing. Today, like a 12 year old girl, expect to get a
selfie on Taylor. So they're kind of in a situation where they they hire

(20:14):
you, but they fire you. So they are extremely important
today. So I think we are at the point right now where we need to
start thinking about the record mechanism. And my theory around is
the same thing. Social media is really about attention, and we
all know about, like, influencers that get paid to promote
different things. We also know that there are smaller influencers

(20:36):
in in in groups that do the same thing. I think we just need to
find a way. And what I believe is gonna happen is that,
and I write this in the book as well, is I think in the future,
like, a big artist will go out and say, like, hey. I will give 20%
back to my fans. I don't talking about, like, fired currency.
I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about, like, they're gonna offset the piece

(20:58):
of their revenues to reward the fans. And what
I mean with that is that in some different way, the fans, what
are they looking for? They're not looking for money. They're looking for experience.
They're looking for the chance to actually get the ticket to buy that merch.
And I think there's millions of way of doing this in a very
smart way where fans get access, you know, like, and you don't

(21:21):
have to tell a fan, do fans gonna do it? But if they do these
tasks, you know, like, if they do the thing they do today, they they
need to be some reward. That's what I see happening, you know, like and
it's small things coming, like but the reward mechanism between
fans and art is gonna be critical moving forward. Yeah. I couldn't agree with
you more. And, you know, on that note, Nick, I I wanna I wanna

(21:43):
go back to explore something that you spoke of
briefly. You just touched on it in an earlier answer. You
discuss how data driven innovation is empowering
fans as, you know, gatekeepers of tomorrow's biggest hits. I'm I'm
curious. Can you elaborate on how platforms like Spotify and Apple
and others are using data, not just to recommend music,

(22:05):
but to genuinely empower fan communities and influence
trends and and artist successes? Yeah. I can speak about the things, you
know, like, at the time, probably, like, we know and know that technology
has advanced. But what we created, you know, like, back in the
days was really a system to really find out, like,
if how how do we get signals from users, you

(22:27):
know, if they like something, and what are what are the different
signals, and how do we value them? What we find out first was that, like,
just the fact that if people skip a song, you know, like, it's one
sort of single. The strongest thing that we had was that people
heard a song, you know, like, that was in different ways, you know, programmed
in front of them, adding on the playlist, you know, personal recommendation.

(22:49):
And and they listened to it, they saved it, and they replayed
it. That was a really, really strong incentive. What happens after a
while is that we realized that the more, I would
say, like, curated experience people have, and a lot of
people wanna have curated experience. It became more like a
lean back experience. So one of the problems we had was that a lot of

(23:11):
people just open up the app, look what's there, press play,
and then do something else. So we don't really get that input. We just
see a lot of place range. But what we really started to do when it
comes to superfans and all the standard at work is that we started to
find these when we saw a song kind of
taking off, you know, from nowhere, which we tracked back and

(23:33):
saw who are these people that found these songs early
and added them and played them before everyone else. And then we started to
build cohorts around that to try to understand if we saw early
signals of potential songs that take off. And if we saw these
signals, we could start position them towards people that had that taste
and see if the uptake happened. And that was, like, the most interesting thing

(23:55):
where where you can take, you know, a certain cohort, a
certain category of users that are leaning, that
really loves music and love that genre or are interested in new
music and see how they reacted on it because they are usually
the early adopters on these things. And that helped us, you know, to
scale leads and help artists to find new audiences. No. I couldn't

(24:18):
agree more. You know, you've seen firsthand how technology can
disrupt industries. And I'm curious, how do you evaluate when a
technological shift is genuinely groundbreaking versus
when it's a fleeting trend, particularly in the world of of music?
Yeah. I mean, there's no question that, like, I think every disruption of
the industry always come with a big technological

(24:40):
shift. You know? And, it's always interesting.
When I'm thinking back, and if we go back to the middle of February,
I don't know how many people that really know this, but Sweden was you know,
I was in the music industry at that time. You know, writing, producing was
very interesting of technology and stuff like that. And we started to see,
especially in the Nordic countries, that that music kind of,

(25:02):
you know, buying music and the industry kind of collapsing. And
that was the first. And the reason for that was that Sweden has, like, a
very early high broadband penetration,
which also draw, you know, a lot of technology
and innovations. But but the problem with the backside audit is that it also opens
up for a lot of piracy. So we saw that the Pirate Bay and

(25:25):
a couple of other companies basically took over the music
industry in the Nordic country, especially in Sweden. And the fascinating thing
is that at the same time, we could see that a lot of old Swedish
people with a good engineering background and and
and good understanding of the music industry and always been very,
successful in that started to look at that. And I was one of them, and

(25:46):
and Daniel at Spotify Buff was one of them, Daniel at Martin, and there was
SoundCloud. And there was a bunch of companies at the same time in the middle
of February that started to address that thing. And here you can see what I
think is interesting that that sometimes technology,
when it happens, has the ability because Napster was built on
the same kind of thing. It's a peer to peer system. It's usually something else

(26:08):
that drives data. Technology opens it up for it. But it was
first when actually the the the consumer friendly user interface
got introduced that people said, like, yes. This is way better.
And if we wouldn't have had piracy in Sweden, we would
Spotify would never have gotten, like, their test licensing for the
Nordic countries to see if streaming was a way for the

(26:31):
future. And when that turned out to be extremely successful,
country by country, and, eventually, US also opened up for it. So
I don't think there would have been this change if it
wouldn't have been, you know, like, that the industry in
certain areas was totally collapsing. So what I
see right now when it comes to technology, I think the biggest

