August 26, 2025 • 43 mins
How Does Primary Wave Turn Music Legends Into Global Brands?
Explore how Larry Mestel, CEO & Founder of Primary Wave, is transforming music publishing, legacy artist branding, and catalog acquisition in this MUBUTV Music Business Insider Podcast episode. Learn about the "secret sauce" behind revitalizing icons like Whitney Houston, Prince, and Bob Marley, and why infrastructure, brand deals, and partnership—not just acquisition—are redefining music rights today. If you’re passionate about music branding, catalog value, and artist legacy, this is an essential watch! 💡🎙️ #MusicBusiness #PrimaryWave #ArtistBranding
Our mission here at MUBUTV is to help independent artists and music business professionals of the future to educate, empower and engage their music career.
🎙️ Music Business Insider Podcast: https://www.mubutv.com/podcast
The Music Business Insider Podcast is a deep dive for listeners like you who want to educate, empower & engage their music career. We take you inside behind the scenes through a series of in-depth conversations with today’s leading experts in the Music Industry including A&R, Music Supervision, Artist Management, Marketing, Publicity, Touring, and much much more. You can find it by searching “Music Business Insider Podcast” on any podcast app or platform [ie: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, etc.].
📒 Show Notes and Resources 📒
https://www.mubutv.com/larry-mestel-primary-wave
⚡️What you'll learn in this episode⚡️
👉 How Primary Wave transforms iconic music catalogs into global brands
👉 The importance of artist partnerships and legacy preservation
👉 Inside stories behind game-changing brand and music deals
👉 and so much more...
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⚡️Insiders! Secure Your Spot! Get expert music career coaching with Ritch & Eric. Book your 15-min discovery call now: Grab a spot! 👉 https://book.mubutv.com
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Podcast Credits
Produced by: Ritch Esra & Eric Knight
Editor: Eric Knight
Shownotes & Transcriptions: Jermaine Shepherd
DISCLOSURE: Some product links are affiliate links which means if you buy something we'll receive a small commission.
Copyright © 2025 MUBUTV™ Media. All Rights Reserved
This episode of the MUBUTV Music Business Insider Podcast features Larry Mestel, CEO of Primary Wave, discussing the evolving landscape of the music business. Larry shares his insights on music publishing and how Primary Wave revitalizes iconic catalogs while working with legendary artists. Learn about balancing artistic legacy with modern music marketing in today's industry.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
On today's podcast, we sit down with Larry Mestel, founder and
CEO of Primary Wave, the company that's changing the game
in music rights, publishing and legacy artist branding.
Larry shares how Primary Wave has redefined what it means to be
a music publisher, going far beyond administration to
revitalize iconic catalogs from legends like Whitney Houston, Prince
(00:21):
and Bob Marley. We get an inside look at his secret sauce for
balancing artistic legacy with modernization, the untold stories
behind massive brand deals, and why collaboration, not just
acquisition, is at the core of their approach. If you ever wondered
how sleeping giant catalogs turn into global brands, or what
it takes to re energize a legend for new generations, this is the
(00:44):
episode you can't afford to miss. Insiders, are
you ready? Welcome to Moobu TV's Music
Business Insider podcast where 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
(01:07):
back, insiders, to another episode of the MUBUTV Music
Business Insider Podcast where our mission is to educate,
empower and engage your music career. On today's
episode, we sit down with one of the most influential figures
in the modern music business, Larry Mestel Founder and
CEO of Primary Wave. In this raw and revealing interview,
(01:29):
Larry pulls back the curtains on what makes Primary Wave such a
distinct force in music. From their groundbreaking approach to music
publishing, artist management and catalog acquisition to how they're
breathing new life into legendary artists like Whitney Houston, Prince,
Bob Marley and even Bing Crosby. We'll explore how Primary
Wave goes way beyond administration to actively marketing
(01:51):
and revitalizing iconic catalogs for new generations,
striking that all important balance beyond between preserving legacy
and pushing creative boundaries. You'll hear Larry discuss the secret
sauce behind their success, why choosing partnership over
simple acquisition is key, and the incredible stories
behind hits like the Whitney Houston and Kygo Higher Love
(02:13):
Remix and the cross generational Bing Crosby
listening boom. Plus, we dive deep into the future of music
branding, Broadway shows, immersive live experiences,
and how the global music market is opening up
unprecedented opportunities. If you if you've ever wondered what
it takes to build value in artists legacies, launch true
(02:34):
iconic collaborations, or are looking to learn from one of the
sharpest minds in the industry. You don't want to miss this
episode, so stay tuned insiders. 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
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(02:56):
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(03:17):
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(03:40):
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(04:02):
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(04:26):
hi, this is Karan Bhatnagar, head of artists and creator strategy at Hook, and you're
listening to the MUBUTV Music Business Insider Podcast.
Welcome back, Insiders. Today's featured guest is one of the
most influential figures in the modern music business, Larry
Mestel, founder and CEO of Primary Wave. As you
know, Eric, we have been wanting to have this conversation
(04:48):
for a very, very long time. Larry is one of the
most bright, most insightful and most unique
thinking people in the music business. His concepts, his
consciousness around brands, around music, around
its role in the culture. And, you know, we never were able to get him.
And when I found out that Larry was coming to
(05:11):
Expo, you know, he's not often in California, right? So when he was,
I immediately reached out and said, you know, can we do this? We'd
love to have him. And we were able to do this, you know, it. It
wasn't something. His schedule is so tight, we were never able to
carve out the time, you know, when he was in New York. So I was
really, really happy with it. You know, I mean, one of the things. And you'll
(05:31):
hear Many insider. One of the things that I thought was the most
important because, you know, a lot of these kinds of deals and
purchasing of catalogs and stuff, a lot of them are done. But one of the
most important elements that he spoke of from a business standpoint, which I thought was
absolutely crucial, was he talked about infrastructure mattering. And
what that means is that it's one thing to buy these catalogs, right, for
(05:53):
the economic value that they may or may not have. But the true economic
value, he said, comes from having an infrastructure where you can put into
place a lot of these kinds of plans and ideas and
visions, and you have to have that. It's just. It's one thing to talk
about something. It's quite another to say, okay, and here's what we're going to do
and how we're going to do it and have the team to actually be able
(06:15):
to execute that. Yeah. And one of the other areas that I loved about this
conversation, which obviously, Ritch, there was many of them, but was the whole idea
of name, image, and likeness rights. This is something that's become very
prevalent. You're noticing probably, if you follow sports like I do, a
lot of the college athletes now have the rights, which they
didn't have before, that name, image and likeness, where they can go
(06:36):
and solicit to companies and whatnot and kind of, you know, use their
name, image and likeness to. To sell their brand. And that was something that wasn't
used back then. So this is something that's become, you know, it's been part of
the art industry for a long time. I. What I loved was that these rights
are crucial for maximizing both creative and commercial possibilities
in today's music industry. And somebody like Larry and his company
(06:57):
with Primary Wave definitely needs that in order to function.
Absolutely. In other words, it's thinking 360. Correct. It's
thinking on a four full conceptual level. And with that, insiders
sit back, relax, and enjoy our Featured conversation
from Musexpo 2025 with Larry Mestel.
Larry, welcome to the show. Nice to be here. Very nice to have
(07:19):
you. We're very, very excited about this conversation. Now, Primary Wave,
in, in my view, is truly a 21st century company. You have
several divisions. You have artist management, you have music publishing,
you have film and television production. You have brand and digital marketing, which I want
to get into, but I heard you want to that you were in the
icon, legend, and hit song business. Now,
(07:41):
Primary Wave, in my view, has redefined what it means to be a music
publisher, going way beyond just Administration to actively market
and revitalize legendary catalogs in your company,
such as Whitney Houston, Prince, Bob Marley, just to name a few.