(26:54):
challenge is a little bit like we started by saying, like, how do you
cut through the noise? So I think it's one thing, like, is there ways to
market music and find new ways to reach back? And the other
things that I think, we're building too many platforms today
that that starting to focus on the artist. And I would
say, like, the problem with most of these platforms is that they are

(27:17):
they're based on the same thing. They they wanna set up
x amount of services. They want the artists come there and drive the
fans to the platform, which we know don't work. So I think the
interesting thing is, like, how can we build, you know, platforms
that really focus on the fans so the artists wanna come
over there because the fans are there? That is, you know, what I

(27:39):
think is the next, you know, movement that needs to
happen. I don't believe in the other way. Otherwise, it's gonna stay very
much at this right now. So you're seeing that a place where there's a platform
where the fans are already congregating and the artists go
there. Yeah. I mean, think about it. Like, this is this is how social
media works. You know? Like, the social media the social media model

(28:01):
is really based on some kind of rewards, you know, thumbs up, you know, comments,
whatever it is. But it also has a lot of problems, and I don't think
the rewards are valued in the same way as it was from the beginning. So
what is that new kind of community
slash, you know, place where fans are the
drive? Because they are the driver of the industry. So it it it feels a

(28:23):
little think about it like this. Instead of going through a big
company that is a social media platform or is like a
streaming service or whatever it is, like and you as an artist,
you wanna reach the fans. But we also know that these platforms, they
are not really making the money out of all
their cut of the copyright because we we I don't wanna go into that discussion

(28:45):
right now, but everybody knows that 70% of the money that Spotify and
others bring in is being paid out
to to the right soldiers. So the 30% is not gonna be
enough for for the Spotify sort of world to run their big
businesses. So what they have is all the data, and they have all the
ability to help you with that marketing and charge you for it. I just

(29:07):
think we need to find a way how the fans and
the artists can meet in a place that is not,
you know, based on, you know, margins and earnings
for the platforms that run them. And there is where I feel there's an opportunity.
And I've seen I've seen a couple of interesting starting points on
it, you know, like but I think we just need to give way, way more

(29:30):
power to the fans that they have earned, you know, like, and
and give them the tools and the platform they're looking for. Yeah. That's that's
the great challenge because so many artists
today have control of their own music.
I'm talking, you know, new artists, and and that's I I think one of the
interesting things when you speak about platforms is, you know, when you

(29:52):
look at platforms like Spotify or Instagram or or Facebook or
or or any of those, What you have is
you have what you talk about, which is the conglomeration of
communities. You have the fans based there. But what
the what you're eventually trying to do is, you you know, all of those platforms
use I mean, not Spotify, but you use those platforms to

(30:14):
drive people to Spotify to get their attention. And then you
have the problem that you talk about, which is the, you know, 70% goes to
the rights holders. You recall early in the in the early days
when when, I guess, it was maybe not streaming, but it was in the in
the download era when individual labels tried this business,
when they didn't wanna farm it out to people. You know, you had things like

(30:36):
press play, and it it they didn't work because
the major only that label's music, you know, was
available on that particular platform. You cannot send the
fan to five or six different places to to get what it
is that they're interested in. So this becomes a really interesting
point that you're talking about because if if the model that that

(30:58):
you've articulated doesn't work for the reasons that you've said it doesn't
work, what is the platform? I mean, I'm thinking like, you know, that the
strategies that you've seen that artists use to successfully navigate and thrive
in this environment, a lot of them are social media, but
they're they're going back to the same traditional things to drive them to
Spotify, to drive them to Apple, to drive them to Deezer, to drive them to

(31:20):
the same platforms that have built, put the time, energy, and money into
those communities, and built the the systems
for us to actually hear all of the music. So this seems to be
the great catch 22, and I I don't know what the answer is. Yeah. I
I completely agree with that. And I I I don't believe you should, in any
way, kind of split up music and expect consumers to

(31:43):
consume on different places. That's never gonna work. That's the easy to
pull up. It never and it never happens. Yeah. Yeah. But but we have to
go back and you have to ask, you know, like, the right question. I think
that the problem is that no one asks the right question. The right question for
me is, like, what is fans asking for? You know, like, if you think about
a fan today, the biggest problem they have, and I and I, they're

(32:05):
they're always, like, the word, like, the the the
glory word word in the music industry. And right now, it's, like,
always connected to revenue. So it's been the hot word has
been like super fans. I think if we start there, I'm gonna give you a
couple of another issue around this, which I don't agree with that. There's nothing
that says that a superfan to an artist is equal

(32:27):
to dollars. It doesn't mean that superfans have more
money than everyone else. You know? Like, I think we are in a system where
there's something broken in the system. And what I mean with that is that we
all know, like, if we have kids that wanna go on a Taylor Swift
concert or, whatever concert it is out there, you know, like, we
know as parents that we gotta do whatever it takes to get these

(32:49):
tickets. The problem with the system today is it's not reporting the true
fans. So we have scalping. We have secondaries. It's almost impossible to
verify fans and so on and so on. So it ends up buying these
crazy ticket prices that is not in any way going
to the artist. This is scalpers. It's secondary. It's StubHub.
It's whatever it is that makes that money. So what I mean when I'm saying

(33:11):
that what we need to go back and build, like, a a fan friendly platform
is that we need to start verifying fans of
the fans' condition. So if I'm a fan, I wanna be able
and the artist also wanna be able to making sure that they are
super fans, that the people that really do their their kind of
guerilla marketing actually can get these tickets. You know? So they're looking

(33:34):
for a verification system. The other thing is, like, there needs to be a
way. If I'm if I'm spending all these times and, you know,
promoting my favorite artist and do everything like that, how
is that being, you know, rewarded? So what I'm talking about
is is that I think you need to start and ask yourself, like, what do
fans want? What are they looking for? You know, like, they

(33:56):
own all their data. Right now, they kind of give it away to
the social media platforms for them to make money on advertising
for them. Similar way is in the industry is that they cannot really
impact anything on the streaming platforms. So, yes, I I mean,
like, I might be hoping for something here, but when I
see all the structures happening is that I'm pretty sure

(34:18):
that artists will have no problems to reward their fans
as long as it was a system that kind of, like, I
put in you know if I take 20 of my revenues
and convert that into tickets, to merge, whatever they're looking
for, the value for the fans will be five times that
value. The second thing is, like, how do we track that? How do we do

(34:40):
that? At the moment, it's that the artist is looking for ways to reach the
fans or to voice the fans. But the existing systems that are out
there, and I'm thinking about the constituents like the the fans and the artists and
the dynamic, we don't have a platform that actually
has the feature and the functions that both
the artist is looking for and the fan is looking for. So I'm pretty

(35:02):
sure that that could be totally disconnected because
the fact of music, you know, for me, it's like we I'm
pretty sure in the future that we will not listen to music
in the same way as we do today. You know, like, it we're gonna get
smarter. Music in some way is just gonna be everywhere,
You know? And we always see that compared to just ten years, how we, like,

(35:24):
built into every device we can imagine and starts playing wherever we
go. That's the world. So I don't think the interface by itself
will be that important. I think it's more about, like, okay.
How do I reach my fans? How do I find the music? And the
symbiotic relationship between fans and artists needs to
be sorted. It's not there today. And that's what the platform, I

(35:47):
believe, can change the dynamics needs to deliver on. Yeah. Maybe
that's make sense? No. It makes complete sense, and maybe that's, you know, the
future when somebody can figure that out, it will be the next
revolutionary step. You know, who knows? Maybe it's that's one of the
the things that AI or whatever will will figure out. Yeah.
It's an interesting segue to get into the next question for

(36:09):
you. How do you envision the role of artificial intelligence
and machine learning evolving within music production,
distribution, and even live events, are there any specific innovations you're
most excited about? Yeah. My view is, and I I wanna be careful
because we also know that, like, a lot of things gonna happen in AI in
the next but if you look at it, what it is right now and where

(36:30):
we think it's heading. For me, I think this is
superpowers. You know? Like, it makes everyone almost like a
superhero with a lot of different resources that we didn't have. So we can be
more efficient in certain ways. I'm not % convinced because
I truly believe that there is an emotion connection
between fans and artists that is that is way, way

(36:52):
more than just a song. I think it's the personality. I think it's the
storytelling. It's the authenticity around the the artist and stuff
like that. So I I'm not sure I'm buying into that. But I do believe
that there's a way how these tools can help improve, but I
still have high hopes that music for me is
so die dimensional in our senses. There's so many different way. We all

(37:14):
remember, you know, in the early days before music
videos came that it was a huge difference to just hear a song
and then just turn on MTV and see the song, and that
changed the perception of the song. I think it's the same thing today. I think
that relationship is important. The second thing when it comes to AI,
what I think is gonna be incredible is that I think we're gonna

(37:36):
start understand that there are certain content
that feels more personalized, that feels for you, that
we all know it's done by AI. What I mean with that
is that I can totally see that artists today need
to scale. They probably need to create, like, an twin
avatar of themselves. Like, they they probably need to

(37:58):
talk different to different fans depending on their personality. I
think we're gonna see a way how, you know, millions
of fans getting personal video message to them,
which is the artist in the artist initiatives, but is not really
artist that has recorded 1,000,000 version. But I think we're gonna accept it. I
think we're already accepting a lot of these things that is,

(38:21):
like, technologically, happening because
because of these technologies. So I believe that this is
incredible tools for the small team
artists, you know, like, to be able to do things that, you know,
you need a lot of money to do. I think it's also another thing where
we can create way, way more personal relationships because

(38:43):
we can scale it, we can find ways. So I'm extremely optimistic. I'm
not sure that we will see a lot of
AI produced songs or AI
% AI artists taking over the charts. I simply don't believe in
that yet, but I could change my mind in a few years. Who knows? But
as it is right now, I don't believe in that. Hey, Insiders. We hope that

(39:04):
you've been enjoying our featured conversation. Stay tuned because we've got
so much value coming your way. But before we dive back in, a word
from our sponsor. Hey, Eric. As an artist, what do you find are the most
challenging aspects to a music career especially when you're
starting out? Well, I think one of the first things is just trying to get
the direction of who you are as an artist, where you wanna go, where you

(39:25):
wanna be. And, you know, we've talked about it on the show a lot. Who
is your target audience? Who you are? Who what do you stand for?
What do you believe in? What do you think would resonate with an audience? And
so those are some of the things that I would feel being a new artist.
I obviously, what I know now is different because I know these things, but for
people that are out there like our audience that don't necessarily any
direction to go would be the first things that I would start off with. And

(39:48):
having the songs that incorporate those elements that you're
speaking of into it. That's so important today. Yeah. And I think that's
one of the reasons why we started MUBUTV and why we started this new consulting
service that we're offering to all of our insiders out there because that is another
one of the big things. I mean, that is the big thing is like having
the great songs. That's what it really starts off. Our friend, Don Grierson

(40:09):
always said it always starts with a great song. So that's probably besides
putting together what your audience and what your target audience is is the
single most important thing. Where are your songs at currently today? Are
you collaborating with people? Are you trying to go out to networking
events where you can connect with other songwriters and stuff like that? So Yeah. And
what are your strengths? Exactly. You know, are are you a strong