My question is, how do you strike a balance between preserving the
integrity of these legacies while modernizing them for new
(08:03):
audiences, which is something you have really been effective at doing?
Yeah, listen, that's a great question, but it's not really a balance.
Right. It's first and foremost protecting legacy. Because we're
partnering with these artists. We. We own a
partnership interest. So it's about protecting legacy long term
and building value. And the way you do that without a balance is
(08:25):
that you get the artists to agree
100% of the time. The creative
that we roll out, we don't do it without the artist's consent
or the heir's consent. All right, so you. You actively involve
them. Absolutely. Larry, thank you for joining us. It's a real
honor to have you on the show. I wanted to ask you, you've mentioned that
(08:46):
legendary catalogs tend to over index in valuation
and create their own financial gravity. Given this, how do you
evaluate a catalog's potential before making an investment? And what are
the key factors that you look at to get an idea of what
the value beyond just the music itself? Sure. Well, first
of all, for us to be interested in a
(09:09):
deal, the artist has to be legendary, or the
songs have to be iconic, or the financial
proposition has to be so good that it doesn't have to be
any one of the first two, and that's rare. So from our perspective,
in order to make a deal, we have to believe that the
music and the brand of the artist themselves
(09:32):
are under commercialized, under marketed. Undervalued,
in essence. And so if it fits that criteria of
being under commercialized, under marketed, iconic
songs, legendary artists, that's our sweet spot.
The Whitney Houston estate deal, you know, which is.
Which included not just her music royalties, but also her name,
(09:54):
image, and likeness. Why is it crucial to think beyond
music rights in today's marketplace? And this goes to the heart of what you
do. Yeah, sure. So you're asking about my secret sauce. Right. I'm telling
everybody what the secret sauce is. I'm happy to do it more your. Philosophy
of, you know, those broader rights. Look, here. Here's the
thing. And Whitney is an extreme case. Right. Because Whitney wasn't a writer.
(10:16):
Right. So you're not controlling the publishing. Correct. On the song. So Whitney.
Although in case of Whitney, we do because we own,
you know, I want to dance with somebody, how will I know? And a bunch
of other Whitney songs because we did subsequent deals with the writers, strategically
the writers. But in the case of Whitney Houston, the
best way to market songs,
(10:38):
okay, and this is where I think a lot of people may
not get it correctly. The way you market
songs is to market the brand of the artist. Right.
It's very hard to market a songwriter. It's
very hard to market a song. But if you're coupling
that marketing with marketing the brand of the artist,
(11:00):
it makes it a lot easier to create value and to create
opportunity for the artist. Not everybody
understands how to do that though. So you don't just say, oh, I'm going to
market the brand. You have to have an infrastructure to do that. We
have, you know, 70 plus people on the
creative marketing side. You know, marketing, branding, digital
(11:22):
content, all the things that you had mentioned. Yeah, you have to have that
platform to do it. You can't just say, hey, I'm gonna go
and buy these great songs or these great
catalogs and I'm gonna exploit and I'm gonna market.
Because that's not how it works. You have to have a plan, you have to
have experience, you have to have the people to do it. And then you have
(11:43):
to have the trust of the artist or the, or the
heirs to actually be able to implement it. And that's very
important. So, you know, name, image, likeness rights for us
are an important part of any deal that we do.
Interesting. Okay. And you know, and the Whitney one I did pick
specifically because it's so unique in your catalog,
(12:06):
given that there is no writer or songwriter, which is why
I selected that one. The proof is in the pudding. We
couldn't have a better relationship with the Houston family. They are
tremendous partners. Pat Houston is brilliant. She
is a great partner. And look, when they brought us
in and said, hey, we want to do a deal with you, we want to
(12:28):
partner, we said, well, great, makes sense because we only want a
partner. The entire estate of Whitney
Houston, shockingly, was only generating about five years ago
when we did our partnership, about $1.5 million a year. Wow, that's
shockingly low. Right. And so, you know,
2024, we're over 7 million a year and it's
(12:50):
all low hanging fruit. Right? So, you know, it's the brand deals we do.
It's the Mac cosmetic line, it's the scent beauty line. It's,
you know, all these things that we've done. And then, you
know, we were able to co produce a movie which
generated significant interest. It took the baseline, you know,
streams up almost 100%. And then, you know, if
(13:13):
you back up even further. What really got it all started
was one of the members of our team, Justin Shucat,
who is, you know, the. Our head creative.
He and Adam Lomberg and I, our head of marketing, were sitting in a room
with Pat Houston in the and the family, and we said, look, play us
(13:34):
some of the vault. You know, what's in the vault, what's unreleased.
And Pat played us a 1990
version of Whitney Houston. Unreleased, right? Singing,
you know, the old Steve Wynwood. Hit Higher Love, Higher Love, which never,
ever came out. And we got, you know, one of the members of our marketing
team got Kygo to remix it. I think it
(13:57):
was like, two days. He was such a fan. He remixed it quickly. We brought
it over to RCA and we said, listen, this is a hit record. Get it
on the radio. And they said, you know what? This is a hit record. Normally
we'd put it up, you know, on DSPs and see how it works. This is
such a hit, we're going to radio. And so, you know, that. That
really re. Stimulated interest in a new youth culture
(14:18):
about Whitney and, you know, her being a voice of a generation.
Today, it's her second biggest streaming song of all time, over a
billion streams. And that was primary way of going into the vault,
digging in and saying, look, this is a hit record. Let's go remix it.
Let's put it out. Let's work with our, you know, friends at RCA and
make it a hit. And, you know, it was a hit, I think it was
(14:39):
eight different countries around the world. And, you know, that led to us
rebranding Whitney. You don't just go out and do brand deals.
You. You have to polish up an image and you have to rebrand, and
you start with music. You know, you got a musician, right? You got a singer.
Let's start with music. And so we did. And today, Whitney is in a
completely different space. And you're just
(15:02):
scratching the surface. And you're just scratching the surface. We're just scratching. We have so
much going on. We're about to announce a
really great Broadway producer coming on. We're going to be doing
the Whitney Houston Broadway show. I mean, there's just so much we have going on.
You know, the thing that really gets me excited is when things are
organic, right? When you do brands and brand alliances
(15:24):
that are organic. Our brand team, who is run by
a guy named Jeff Straughan, who is just fantastic.
He's tremendous. He brought in a deal with
a company that is in the gaming business. We thought we were
going to ship in 2024, 200 slot
machines. And the reason I'm so excited is when we, you know, when
(15:46):
Whitney would perform at a casino, she'd go and play slot machines. She
really enjoyed doing it. So, you know, we. Jeff did this. This brand
deal with a slot machine with gaming company. We
shipped over 500 units of the slot
machine. In 2024, we were projecting to ship 200,
and I think we're going to ship another 500 over
(16:08):
the next 12 months. We're going to be we and the estate. And
again, this is, you know, it all goes back to the partnership. The
partnership, a primary wave in the estate, will be making more
money on an annual basis on just the slot machines
than the entire estate was earning five years
ago. Wow. And again, that's what you can do when you
(16:32):
focus, when you have a team, when you have a plan
and, you know, when you have great partners in the
artists or the. Or the. The people that are
overseeing the artist legacy, like, you know, really great estates. Yes.
And. And it's not always the case. Yeah. And I was just going to say
we've talked about it several times on the show. I would assume you guys are
(16:53):
involved with the tour and the hologram and all that stuff. That's. Well, that
was the. The hologram tour that happened
three years ago was a deal that was done
before we started with the estate. Okay,
Right. And so, you know, unfortunately, it got
derailed by Covid. It was starting off, you know, very well in
(17:16):
the uk. It was the first stop on a worldwide tour,
and it got derailed by Covid. But the
technology now is so much greater
than what it was even five years ago. We have
much bigger things that we're going to be rolling out that's much
more immersive, experiential. That will showcase
(17:38):
Whitney in an absolutely tremendous way. So
you'll be hearing about that down the road. That's very exciting. Yeah. I'm
excited to hear about some of these new technologies
and things like that you're talking about. I mean, I've heard from people
who have said they're doing a show like that for Amy
Winehouse, so that. That should be very interesting as well. But, yeah,
(18:01):
so I'm glad to hear that you're going to be incorporating that. Very competitive.