(40:31):
lyric writer? Are you a strong melody writer? Are you a strong
musician, a player? Right. You know, and it's really important to get
really strong clarity on those issues before proceeding.
I totally agree, Rich. And, you know, with our consulting services, we
offer a myriad of different packages that we've made it super affordable for
everybody. So, you know, if you guys are interested out there in connecting with

(40:53):
us on a coaching call, you can visit
book.mubutv.com and start off with a free
fifteen minute discovery call. Well, yeah. Absolutely. That we start with an
initial fifteen minute call where we can get a sense of who you are. What
are the issues that you specifically have and want to work
on? Exactly. And we can go from there. Absolutely. Yeah. And we tailor

(41:13):
everything to your needs. It's not like a cookie cutter thing. We kind of really
wanna get to know who you are as an artist, where you at today, what's
the snapshot of you as an artist today, and then start trying to
craft something that's tailor made for you. So again, if you're interested,
visit us at book.mubutv.com for your fifteen
minute discovery call. I wanna ask you, you know, you just sort of stimulated

(41:34):
a a thought here based on, you know, what I know about your background, which
is that, you know, you had a company, TSX Entertainment,
and it was a company that was at the intersection of entertainment,
technology, and real world fan experiences. And,
Nick, my question is today where artists must cultivate direct relationships
as we've been talking about with their audience, how important do you believe the

(41:57):
integration of physical and digital experience is
for music, artists, and fans today? I think that I I I think
it's the absolute most important thing. The
the hypothesis around TSX was a little bit like I
realized in the Spotify that is when it comes to artists, it's always
and we started this interview with the same thing. Like, how do you cut through

(42:19):
the noise? How do you engage fans? How do you amplify the, you
know, new release? Like, how do I even, you know, get the message
out there? There there is something I learned over the years. There's only two
ways you can be in the entertainment industry, and that's not just music. It's
everything. Either you have assets that people wanna have or you
write checks. There's no other way. People never gonna convince me about something

(42:41):
else. So the TSX strategy when I got invited to that was that
I know that it a lot of people believe that
artist is driven by money. And I think there might be some
artists that are there, but most of the artist is driven by completely different other
things. You're like, it it's really about the storytelling. It's about the
creation. It's about, you know, playing for fans. And and

(43:03):
also another thing is that they wanna kind of get
their big image splash and the story out there. And they
also wanna be able to enable, you know, like, fans
to amplify it. So so so TSX was really built on on
the on the hypothesis where we say, like, okay. What really drives
these things? Artists want to perform at places that

(43:25):
creates a lot of noise and attention. Another thing we say, like, if these
things can be almost secret, you know, like surprise
performances, we also know that people gotta react in a different way. There's a
mistake around it. And we see that around secret releases and filled
anticipation. It's almost like a, you know, like you you're you're
trying to have, like, an Easter egg somewhere. So what we did and what we

(43:46):
proved was a little bit like, if you can have a big artist and you
can convince them, like, imagine to come out on the stage at Times Square, and
there's tens of thousands of people there. No one knows what's going on.
And the story and the amplification of that would be massive. A lot of people
said from the beginning, like, how is that gonna work? Why would the artist be
interesting? There's no ticketing. They can't get paid and stuff like that. I say, like,

(44:08):
this is the difference. You know? Like, artists looking for these moments, and they're
looking for moments where they can enhance the storytelling. So what we proved with
these things was that when we did the first one, which always the most difficult
one, but but I had a good relationship with both on the team, and
they agreed to it. And we did it, and it took off, and it
filled out Times Square, and the result was enormous. But the biggest

(44:31):
thing was it was that you used humans in tens of
thousands of people. You surprised them with something that they couldn't even
believe that they experienced. But the way you tell the story is
completely different than going to a concert. And we saw that amplification
happens. And when we did, like, John Cook with BTS, we were actually on
numbers where earned media was in, like, the fiftieth millions and

(44:53):
the online reach was on the billions. You know? So we realized that if
you can find these physical moments where you have the
fans and artists come together and there's a twist to it,
The effect in the digital world of the amplification
is the absolute most rewarding you can do. And while we
proved that concept, it was very easy to get sponsors to come in and

(45:16):
pay for it, and the anticipation around these shows just
escalated. And it was an interesting task to do, but that proved that
the physical kind of connections between artists and
fans is still the strongest driver for
digital. With the continued rise of streaming,
the economics of music have shifted dramatically. Can you see a

(45:37):
future where artists gain more control over distribution and
compensation, or will the large platforms continue to shape the
industry's financial landscape? It's a good question. I think, you
know, like, I'm I'm I'm partly speaking, you know,
on my own history here, but I think there was a lot of battles in
the beginning or, like, who will be the streaming platforms

(46:00):
that win? You know, like, we we have a bunch of them. We have a
bunch of them, but it's clearly a big winner that is the one who
drives the conversation and the narrative and impacts charts
and stuff mostly, and that is by far Spotify. Either that's
proved this enormous successful thing of of building
a platform in the same way as YouTube took, like, videos to that place.

(46:22):
I think that's very, very difficult to change. And what I mean with that
is changing consumers' behaviors just for the sake of
it. I think it takes that's that's a difference from when I said before, like,
how can you move fans to a platform? I think it all comes
back to, like, the why. You know, like, on on a fan's
platform, if there's actually rewards and and upside for

(46:44):
the fans to be there and it's not about changing the
consumption of the music, I think you can move them there. If it's
about changing the consumption of the music, I think
it's very, very difficult. And I think it's we are in a situation
right now where I also think that the labels don't have the power they
used to have to play against Spotify because now the

(47:06):
artist is starting on the content. The we have seen
examples from Ellucian kind of pull the whole content from
TikTok, and Taylor said, like, I don't care what you do. I wanna be there.
And suddenly, like, he had to find a deal immediately and get everyone back. So
I think the artists are in control of it today, and I think the the
label has become way, way more of asset owners and

(47:28):
banks. You know? Like, I think they have a completely different role today. So in
the dynamics of that, I'm not really sure, but I think the
power of both the artist and the fans has
increased, you know, and will keep increasing. So I think everything
comes down to that symbiotic relationship. And
however that turns out, that is what's gonna, you know, drive

(47:50):
the change. Yeah. No. I I I couldn't agree with you more. I I I
wanna ask you on that on that note, Nick. As someone who's worked with
with both tech companies and artists, what do you
feel is the most important consciousness
shift that artists need to make today in order
to build more sustainable and fan centered music careers?

(48:13):
I think, you know, like, it's I get this question a lot, you know, from
people, like, what is, you know, like, you've been on on the big platform. You
know about this industry. Like, what do you recommend? And and
establish artists, an emerging artists, whatever it is like to do.
And I and this keeps coming back to the same thing, you know, when it
comes to these. Just what's important, I think the

(48:34):
Spotify of today, I would say, like, all the distribution
company that distributes content today are mostly tech
companies. You know, like, they're it's about the innovation in the tech
space and trying to create better experience for the user. I don't think
it's about depends on who you ask. Like, if you're an athlete, you produce all
the content. So, of course, like, they make decision around the the content. But

(48:57):
Spotify, who doesn't produce it, is really about the user experience
and the technology and trying to make it easier, better, and all the
time. So I would say, like, the advantage for
artists today, and this goes back to the old days, is almost when I was
young. I'm 58, so I grew up when
when fan clubs was the way where you, you know,

(49:18):
send stuff and get it through mail. I see we are very,
very close to a similar thing. I wanna say one thing that I think
is the biggest shift we see happening right now. We we
know that there is a huge problem with screen time with kids
and and, you know, the longer lesson. I read an article in New York Times,
which I think is is really on point when it comes to what have

(49:41):
happened in the music industry. I think these kind of old fan
bases has replaced, you know, friendship and communities
today. I think they are stronger. And what I wanna say with that is that
if you look at artists that are able to sell ticket to
tours versus the artists who are not able to sell tickets
to the tours, it's, it's a very clear, you

(50:03):
know, separation between them. The artists that can sell tickets
today are the ones who have been able to create, you know,
a relationship with your fans, and the fans feels like they
belong to something. They are part of something. And when
they meet, they think about the concert tickets before they
hang out in community. They communicate it. They meet. They exchange

(50:25):
stuff. It's like a French thing, and then it's kind
of afterwards, they follow-up with that. And that has become
basically the friendship of today. If an artist hasn't
built that relationship with their fans, which you have seen on a
lot of artists failing and selling tickets. And if you really look
into it, you realize there's no relationship there. The fan

(50:47):
base itself is not a community with the values
and understand that. And I remember Chris Martin
said a good thing about, like, what do you think the reason is that you're
selling so much ticket? And he said something that's very true. And
he said, like, I think we just a good reason for people to get together.
And I couldn't agree more. I think that is a

(51:09):
super important thing that just reflects the loneliness
and the world we're living in. So the artist that can create this
community, that can put up values and
get fans to be part of it, they gotta be successful. The
people are that are not enabled to be authentic around
it, that believe that that's release. You have I I don't wanna go

(51:31):
into artist name, but you know this very clear. There's some
artists that made release a record for ten years ago when the
industry looked very different, when it was a promotional marketing
one way communication. And then they go on tour ten years
later and they kind of pick up a similar album that
they did ten years ago, and no one understands what's going

(51:54):
on, and no one buys a ticket. So communities and the
relationship with your fans, and I would say, like, the relationship
between the fans is the absolute
most important thing today to be successful as an artist. I
could not agree with you more, Nick. You know, this is something I I
I teach courses on the music business at Musicians Institute, and one

(52:16):
of the things it was so fascinating listening to you just now because one of
the things that I'm always telling my students is that in the era that we
are in today, you know, where music is free, that's
only a portion of the equation. What becomes
the, you know and and and musically speaking, we all get whatever we
want, whenever we want, however we want, on any number of devices we want, on

(52:37):
any number of platforms, wherever we are in the world, and we get it for
free. So that's the given, and I think one of the most important things you
said is that it's the unspoken.
It's who are you? What are you about? Where are you
coming from? What are your values? Why should I
care? What do you stand for? What don't you stand

(52:59):
for? Those things, and and you articulated that so well
in talking about that connection. And and I believe, to be perfectly frank
about it, a lot of this is unconscious in in the mind of the
fan, but very, very real at the same time. And
it is, you know, what binds people. And and, you know, if Chris Martin
were here right now, I would say the same thing to him that, you know,

(53:21):
who they are and what they're about and where they're coming from and what they
stand for and the values that they have matter just as much as, you
know, the latest hit song that they may or may not even have. I mean,
you look at artists like you mentioned who don't have massive
hit singles, but you cannot get a ticket to their show. You
cannot and yet people that have two, three, four hundred million streams

(53:43):
on on on a Spotify platform or an Apple, and they can't sell
50 tickets. No. You know? And and that's yeah. Yep.
No. That's totally the real yeah. That that's totally reality. Like,
there's no there's no equation that says, like, this is my
streams. This is my ticket sales. Ticket sales is
about something else, and we all know that. Like, it's about the values. It's