So. Yeah. So, you know, Amy Winehouse is not one of our artists. Oh,
okay. I hope they're successful. But I'm working on Bob Marley and Prince
and everything else in our. How one in Our portfolio. So there are
competition. Okay. All right. You know, Larry, you've
said that buying rights wholesale is a mistake and that
(18:24):
Primary wave prefers to buy a percentage of a catalog to work
collaboratively with the artist or estate. What's behind this
philosophy? Well, it goes to what I had said before,
which is we are only going to buy the best
of the best. We're going to buy iconic, we're going to buy legendary.
And when you buy a portfolio, you know,
(18:47):
not a primary way, but if you buy a portfolio of almost everything out
there, maybe you get one act or two acts that would
fit our criteria for wanting to buy. But then you get 20 other
acts, artists that are, you know, that are not
what I would call aaa, you know, premium
artists and brands. So, you know, you get, you buy two and
(19:10):
you're stuck with, you know, 30. That's not a way
to generate value and generate
returns and make artists in general happy. So we
do it the old fashioned way. We do it one by one,
almost always. Because when we're buying, we're making a
commitment to the artist and
(19:33):
the management team of that artist. Right. We're the
heirs to be a great partner to
deliver, to generate opportunities.
If I buy a portfolio, then
how do I keep the 28 artists that we're
(19:53):
buying that aren't in our pocket? How do I keep them
happy? They'll be unhappy and then we'll be just like every other music company
out there where just as soon as an artist does a deal,
they want off the label or off the publisher. Right.
Our artists have never receive the type of
attention before that they've. That we give
(20:16):
them at any other company. And that's why
our artists are our best references. You've got to deliver.
And so it's hard to do that if you buy a whole
portfolio. Interesting. Okay. By the way, it's easy for companies that
are a buy and hold strategy. Right. Meaning a buy and hold,
as in they hope that you or somebody else does something,
(20:39):
you know, that's. I'm not saying that's a bad fellow, you know, a bad vision
or a bad strategy. It's not our strategy. Right, but
let me ask you then, based on what you just said, are you also
against buying a artist that you are
genuinely interested in that fits your criteria?
100%? Well, we have. I'll give you an example. Oh, okay.
(21:00):
Yeah, but I'll give you an example. Yeah. It's our preference
to partner. Right. That's. So, you know, we own 50% of the
Prince estate. 50% of Bob Marley's publishing,
50% of Whitney Houston's. But look, in the case
of Olivia Newton John, where, you know, we went to see Olivia, and
Olivia said, look, I unfortunately have
(21:23):
this terminal illness, right, And I don't
want my family to be burdened by
having to manage music assets. It's either going to be
100% or I'm not going to do a deal with you. Got
it? And we absolutely loved Olivia,
Loved her music, loved her brand, loved what she stood for.
(21:46):
And so we said, you know what, we will. But we still involve
her lawyer, her manager, her husband in
all of the deals that we do and all the creative. So, you know, it's.
It really, to be successful in this business, long term, you have to
involve the artist. Hey, insiders, we hope that you've been
enjoying our featured conversation. Stay tuned because we've got so much
(22:09):
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 want to go, where you want
to be. And, you know, we've talked about it on the show a lot, is
(22:29):
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. 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 have necessarily any direction to go
would be the first things that I would start off with. And having the songs
(22:51):
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. 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 always said it always starts with a great
(23:12):
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 you a strong lyric writer? Are you a strong
(23:33):
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, Ritch. 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
and connecting with us on a coaching call, you can visit
(23:55):
book.mubutv.com and start off with a free
15 minute discovery call. Well, yeah, absolutely. That. We start with an
initial 15 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 everything
to your needs. It's not like a cookie cutter thing. We kind of really want
(24:17):
to 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 15 minute
discovery call. Hi, this is Jeremy Yohai, senior vice president of
A&R at Concord Music Publishing. Are you an insider? I am.
(24:39):
Subscribe now. You have stated in the past that Primary Wave is focused
on catalogs that have been undervalued or left to the wayside.
I think was the, the quote that I, I remember reading. What makes them so
appealing when they've been neglected over the years. And is this your,
your, your A&R philosophy that makes them work right
in that. Or look, that's buried treasure. Okay, all right. That's,
(25:01):
that's what, yeah, that's what I want you to know. You know, this silver silverware
in your grandmother's, you know, you know, kitchen that just needs
to be polished and look new again, right? So you take
a Bing Crosby or a Count Basie or Glenn
Gould or you know, someone, you may say, oh, why does anybody want to be
in business with Bing Crosby? He would have been 120 years old this year. Right.
(25:24):
Well, the reason we want to be in business with Bing Crosby because he
had tremendous music, Right. Just take a look at White Christmas.
He had, you know, catalog of hundreds and hundreds of
songs. You know, you go in and you
polish it up a little bit. So, you know, the family lets us do a
deal with Adidas. We did a deal with, you know, the AT&T Clambake
(25:46):
Classic Golf. We connected this past Christmas. Think
about this. We connected 120 year old Bing
Crosby with V from BTS.
V, we found out, was a major Bing Crosby
fan. Right. Who would have thought one of the biggest K pop bands in the
world, one of the members would have been a Bing Crosby fan. He grew up
(26:07):
singing to Bing Crosby with his family. Right. So
we, we connected the dots. We took
Bing's voice and V's voice and came out with
a new version of White Christmas. And I think it streamed, you
know, we, we got it out late in the year, unfortunately, but I think it
streams over 60 million times and it'll be a
(26:28):
perennial. Yeah. You know, every Christmas. Perennial Christmas song.
Yeah. Right. What does that do? It takes Bing Crosby's
earnings up tremendously. I think, I think the month of
Christmas, the month of December and January. Bing
crosby popped from three and a half million monthly listeners
to over 30 million monthly listeners. Wow. So, you know, that's,
(26:51):
that's the effect you can have on, on an artist that
has maybe been a little bit forgotten. That's gotta be
exciting. Those are the ones that really excite us. Yeah,
very much so. You know, Larry, marketing and brand building
are crucial elements of maximizing catalog value.
Can you elaborate on how Primary Wave goes beyond traditional methods
(27:14):
to create new revenue streams and what's been one of your most
successful brand collaborations? Yeah, well, we talked
about, you know, the Whitney Houston slot machines. We talked about,
you know, the Mac cosmetic lines. We created this incredible
beer for the band Sticks. You know, think about it. Their
biggest song is Renegade. Right, Right. So when we met with,
(27:36):
you know, Tommy Shaw, you know, Tommy was,
hey, we want a beverage. Okay. So we set out to create a
beverage and we came up with. Why don't we call the beer Renegade?
We'll do a beer, call it Renegade. We found out this microbrewery
in Maine had a beer called Renegade. They wouldn't sell us
the, the mark. Right. They wouldn't sell us the name. So
(27:59):
we said, all right, you know what, let's go back to the drawing board. We're
going to call it Omama. Right. Start of Renegade.
We also realized that in, in Pennsylvania, the, the,
you know, the Pittsburgh Steelers theme song is
Renegade. Right. So what better place to start selling beer than in
Pennsylvania? And, you know, my brand team tells me
(28:22):
that five years from now, we're going to be looking back. I think we shipped
26,000 cases of the beer last year. Wow. They
tell me we're going to make more Money. And the band is going to make
more money on beer than music. So we'll see whether that's the case.
We have so many brand deals
and opportunities. We've done, you know, we created a, we created with
(28:43):
Mattel a Stevie Nicks Barbie doll.
You know, we have, we have more opportunities like, like that. With
Mattel coming. We, you know, we created
an Airbnb campaign for Princess just
on, on and on. Our brand
team really is killing it. Have you ever come, you don't have to name
(29:05):
names, but have you ever come across situations where your ideas
or your team's ideas are just met with
resistance from the estates? Well, you know,
we get to know these artists very well. We get to know the heirs very
well because they are our partners. And so we
involve them early in the process. And look, we'll come up
(29:26):
with ideas that will run by an artist and they'll
say, you know what, it's very creative, but I don't think I
want to do that. And so we'll say, you know, what
next? Right. So we don't
ever get dissuaded. Right. We are constantly
coming up with ideas, but more importantly, we're,
(29:49):
we're creating a roadmap even before
we, you know, we finish a deal of what the
artist wants us to focus on. So, you know,
typically we're not getting turned down because we have an
idea of the direction that these artists want to go in. You know, look,
part of, part of what we've really been focusing on
(30:11):
the last few years in addition to the branding, in addition to the digital, in
addition to, of the marketing, is we're creating our own
Broadway shows. Natalia Nestaskin, our head of
content, she's been working on, she must have 15 Broadway shows.
Wow. In development, we probably have, I don't know,
20 plus movies, you know, biographical films,
(30:33):
documentaries. And then we have a relationship, a deal
with Kathy Schulman, who's one of our partners. She's
really a superstar producer, you know,
won an Oscar for Crash. She's doing a
Boy George movie for us. She's doing, you know, probably another
eight or nine movies, music based movies on our
(30:55):
catalog. So we, we've got a lot in development. And then,
you know, you talk about the content creation side, like
immersive, immersive experiences, Avatars. Right. You know,
shows. We are launching our Bob Marley host road show,
which I am really excited about it with Mandalay Bay, at
Mandalay Bay, with MGM and a company called Five
(31:17):
Currents, who have done, I think the last 15 Olympic Games
very big production. It's. It's a type of show that Vegas has never
seen before. We're opening it end of June, beginning of July this
year. Wow. So very excited about that. You know,
that's. Look, that's. That's the wave of the future for us. You
know, live shows, live immersive experiences. You know,
(31:39):
not touring, although we are doing it with the Whitney Houston
Symphony tour, which is. Which, you know, the first couple of
shows were just absolutely fantastic. We'll do
more of those. But, you know, the content creation,
making these, you know, call it Cirque like shows.
Right. Is now in our wheelhouse with Bob Marley and a few other big ones.
(32:02):
I can't. I can't divulge right now, but how exciting. Yeah. What a great way
to be positioned for all of these projects. It's amazing. Yeah.
Are there a lot of. You know, I know you can't talk about them,
but are there a lot of people you see on the landscape, artists,
different kinds of potential partners that you'd like to be
involved with that you know, are available? We
(32:25):
are voracious. Yeah, okay. Acquirers of music.
Yeah. We want to be in business with every important
artist we can. Yeah. Okay. Because we. Because we really
believe that all of these artists
have been underserved, they've been under focused,
(32:45):
they've been under marketed. And when I say that, I'm not saying
anybody's doing anything wrong. I'm saying that there is
so much more opportunity than the normal record company
or the normal publisher or any of these banks and private
equity people that are looking to buy these things and flip them. Right.
There's so much more that these artists can be doing, and
(33:08):
many of them don't know it because they've been lulled into a
sense of malaise over the last
30 years or 40 years. That's our job is
to reinvigorate an artist's excitement
around their own brand and their own music. And that's. That's what
we do. I mean, look, we. You know, we just.
(33:30):
Unfortunately, I can't tell you some of our recent acquisitions because we haven't announced them
yet. Right. But there are a lot of
artists that. That are out there that, you know, will
at some point want a partnership to kind of
reinvigorate, reintroduce to a new youth culture. One thing I do want to talk
about, which we haven't discussed yet, that you have announced, is
(33:52):
your belief, and it's my belief, too, that the world of music
rights and publishing and so forth is really expanding on an international
basis. You recently did a deal in India
and I'm wondering if you can talk about the, I guess your
views on where music writes or where the growth
of international music markets is going based on your own experience. And I,
(34:16):
I don't think you would have made those deals if you didn't see that happening.
Well, look, you know, as an American, we tend to be very
myopic. Right, right. We tend to be very myopic. And think of the
world in terms of America. Well, America is a small part of the world. And
the good news for me is I work for a guy named Chris Blackwell at
Island Records and he really opened my eyes that the world is much
(34:36):
bigger than America. That's right, yes. You know, more than 60% of the
music business in terms of sales or outside America. Right,
right. So if you look at where we've done deals, I'm not going to
tell you countries that we're closing deals. No.
Right now. But I will tell you. We have a joint venture with a company
called Times Music, right. In India. We have a
(34:58):
company in Brazil called Nas Newvens which is, you know, we
look at Times and Nas Newvens in Brazil as many primary waves
in their market. Okay, so just take India for instance.
There's 1.5 billion people in India
right now. Granted, only half really are
an emerging middle class who can afford to pay for a
(35:21):
subscription to music or Netflix or
entertainment. But you take 750 million people,
that's more people than the entire English speaking part
of the planet. Uk, Australia, Canada, America, et cetera.
Right. That's, that's more people than in the English speaking world.
So the opportunity for growth in India
(35:44):
is enormous. I think last year the Indian market grew, you know,
35%. The streaming market. The market is
going from an advertising based model to a subscription
model. Why wouldn't we be in that market?
Because there's hyper growth and sure, it may level
off, but there's going to be growth for a very, very
(36:06):
long time. I think the Indian market is similar to where the US market was
in streaming eight years ago. There's a lot of growth in those markets. So we're
there, we're in Brazil, and we are going to be
in quite a few other emerging markets as well.
Larry, what advice would you give to someone who's
interested in pursuing a career in your field?
(36:27):
Well, a career, I think on the
marketing side, on the creative side, you know,
I think that there should be, you know, significant
opportunity as the market expands.
The Market is without a doubt getting crowded.
Right. Because of all of the money coming in from private
(36:50):
equity. That doesn't mean just because you raise money, you're able
to spend the money wisely. Oh, yeah, definitely. You know, there
are people that have money and that are looking to make
deals. So I think to the extent that they make deals, there'll be more
and more opportunity. I don't see a lot of people, though, taking
the initiative to create infrastructure creatively. As I said, a
(37:13):
lot of these people are buying whole strategies. But I really do think that
there is an opportunity for a young kid that
wants to get into the business and wants to learn, you know,
marketing, branding, especially digital. If I was,
you know, back in college, I would be doing all I could
to read up on AI and how does AI
(37:36):
affect intellectual property, you know, music
and other forms of creative expression. I would be focusing
almost entirely on AI because most
people my age don't really understand
the impact of AI or what can be done with AI. So
I think there's going to be a lot of opportunity for somebody who's
(37:58):
looking at the technology end of music. Wonderful. What
are the best ways to get a hold of you, Larry, if somebody wanted to
reach out to you or get in touch with you? Is it through the website?
Is it through the socials? I almost
never. I can't remember the last time I responded to the somebody on social media.
I mean, I'm really on social media mainly to see what my artists are doing
(38:19):
and saying. Right. And to follow my kids to make sure that, you
know, right. They're on the right path. Okay. You know, I.
My email address is on our website. Okay. And that's probably
the best way to. To get a hold of me. Larry, we want to thank
you so much. We are so grateful to you that we had the opportunity to
do this. I mean, we really, really appreciate it. It's a pleasure spending time with
(38:40):
you guys. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. My pleasure.