(54:05):
what Coldplay is as a fan. Even small things, you know, like,
they have always shared, you know, revenues equally between the
members. All these small things matters way,
way more than thing when people think. It's about, like because the
moment you kind of expand, you know, your own
personality to say, like, I love that artist, that band,

(54:28):
whatever it is, like, that's an extension of me. You become
extremely responsible for taking care of that
relationship. And if you if you do something that doesn't feel
right for the fan or something like that, they're gonna leave you. You know, like
and you also know that it's gonna probably if you do something really
bad, it could kill your career. So

(54:49):
so there's only one way not to say that is that you have to
be authentic. You have to be vulnerable. Like, you have to be
about storytelling. You have to take your friends for the good and the bad
because they see you as a friend. They see you as part of their
community, you know, and you need to deliver that. So I think it comes
down to that that artists today, we all remember, like, in

(55:12):
the old days, we always believe that Michael Jackson came to another planet because we
never saw it. You know? Like, it today, fans get invited
so close to people. Like, they are basically next to
them all the time in a way. And we have social media. We have all
these medias covering all that thing all the time. So you're gonna
be exposed if you're trying to be something you're not. But if

(55:35):
you're truly something and you you you can
communicate that, you know that fans is gonna start building around
you. And if you like you and you like your personality and what you stand
for and stuff like that and I totally believe, like I said in the beginning,
if you can get a hundred fans, you can get a thousand fans
and so on and so on. It's just about, like,

(55:56):
getting these first fans. And to your point, I mean,
I I I had conversations with artists that I think is
fascinating that, like, started from nowhere, you know, like and they
the first thing they do is that, like, they do backyard
concerts with their fans, and they have the fans to invite people and host
this concert. They make them a part of their band

(56:18):
from the beginning, which they are. And, you know, like, you can't buy
that loyalty. Like, that is something that cut through everything.
And I think it's very basic thing we're talking about here, but you can't fake
it anymore. It's it's that's why I'm saying, like, if you
really are talented, if you
believe in meritocracy, if you're in it for the marathon,

(56:40):
not the sprint, there's a fairly good chance that you're
gonna succeed in some way if you not give up
even if the competition is as it is right now. Nick, throughout
your life, have there been any books or films that
have really inspired you professionally speaking that you can share with our
audience? Oh, that's an interesting thing. I mean, like

(57:03):
I mean, I think every every people love, you
know, like, the story about the underdog.
You know, like, the one that was not cut, you know, in
the perfect way, that that conquer all these
problems and became successful. I think we've seen these movies.
And for me, I love what I think have happened. They're this is

(57:25):
gonna sound a little bit crazy and maybe a little bit on the other
side. But I also believe that a lot of these,
not maybe today, but all these talented shows that
popped up, The Idols, The X Factor, The Way, was also,
like, a really good way for people to
understand the story behind something before

(57:47):
or through that journey. So I would say without going into
book and stuff like that, I think I'm always serving, you
know, what's going around in the community, and I see someone
breaking through. And if I'm looking at a majority of
successful people when it comes to especially in the music
industry, it's really, really true stories

(58:10):
where you can understand why they wrote that songs,
why they're on that stage, what how that happens.
I think that is the context that makes
us, you know, lean in in a different way than take it
to our heart. And if that artist keeps delivering on these different
things, I think that is that is the

(58:32):
story. The problem on the opposite side is that you have too
many people in the music industry that believe it's a
it's a right to be living out of music
that complains around these different things. Just because you have been
able to produce music and upload it to a streaming platform,
it doesn't mean that you have the right to make your earning

(58:54):
from music. And I think these two things is seen
in in our community in all ways. But it's gonna shine
through if you have the talent or not. But I'm always fascinated that so
many people believe they have the talent, but I
think, obviously, a lot of people can see that they don't have it. And they're
probably never gonna succeed or they never gonna succeed versus the ones

(59:16):
that take that opportunity and whatever it is. It's not about singing
in the perfect pitch. It's not about, like, you know, like, the the techniques you're
using. It's about your expression and how you move people.
Yeah. You you know, I I have encountered that same kind of consciousness
within the business. And what's interesting is that a lot of it initially,
Nick, and and I'm I'm sure this must have been your experience as well,

(59:39):
came from people who were from the old model. They
were from the model of, you know, we didn't put out as many
records. And the ones that we did put out, we got paid for. We
made money on it. And this new model, you know, you always hear, well, the
new model and you hear this from artists today. Well, the new model I I
can't make money on on, you know, payments from Spotify or I can't make you

(01:00:01):
know, and the truth is if you look at it from an industry point
of view, just as an industry as a whole, more money is being made
on royalties in publishing and labels. The differences, and nobody speaks about this, is
that if it were going to metaphorically a thousand people in the old model,
it's now going to 500,000 people. And
that's the big difference today is that it's going to many, many

(01:00:24):
more people, and more people are being exposed to more
music, you know, building careers. It's it's not just, you
know, you got you got I mean, back in that old model, you got
signed because someone, an a and r person, an executive,
whoever deemed you were worthy of that deal. And in that model,
only, what, 10 to 15% of those people ever had any kind of

(01:00:46):
breakthrough success. That was it. And and and, you know, and the
the ABBA's and the Rolling Stones and, you know, the Sade's
and the Bon Jovi's, they supported the whole business, you know,
but we don't live in that world anymore. So it's it's interesting to hear
you speak about that consciousness. I wanna ask you something. As an
entrepreneur yourself with multiple ventures, you've shown that it's

(01:01:08):
possible to bridge various industries. And I'm curious,
what advice do you have for music artists looking to expand
beyond their influence, you know, outside of just music into areas
like technology or hospitality? Yeah. I mean, like, I think
very interesting trends is when I'm start thinking about,

(01:01:28):
like, what do people wanna do? Why are people working
from nine to five? Save up money. And I think we all
experienced during COVID that, like, it's not about being in
front of a screen. Like, it's more it's more compelling than ever
to experience things, you know, in real life. And I think this is gonna
be the reaction towards technology, and I just think that

(01:01:50):
part's gonna go stronger. The TSX and and I'm I'm involved in a
couple of other projects. When you think about an artist today and you think about
what it stands for and the brand and everything like that,
going back a little bit to your point around, like, there's
more money in the industry than ever, but it's also another thing that it
also spills over to a lot of different things.