Wow. Eric, all I can say is this
did not disappoint at all. Absolutely. I am
so glad that we had a chance to talk with Larry. I mean, the conversation
was as fascinating and insightful as
I had hoped beyond. And I'm glad that we got him actually
(39:03):
in person as opposed to regular phone call or anything that he was there
present with us so you can get the full quality of this, guys. Because
this was, you know, just nothing but gold. Yeah,
absolutely. And it was a real, I
think, you know, master class in
how one must think in full
(39:24):
360 degrees of, you know, three
dimensional thinking of music, culture,
brands and songs. Like how all of those elements
from. A 50,000 foot view all the way down to the ground
level. That's right. And all of the elements that are involved with that.
One of the things that I thought was most fascinating about this because
(39:47):
it's, it's one that you don't normally think and it, it
revealed something about his consciousness and the way he looks at
business is how he talked about buying a percentage
of something with these deals rather than just buying the whole
catalog outright. Right. And you know, the way he explained it, he says, we're only
going to buy the best of the best. And when you buy a portfolio, maybe
(40:08):
you get one or two acts that would fit, you know, our criteria for wanting
to buy. That's not a way to generate value and generate
returns and artist in general, happy. So, you
know, he's really seeing it for what it is. And also by
doing that, you end up in a partnership with the artist, which makes it
much, much more significant and I think shed something
(40:30):
of a light on the way he thinks and the way that you successfully
do business in all of these arenas. Yeah. And one of the other areas
which, I mean, my God, we could be here for the next three hours talking
about all the areas of this conversation, but one of the ones that kind of
struck me was on brand building beyond traditional methods. And I think this is where
the brilliance, Larry and his team, which he spoke very highly of, which has
(40:51):
put together, you know, basically these incredible deals, was he talked
about, and I quote, we created this incredible beer for the band Styx. We'll
do a beer, call it Renegade, which is one of their famous songs. Yeah. For
those of you that don't know, we found out that this microbrewery in Maine had
a beer called Renegade. So we said, okay, let's go back to the drawing board.
We're going to call it oh Mama. And the Pittsburgh Steelers theme song is
(41:11):
Renegade. So they shipped 26,000 cases of beer, I guess,
last year. And we're going to make more money and the band is going to
make more money on the beer than the music. So again, it was coming back
from an original idea that didn't end up working out because I guess of the
name rights and they kind of rethunk their whole idea and
they created this beer and they shipped a bunch of beers to this team
(41:32):
which is already playing their music during their halftimes or during parts of
their of the game. Again, it's just when you think about it, it would seem
like something that would be obvious on, on the outside looking in, but no.
And then when you think about what it takes to come up with those concepts
and ideas. And to me, that's the brilliance of what Larry does. Yeah,
I agree 100% on that. And you know, he spoke
(41:54):
about so many things, but this is why you have to listen to it. But
mostly he spoke about the fact that it's not just
one thing. It's not just the artist, it's not
just the songs, it's not just marketing the
songwriter. It's the whole thing. When you put something together, it's
the brand. The brand meaning everything combined,
(42:16):
creating something and finding those right kinds of partnerships
to sustain the brand and build upon it. And he wants to do that for
underserved catalogs. And so far he's doing an absolutely
magnificent job with all of the examples that he gave us.
Hey insiders, thanks so much for tuning into this episode. We really
appreciate it. To get show notes, links and everything that was mentioned
(42:38):
during this interview, head on over to our Official
website at
mubutv.com/podcast/shownotes If you're enjoying the content and what
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(42:59):
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spelled M U B U T V. Don't forget to catch our flagship
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(43:21):
airing every week on YouTube at YouTube.com/mubutv
this show was produced and created by Ritch Esra and
Eric Knight, theme music by Disciples of Babylon. And be sure
to tune in next week for another episode of the MUBUTV Music
Business Insider Podcast.
On today's podcast, we sit down with Larry Mestel, founder and
CEO of Primary Wave, the company that's changing the game
in music rights, publishing and legacy artist branding.
Larry shares how Primary Wave has redefined what it means to be
a music publisher, going far beyond administration to
revitalize iconic catalogs from legends like Whitney Houston, Prince
(00:21):
and Bob Marley. We get an inside look at his secret sauce for
balancing artistic legacy with modernization, the untold stories
behind massive brand deals, and why collaboration, not just
acquisition, is at the core of their approach. If you ever wondered
how sleeping giant catalogs turn into global brands, or what
it takes to re energize a legend for new generations, this is the
(00:44):
episode you can't afford to miss. Insiders, are
you ready? Welcome to Moobu TV's Music
Business Insider podcast where 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
(01:07):
back, insiders, to another episode of the MUBUTV Music
Business Insider Podcast where our mission is to educate,
empower and engage your music career. On today's
episode, we sit down with one of the most influential figures
in the modern music business, Larry Mestel Founder and
CEO of Primary Wave. In this raw and revealing interview,
(01:29):
Larry pulls back the curtains on what makes Primary Wave such a
distinct force in music. From their groundbreaking approach to music
publishing, artist management and catalog acquisition to how they're
breathing new life into legendary artists like Whitney Houston, Prince,
Bob Marley and even Bing Crosby. We'll explore how Primary
Wave goes way beyond administration to actively marketing
(01:51):
and revitalizing iconic catalogs for new generations,
striking that all important balance beyond between preserving legacy
and pushing creative boundaries. You'll hear Larry discuss the secret
sauce behind their success, why choosing partnership over
simple acquisition is key, and the incredible stories
behind hits like the Whitney Houston and Kygo Higher Love
(02:13):
Remix and the cross generational Bing Crosby
listening boom. Plus, we dive deep into the future of music
branding, Broadway shows, immersive live experiences,
and how the global music market is opening up
unprecedented opportunities. If you if you've ever wondered what
it takes to build value in artists legacies, launch true
(02:34):
iconic collaborations, or are looking to learn from one of the
sharpest minds in the industry. You don't want to miss this
episode, so stay tuned insiders. But first, a word
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That's book.mubutv.com
(04:26):
hi, this is Karan Bhatnagar, head of artists and creator strategy at Hook, and you're
listening to the MUBUTV Music Business Insider Podcast.
Welcome back, Insiders. Today's featured guest is one of the
most influential figures in the modern music business, Larry
Mestel, founder and CEO of Primary Wave. As you
know, Eric, we have been wanting to have this conversation
(04:48):
for a very, very long time. Larry is one of the
most bright, most insightful and most unique
thinking people in the music business. His concepts, his
consciousness around brands, around music, around
its role in the culture. And, you know, we never were able to get him.
And when I found out that Larry was coming to
(05:11):
Expo, you know, he's not often in California, right? So when he was,
I immediately reached out and said, you know, can we do this? We'd
love to have him. And we were able to do this, you know, it. It
wasn't something. His schedule is so tight, we were never able to
carve out the time, you know, when he was in New York. So I was
really, really happy with it. You know, I mean, one of the things. And you'll
(05:31):
hear Many insider. One of the things that I thought was the most
important because, you know, a lot of these kinds of deals and
purchasing of catalogs and stuff, a lot of them are done. But one of the
most important elements that he spoke of from a business standpoint, which I thought was
absolutely crucial, was he talked about infrastructure mattering. And
what that means is that it's one thing to buy these catalogs, right, for
(05:53):
the economic value that they may or may not have. But the true economic
value, he said, comes from having an infrastructure where you can put into
place a lot of these kinds of plans and ideas and
visions, and you have to have that. It's just. It's one thing to talk
about something. It's quite another to say, okay, and here's what we're going to do
and how we're going to do it and have the team to actually be able
(06:15):
to execute that. Yeah. And one of the other areas that I loved about this
conversation, which obviously, Ritch, there was many of them, but was the whole idea
of name, image, and likeness rights. This is something that's become very
prevalent. You're noticing probably, if you follow sports like I do, a
lot of the college athletes now have the rights, which they
didn't have before, that name, image and likeness, where they can go
(06:36):
and solicit to companies and whatnot and kind of, you know, use their
name, image and likeness to. To sell their brand. And that was something that wasn't
used back then. So this is something that's become, you know, it's been part of
the art industry for a long time. I. What I loved was that these rights
are crucial for maximizing both creative and commercial possibilities
in today's music industry. And somebody like Larry and his company
(06:57):
with Primary Wave definitely needs that in order to function.
Absolutely. In other words, it's thinking 360. Correct. It's
thinking on a four full conceptual level. And with that, insiders
sit back, relax, and enjoy our Featured conversation
from Musexpo 2025 with Larry Mestel.
Larry, welcome to the show. Nice to be here. Very nice to have
(07:19):
you. We're very, very excited about this conversation. Now, Primary Wave,
in, in my view, is truly a 21st century company. You have
several divisions. You have artist management, you have music publishing,
you have film and television production. You have brand and digital marketing, which I want
to get into, but I heard you want to that you were in the
icon, legend, and hit song business. Now,
(07:41):
Primary Wave, in my view, has redefined what it means to be a music
publisher, going way beyond just Administration to actively market
and revitalize legendary catalogs in your company,
such as Whitney Houston, Prince, Bob Marley, just to name a few.
My question is, how do you strike a balance between preserving the
integrity of these legacies while modernizing them for new
(08:03):
audiences, which is something you have really been effective at doing?
Yeah, listen, that's a great question, but it's not really a balance.
Right. It's first and foremost protecting legacy. Because we're
partnering with these artists. We. We own a
partnership interest. So it's about protecting legacy long term
and building value. And the way you do that without a balance is
(08:25):
that you get the artists to agree
100% of the time. The creative
that we roll out, we don't do it without the artist's consent
or the heir's consent. All right, so you. You actively involve
them. Absolutely. Larry, thank you for joining us. It's a real
honor to have you on the show. I wanted to ask you, you've mentioned that
(08:46):
legendary catalogs tend to over index in valuation
and create their own financial gravity. Given this, how do you
evaluate a catalog's potential before making an investment? And what are
the key factors that you look at to get an idea of what
the value beyond just the music itself? Sure. Well, first
of all, for us to be interested in a
(09:09):
deal, the artist has to be legendary, or the
songs have to be iconic, or the financial
proposition has to be so good that it doesn't have to be
any one of the first two, and that's rare. So from our perspective,
in order to make a deal, we have to believe that the
music and the brand of the artist themselves
(09:32):
are under commercialized, under marketed. Undervalued,
in essence. And so if it fits that criteria of
being under commercialized, under marketed, iconic
songs, legendary artists, that's our sweet spot.
The Whitney Houston estate deal, you know, which is.
Which included not just her music royalties, but also her name,
(09:54):
image, and likeness. Why is it crucial to think beyond
music rights in today's marketplace? And this goes to the heart of what you
do. Yeah, sure. So you're asking about my secret sauce. Right. I'm telling
everybody what the secret sauce is. I'm happy to do it more your. Philosophy
of, you know, those broader rights. Look, here. Here's the
thing. And Whitney is an extreme case. Right. Because Whitney wasn't a writer.
(10:16):
Right. So you're not controlling the publishing. Correct. On the song. So Whitney.
Although in case of Whitney, we do because we own,
you know, I want to dance with somebody, how will I know? And a bunch
of other Whitney songs because we did subsequent deals with the writers, strategically
the writers. But in the case of Whitney Houston, the
best way to market songs,
(10:38):
okay, and this is where I think a lot of people may
not get it correctly. The way you market
songs is to market the brand of the artist. Right.
It's very hard to market a songwriter. It's
very hard to market a song. But if you're coupling
that marketing with marketing the brand of the artist,
(11:00):
it makes it a lot easier to create value and to create
opportunity for the artist. Not everybody
understands how to do that though. So you don't just say, oh, I'm going to
market the brand. You have to have an infrastructure to do that. We
have, you know, 70 plus people on the
creative marketing side. You know, marketing, branding, digital
(11:22):
content, all the things that you had mentioned. Yeah, you have to have that
platform to do it. You can't just say, hey, I'm gonna go
and buy these great songs or these great
catalogs and I'm gonna exploit and I'm gonna market.
Because that's not how it works. You have to have a plan, you have to
have experience, you have to have the people to do it. And then you have
(11:43):
to have the trust of the artist or the, or the
heirs to actually be able to implement it. And that's very
important. So, you know, name, image, likeness rights for us
are an important part of any deal that we do.
Interesting. Okay. And you know, and the Whitney one I did pick
specifically because it's so unique in your catalog,
(12:06):
given that there is no writer or songwriter, which is why
I selected that one. The proof is in the pudding. We
couldn't have a better relationship with the Houston family. They are
tremendous partners. Pat Houston is brilliant. She
is a great partner. And look, when they brought us
in and said, hey, we want to do a deal with you, we want to
(12:28):
partner, we said, well, great, makes sense because we only want a
partner. The entire estate of Whitney
Houston, shockingly, was only generating about five years ago
when we did our partnership, about $1.5 million a year. Wow, that's
shockingly low. Right. And so, you know,
2024, we're over 7 million a year and it's
(12:50):
all low hanging fruit. Right? So, you know, it's the brand deals we do.
It's the Mac cosmetic line, it's the scent beauty line. It's,
you know, all these things that we've done. And then, you
know, we were able to co produce a movie which
generated significant interest. It took the baseline, you know,
streams up almost 100%. And then, you know, if
(13:13):
you back up even further. What really got it all started
was one of the members of our team, Justin Shucat,
who is, you know, the. Our head creative.
He and Adam Lomberg and I, our head of marketing, were sitting in a room
with Pat Houston in the and the family, and we said, look, play us
(13:34):
some of the vault. You know, what's in the vault, what's unreleased.
And Pat played us a 1990
version of Whitney Houston. Unreleased, right? Singing,
you know, the old Steve Wynwood. Hit Higher Love, Higher Love, which never,
ever came out. And we got, you know, one of the members of our marketing
team got Kygo to remix it. I think it
(13:57):
was like, two days. He was such a fan. He remixed it quickly. We brought
it over to RCA and we said, listen, this is a hit record. Get it
on the radio. And they said, you know what? This is a hit record. Normally
we'd put it up, you know, on DSPs and see how it works. This is
such a hit, we're going to radio. And so, you know, that. That
really re. Stimulated interest in a new youth culture
(14:18):
about Whitney and, you know, her being a voice of a generation.
Today, it's her second biggest streaming song of all time, over a
billion streams. And that was primary way of going into the vault,
digging in and saying, look, this is a hit record. Let's go remix it.
Let's put it out. Let's work with our, you know, friends at RCA and
make it a hit. And, you know, it was a hit, I think it was
(14:39):
eight different countries around the world. And, you know, that led to us
rebranding Whitney. You don't just go out and do brand deals.
You. You have to polish up an image and you have to rebrand, and
you start with music. You know, you got a musician, right? You got a singer.
Let's start with music. And so we did. And today, Whitney is in a
completely different space. And you're just
(15:02):
scratching the surface. And you're just scratching the surface. We're just scratching. We have so
much going on. We're about to announce a
really great Broadway producer coming on. We're going to be doing
the Whitney Houston Broadway show. I mean, there's just so much we have going on.
You know, the thing that really gets me excited is when things are
organic, right? When you do brands and brand alliances
(15:24):
that are organic. Our brand team, who is run by
a guy named Jeff Straughan, who is just fantastic.