(01:02:13):
We all know that these artists today, if it's the Rihanna,
if it's, like, Selena Gomez, Taylor, like, they
making so much money out of other things than actually their music
experience. Like, they launch products. They open things.
Like, people can't get enough of their brands in some
way because it stands for something that they feel very

(01:02:36):
fake with. So I think, you know, like, when it comes to any artist today,
I think you just need to to take, like, a 30,000 feet
view of thinking about what is your passion. I
totally believe, like, if you're an artist in your hometown, wherever you
stay, and you see that happen in Nashville a lot, Like, everyone
open their Hunkettone bars or restaurants and stuff like that because

(01:02:58):
it's just an extension of their brands, and the fans wanna
relive it through all the different verticals that exist. So I do believe that,
like, it's, I don't see any difference. You know? Like, I I we talked about
it in TSX a lot of times. You know? Like, okay. When when
we finally, you know, gather building up and running, you know, like, in a
restaurant, like, what is the biggest challenge with restaurants? Yeah. Yeah. It could be

(01:03:21):
the fact that it's brands is very difficult to be on top. It's
low margins. Like, so why don't you have a restaurant as an extension
or whatever an artist wanna do? So I think we gotta see
way way more of that moving forward where artists started to
expand, you know, like, their brand into more of
these experience driven things. And what I mean with that, you're gonna

(01:03:43):
see more artists being actors. You know? You're gonna see more artists getting
into hospitality in different ways. For me, it's obvious because
the power they have and the strength in their brand is
as long as they stand true to their values, they can expand as much as
they want. And we're gonna see that happening for sure. I wanted to ask you,
Nick, how can people reach you who wanna, you know, touch base

(01:04:07):
and contact you about what you do? What would be the best way for them
to reach out to you? Yeah. I'm mostly active on on Instagram,
and there's also a way to reach me on my web page where you
can see a lot of other things around it. And so
nickhomestand.com, or my handle on
Instagram is nick manik, m I c k m

(01:04:27):
a n I c. And I'm I mean, like, I love having
conversations. I mean, like, a lot of the things when I decided to write in
book was was really to share a lot of the experience that I
have had and try to put, you know, my beliefs and my
learnings into context to free things that have
happened. And to your point before, I just wanna address that before I

(01:04:49):
forget it, is that when we talk about the value of music
today I remember I had this conversation with Monty Lippmann at Republic,
and I said to him in the early days, you know, like, the thing about
life, when people talk about that the money in music
is less today, it couldn't be more wrong, you know, like,
because we don't know yet. We haven't, like, done that

(01:05:10):
Excel sheet where we're looking at, like, a lifetime of a
song is kind of endless today compared to the
retail world. So I gave an example. Like, if you take
Jarboy that I remember when that when that happens and we
were working with Weeknd and the management, and he was about Weeknd
was was about to break through, but was not like a superstar yet. That

(01:05:33):
was re released 2016. When I wrote this book in
February 20 I think this that chapter was in, like,
somewhere. In February 2024, it was still a
top 50 song on Spotify and has passed 4,000,000,000 streams. When
you do the equation of what Starboy is gonna
generate after thirty years, I'm gonna tell you that number is gonna

(01:05:55):
be 10 times the old industry. So when people say you're making
less money, people don't know. They haven't done their work.
It's not a six six month raise anymore. It's a thirty
year collecting revenue raise. In,
you know, fifteen years from now, we're gonna start seeing
some crazy, crazy numbers over these massive

(01:06:17):
song have generated, and they're just gonna keep generating until
they become public domain. Yeah. I absolutely agree with you. And and,
also, we don't know what's coming as far as new
and innovative kinds of outlets for music. We we we can
only imagine, like, the outlets we have now, which is, you know, streaming
and and and what have you. But, you know, I I'm I'm convinced that

(01:06:39):
there are many new innovations and technologies
for music and for the exposure of music that we haven't even thought of
yet because they haven't been invented yet. Right. Especially with AI coming too.
We're in one point o right now of AI, so imagine two point o, three
point o, how that's gonna go. Absolutely. And when we look, you know, and I'm
sure you you you see this all the time, Nick, in in in your world,

(01:07:02):
when you look at what, like Eric said, the
one point o, when you look at, like, the level of sophistication one
point o is at, one can only, you know, project and think,
my god, what is three or four point o of this,
whatever it is, chatty video, whatever it is going to look like. That that's
that's the part that's so exciting and so, you know, profound in its

(01:07:24):
in its impact. So, Nick, we wanna thank you so much
for taking the time. This has been an enlightening, informative,
wonderful conversation that we are very, very grateful for you taking the
time to speak with us on. Thank you. Thank you, Rich and Eric. It's been
a pleasure anytime. Unbelievable.
Wow, Eric. I mean, this is someone who, you know, we always