He's tremendous. He brought in a deal with
a company that is in the gaming business. We thought we were
going to ship in 2024, 200 slot
machines. And the reason I'm so excited is when we, you know, when
(15:46):
Whitney would perform at a casino, she'd go and play slot machines. She
really enjoyed doing it. So, you know, we. Jeff did this. This brand
deal with a slot machine with gaming company. We
shipped over 500 units of the slot
machine. In 2024, we were projecting to ship 200,
and I think we're going to ship another 500 over
(16:08):
the next 12 months. We're going to be we and the estate. And
again, this is, you know, it all goes back to the partnership. The
partnership, a primary wave in the estate, will be making more
money on an annual basis on just the slot machines
than the entire estate was earning five years
ago. Wow. And again, that's what you can do when you
(16:32):
focus, when you have a team, when you have a plan
and, you know, when you have great partners in the
artists or the. Or the. The people that are
overseeing the artist legacy, like, you know, really great estates. Yes.
And. And it's not always the case. Yeah. And I was just going to say
we've talked about it several times on the show. I would assume you guys are
(16:53):
involved with the tour and the hologram and all that stuff. That's. Well, that
was the. The hologram tour that happened
three years ago was a deal that was done
before we started with the estate. Okay,
Right. And so, you know, unfortunately, it got
derailed by Covid. It was starting off, you know, very well in
(17:16):
the uk. It was the first stop on a worldwide tour,
and it got derailed by Covid. But the
technology now is so much greater
than what it was even five years ago. We have
much bigger things that we're going to be rolling out that's much
more immersive, experiential. That will showcase
(17:38):
Whitney in an absolutely tremendous way. So
you'll be hearing about that down the road. That's very exciting. Yeah. I'm
excited to hear about some of these new technologies
and things like that you're talking about. I mean, I've heard from people
who have said they're doing a show like that for Amy
Winehouse, so that. That should be very interesting as well. But, yeah,
(18:01):
so I'm glad to hear that you're going to be incorporating that. Very competitive.
So. Yeah. So, you know, Amy Winehouse is not one of our artists. Oh,
okay. I hope they're successful. But I'm working on Bob Marley and Prince
and everything else in our. How one in Our portfolio. So there are
competition. Okay. All right. You know, Larry, you've
said that buying rights wholesale is a mistake and that
(18:24):
Primary wave prefers to buy a percentage of a catalog to work
collaboratively with the artist or estate. What's behind this
philosophy? Well, it goes to what I had said before,
which is we are only going to buy the best
of the best. We're going to buy iconic, we're going to buy legendary.
And when you buy a portfolio, you know,
(18:47):
not a primary way, but if you buy a portfolio of almost everything out
there, maybe you get one act or two acts that would
fit our criteria for wanting to buy. But then you get 20 other
acts, artists that are, you know, that are not
what I would call aaa, you know, premium
artists and brands. So, you know, you get, you buy two and
(19:10):
you're stuck with, you know, 30. That's not a way
to generate value and generate
returns and make artists in general happy. So we
do it the old fashioned way. We do it one by one,
almost always. Because when we're buying, we're making a
commitment to the artist and
(19:33):
the management team of that artist. Right. We're the
heirs to be a great partner to
deliver, to generate opportunities.
If I buy a portfolio, then
how do I keep the 28 artists that we're
(19:53):
buying that aren't in our pocket? How do I keep them
happy? They'll be unhappy and then we'll be just like every other music company
out there where just as soon as an artist does a deal,
they want off the label or off the publisher. Right.
Our artists have never receive the type of
attention before that they've. That we give
(20:16):
them at any other company. And that's why
our artists are our best references. You've got to deliver.
And so it's hard to do that if you buy a whole
portfolio. Interesting. Okay. By the way, it's easy for companies that
are a buy and hold strategy. Right. Meaning a buy and hold,
as in they hope that you or somebody else does something,
(20:39):
you know, that's. I'm not saying that's a bad fellow, you know, a bad vision
or a bad strategy. It's not our strategy. Right, but
let me ask you then, based on what you just said, are you also
against buying a artist that you are
genuinely interested in that fits your criteria?
100%? Well, we have. I'll give you an example. Oh, okay.
(21:00):
Yeah, but I'll give you an example. Yeah. It's our preference
to partner. Right. That's. So, you know, we own 50% of the
Prince estate. 50% of Bob Marley's publishing,
50% of Whitney Houston's. But look, in the case
of Olivia Newton John, where, you know, we went to see Olivia, and
Olivia said, look, I unfortunately have
(21:23):
this terminal illness, right, And I don't
want my family to be burdened by
having to manage music assets. It's either going to be
100% or I'm not going to do a deal with you. Got
it? And we absolutely loved Olivia,
Loved her music, loved her brand, loved what she stood for.
(21:46):
And so we said, you know what, we will. But we still involve
her lawyer, her manager, her husband in
all of the deals that we do and all the creative. So, you know, it's.
It really, to be successful in this business, long term, you have to
involve the artist. Hey, insiders, we hope that you've been
enjoying our featured conversation. Stay tuned because we've got so much
(22:09):
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 want to go, where you want
to be. And, you know, we've talked about it on the show a lot, is
(22:29):
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. 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 have necessarily any direction to go
would be the first things that I would start off with. And having the songs
(22:51):
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. 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 always said it always starts with a great
(23:12):
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 you a strong lyric writer? Are you a strong
(23:33):
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, Ritch. 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
and connecting with us on a coaching call, you can visit
(23:55):
book.mubutv.com and start off with a free
15 minute discovery call. Well, yeah, absolutely. That. We start with an
initial 15 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 everything
to your needs. It's not like a cookie cutter thing. We kind of really want
(24:17):
to 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 15 minute
discovery call. Hi, this is Jeremy Yohai, senior vice president of
A&R at Concord Music Publishing. Are you an insider? I am.
(24:39):
Subscribe now. You have stated in the past that Primary Wave is focused
on catalogs that have been undervalued or left to the wayside.
I think was the, the quote that I, I remember reading. What makes them so
appealing when they've been neglected over the years. And is this your,
your, your A&R philosophy that makes them work right
in that. Or look, that's buried treasure. Okay, all right. That's,
(25:01):
that's what, yeah, that's what I want you to know. You know, this silver silverware
in your grandmother's, you know, you know, kitchen that just needs
to be polished and look new again, right? So you take
a Bing Crosby or a Count Basie or Glenn
Gould or you know, someone, you may say, oh, why does anybody want to be
in business with Bing Crosby? He would have been 120 years old this year. Right.
(25:24):
Well, the reason we want to be in business with Bing Crosby because he
had tremendous music, Right. Just take a look at White Christmas.
He had, you know, catalog of hundreds and hundreds of
songs. You know, you go in and you
polish it up a little bit. So, you know, the family lets us do a
deal with Adidas. We did a deal with, you know, the AT&T Clambake
(25:46):
Classic Golf. We connected this past Christmas. Think
about this. We connected 120 year old Bing
Crosby with V from BTS.
V, we found out, was a major Bing Crosby
fan. Right. Who would have thought one of the biggest K pop bands in the
world, one of the members would have been a Bing Crosby fan. He grew up
(26:07):
singing to Bing Crosby with his family. Right. So
we, we connected the dots. We took
Bing's voice and V's voice and came out with
a new version of White Christmas. And I think it streamed, you
know, we, we got it out late in the year, unfortunately, but I think it
streams over 60 million times and it'll be a
(26:28):
perennial. Yeah. You know, every Christmas. Perennial Christmas song.
Yeah. Right. What does that do? It takes Bing Crosby's
earnings up tremendously. I think, I think the month of
Christmas, the month of December and January. Bing
crosby popped from three and a half million monthly listeners
to over 30 million monthly listeners. Wow. So, you know, that's,
(26:51):
that's the effect you can have on, on an artist that
has maybe been a little bit forgotten. That's gotta be
exciting. Those are the ones that really excite us. Yeah,
very much so. You know, Larry, marketing and brand building
are crucial elements of maximizing catalog value.