(01:07:46):
talk about this, but this is someone who has been on the front
lines of the music industry for the last several years, was
involved in the revolutionary shift from the copy model
to the access model of streaming, and who really,
really gets the the essential
cultural and psychological changes that have happened

(01:08:08):
in the world of fandom with regards to music Yeah. And its power within
the with within the industry. Again, I think probably for me, one
of the most important things that he talked about, which I think a lot of,
you know, artists need to understand today is, you know, he
mentions the decreasing gatekeeping by labels due to
fans becoming the de facto a and r with fans making the decisions and not

(01:08:30):
record labels. That is very true. You know, still people believe if I'm signed
to a major label, somehow they will give me a career. It doesn't work
that way, and one of the reasons is because power, money,
market share do not get what they used
to. We don't live in that world anymore where very very few gatekeepers
get to say who gets a career and who doesn't, and by the way, we

(01:08:53):
don't have that in movies, we don't have that in books, we don't have that
in television, we certainly don't have that in music, and that's a great
shift. It has it's the old expression of the good news for artists, there
are no more gatekeepers. Right. The bad news for artists, there's no more
gates. That's right. They've all been plowed down. So Right. What that means is
that in that scenario, the most valuable commodity in the

(01:09:14):
world is not the money or the power or the market share or the size
of your company. It's the ability to get people's attention. Why? Because
that's the one quality in all of the mediums I've talked about that you can't
buy anymore. That means we're all on the same level playing
field, whether you're Beyonce or the person that's in, you
know, Podug, Idaho, they're all the same which is it's to

(01:09:36):
me, it's super exciting. To me, that's the exciting part of what we're doing.
The challenge is is how do you get there? Yes. How can you
really how can you be the next Lil Nas X that and,
you know, again, it started that he had a great song. Let's Yeah. I I
think the big misnomer that a lot of people and everybody has to realize this
in their show is that you've got to have great songs. And I mean when

(01:09:58):
I mean great, you're competing with Beyonce and everybody. You
fill in the blank of your favorite artist, you are competing against that that
person or that group. And if that music is not at that
level, you probably shouldn't be starting out until you get that to where it's at
a really broadcast quality, great hook, great verses,
and an amazing chorus. If you're not at that point, you you might wanna hold

(01:10:20):
off on starting or get, you know, get going, but it it's really
tough in this competitive market to not have a really
incredible sounding strong, strong song. So that's, I guess,
the big big no misnomer, and that's where we get into that influx of where
there's so many artists out there that now it's like a faucet that everybody thinks
they're an artist now because we can create music in our computer, but the difference

(01:10:41):
is can you really make a great song? And that's the difference. You know, that's
the really key difference. One of the things that, really drew me in this conversation
was what we kinda talked on the top of the show. I think you may
have talked about it, and I'm bringing it up again because it's such an important
part. The personal storytelling and vulnerability as crucial for
artists to forge deeper connections with fans and allowing that
authentic fan relationship to drive drive success. I know we've talked a lot about it

(01:11:03):
on the show, Rich, where we talk about an artist like Billie Eilish Yes. Which,
you know, she launched with something like 14 singles before the
first record came out through, like, a two or three year period. Three and a
half years. Yes. But building that story, building who she
was slowly with the audience and slowly opening up
the doors to her kingdom and how that built and built and

(01:11:24):
built and built. And again, getting back to there were great song
after great song after great song, and it's something that
it's so crucial to everybody who is listening to this right now.
I I just can't stress that enough how important it is to tell your personal
story, your personal narrative, and you can easily do that now. It's just a
matter of just taking the time, maybe taking a weekend for yourself and reading

(01:11:46):
really just sitting down and writing everything about you, what you believe
in, all the different areas, and how you can craft that. And another thing that
I always tell people, especially people that we consult, is to look at
the top 10 artists that are in your wheelhouse. Look at the top
10 artists, whether they're bands or solo artists or a combination of
thereof, and start analyzing what it is that they're doing. Look at how

(01:12:08):
their story is being told, and you will find a lot of keys to the
kingdom just right there. Just in doing that one exercise, take a weekend for yourself
to just go and start studying and start following all their posts, and that's
how you're gonna formulate your own strategy and come up with your own
way of telling your story. Absolutely. I I couldn't agree with you
more, Eric, and I think, you know, the the important thing to add to what

(01:12:30):
you're saying to to our audience, to add value for them
is, you know, look at who the artists are out in the world, you know,
that you like, you know, that that are okay. And then look at the artists
that you would spend 50, a hundred dollars to go
see. Okay? Right. And and that's gonna be a very individual thing to each person
listening to this. And ask yourself to those people, what is it about that

(01:12:51):
artist that I'm willing to spend a hundred? Why do I wanna do that? I
mean, really, like, what you were saying, dive deep into that. What is it about
them? And I guarantee you, it's not just
about the songs. Right. There's something else that's saying,
I need to be at that show. I need to spend that money. Right. The
song is like you're saying, that's the important part for the bass, but the other

(01:13:14):
part of it in this era is that aspect.
That's very, very important that they both have to be
together. Hey, Insiders. Thanks so much for tuning into this episode.
We really appreciate it. To get show notes, links, and everything that was
mentioned during this interview, head on over to our official website at
mubutv/podcast/shownotes.

(01:13:37):
If you're enjoying the content and what we're doing here on the show, please subscribe
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(01:13:59):
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(01:14:22):
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Building Superfans in the Streaming Era of Spotify – Expert Advice for Musicians with Nick Holmsten

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Building Superfans in the Streaming Era of Spotify – Expert Advice for Musicians with Nick Holmsten