Can you elaborate on how Primary Wave goes beyond traditional methods
(27:14):
to create new revenue streams and what's been one of your most
successful brand collaborations? Yeah, well, we talked
about, you know, the Whitney Houston slot machines. We talked about,
you know, the Mac cosmetic lines. We created this incredible
beer for the band Sticks. You know, think about it. Their
biggest song is Renegade. Right, Right. So when we met with,
(27:36):
you know, Tommy Shaw, you know, Tommy was,
hey, we want a beverage. Okay. So we set out to create a
beverage and we came up with. Why don't we call the beer Renegade?
We'll do a beer, call it Renegade. We found out this microbrewery
in Maine had a beer called Renegade. They wouldn't sell us
the, the mark. Right. They wouldn't sell us the name. So
(27:59):
we said, all right, you know what, let's go back to the drawing board. We're
going to call it Omama. Right. Start of Renegade.
We also realized that in, in Pennsylvania, the, the,
you know, the Pittsburgh Steelers theme song is
Renegade. Right. So what better place to start selling beer than in
Pennsylvania? And, you know, my brand team tells me
(28:22):
that five years from now, we're going to be looking back. I think we shipped
26,000 cases of the beer last year. Wow. They
tell me we're going to make more Money. And the band is going to make
more money on beer than music. So we'll see whether that's the case.
We have so many brand deals
and opportunities. We've done, you know, we created a, we created with
(28:43):
Mattel a Stevie Nicks Barbie doll.
You know, we have, we have more opportunities like, like that. With
Mattel coming. We, you know, we created
an Airbnb campaign for Princess just
on, on and on. Our brand
team really is killing it. Have you ever come, you don't have to name
(29:05):
names, but have you ever come across situations where your ideas
or your team's ideas are just met with
resistance from the estates? Well, you know,
we get to know these artists very well. We get to know the heirs very
well because they are our partners. And so we
involve them early in the process. And look, we'll come up
(29:26):
with ideas that will run by an artist and they'll
say, you know what, it's very creative, but I don't think I
want to do that. And so we'll say, you know, what
next? Right. So we don't
ever get dissuaded. Right. We are constantly
coming up with ideas, but more importantly, we're,
(29:49):
we're creating a roadmap even before
we, you know, we finish a deal of what the
artist wants us to focus on. So, you know,
typically we're not getting turned down because we have an
idea of the direction that these artists want to go in. You know, look,
part of, part of what we've really been focusing on
(30:11):
the last few years in addition to the branding, in addition to the digital, in
addition to, of the marketing, is we're creating our own
Broadway shows. Natalia Nestaskin, our head of
content, she's been working on, she must have 15 Broadway shows.
Wow. In development, we probably have, I don't know,
20 plus movies, you know, biographical films,
(30:33):
documentaries. And then we have a relationship, a deal
with Kathy Schulman, who's one of our partners. She's
really a superstar producer, you know,
won an Oscar for Crash. She's doing a
Boy George movie for us. She's doing, you know, probably another
eight or nine movies, music based movies on our
(30:55):
catalog. So we, we've got a lot in development. And then,
you know, you talk about the content creation side, like
immersive, immersive experiences, Avatars. Right. You know,
shows. We are launching our Bob Marley host road show,
which I am really excited about it with Mandalay Bay, at
Mandalay Bay, with MGM and a company called Five
(31:17):
Currents, who have done, I think the last 15 Olympic Games
very big production. It's. It's a type of show that Vegas has never
seen before. We're opening it end of June, beginning of July this
year. Wow. So very excited about that. You know,
that's. Look, that's. That's the wave of the future for us. You
know, live shows, live immersive experiences. You know,
(31:39):
not touring, although we are doing it with the Whitney Houston
Symphony tour, which is. Which, you know, the first couple of
shows were just absolutely fantastic. We'll do
more of those. But, you know, the content creation,
making these, you know, call it Cirque like shows.
Right. Is now in our wheelhouse with Bob Marley and a few other big ones.
(32:02):
I can't. I can't divulge right now, but how exciting. Yeah. What a great way
to be positioned for all of these projects. It's amazing. Yeah.
Are there a lot of. You know, I know you can't talk about them,
but are there a lot of people you see on the landscape, artists,
different kinds of potential partners that you'd like to be
involved with that you know, are available? We
(32:25):
are voracious. Yeah, okay. Acquirers of music.
Yeah. We want to be in business with every important
artist we can. Yeah. Okay. Because we. Because we really
believe that all of these artists
have been underserved, they've been under focused,
(32:45):
they've been under marketed. And when I say that, I'm not saying
anybody's doing anything wrong. I'm saying that there is
so much more opportunity than the normal record company
or the normal publisher or any of these banks and private
equity people that are looking to buy these things and flip them. Right.
There's so much more that these artists can be doing, and
(33:08):
many of them don't know it because they've been lulled into a
sense of malaise over the last
30 years or 40 years. That's our job is
to reinvigorate an artist's excitement
around their own brand and their own music. And that's. That's what
we do. I mean, look, we. You know, we just.
(33:30):
Unfortunately, I can't tell you some of our recent acquisitions because we haven't announced them
yet. Right. But there are a lot of
artists that. That are out there that, you know, will
at some point want a partnership to kind of
reinvigorate, reintroduce to a new youth culture. One thing I do want to talk
about, which we haven't discussed yet, that you have announced, is
(33:52):
your belief, and it's my belief, too, that the world of music
rights and publishing and so forth is really expanding on an international
basis. You recently did a deal in India
and I'm wondering if you can talk about the, I guess your
views on where music writes or where the growth
of international music markets is going based on your own experience. And I,
(34:16):
I don't think you would have made those deals if you didn't see that happening.
Well, look, you know, as an American, we tend to be very
myopic. Right, right. We tend to be very myopic. And think of the
world in terms of America. Well, America is a small part of the world. And
the good news for me is I work for a guy named Chris Blackwell at
Island Records and he really opened my eyes that the world is much
(34:36):
bigger than America. That's right, yes. You know, more than 60% of the
music business in terms of sales or outside America. Right,
right. So if you look at where we've done deals, I'm not going to
tell you countries that we're closing deals. No.
Right now. But I will tell you. We have a joint venture with a company
called Times Music, right. In India. We have a
(34:58):
company in Brazil called Nas Newvens which is, you know, we
look at Times and Nas Newvens in Brazil as many primary waves
in their market. Okay, so just take India for instance.
There's 1.5 billion people in India
right now. Granted, only half really are
an emerging middle class who can afford to pay for a
(35:21):
subscription to music or Netflix or
entertainment. But you take 750 million people,
that's more people than the entire English speaking part
of the planet. Uk, Australia, Canada, America, et cetera.
Right. That's, that's more people than in the English speaking world.
So the opportunity for growth in India
(35:44):
is enormous. I think last year the Indian market grew, you know,
35%. The streaming market. The market is
going from an advertising based model to a subscription
model. Why wouldn't we be in that market?
Because there's hyper growth and sure, it may level
off, but there's going to be growth for a very, very
(36:06):
long time. I think the Indian market is similar to where the US market was
in streaming eight years ago. There's a lot of growth in those markets. So we're
there, we're in Brazil, and we are going to be
in quite a few other emerging markets as well.
Larry, what advice would you give to someone who's
interested in pursuing a career in your field?
(36:27):
Well, a career, I think on the
marketing side, on the creative side, you know,
I think that there should be, you know, significant
opportunity as the market expands.
The Market is without a doubt getting crowded.
Right. Because of all of the money coming in from private
(36:50):
equity. That doesn't mean just because you raise money, you're able
to spend the money wisely. Oh, yeah, definitely. You know, there
are people that have money and that are looking to make
deals. So I think to the extent that they make deals, there'll be more
and more opportunity. I don't see a lot of people, though, taking
the initiative to create infrastructure creatively. As I said, a
(37:13):
lot of these people are buying whole strategies. But I really do think that
there is an opportunity for a young kid that
wants to get into the business and wants to learn, you know,
marketing, branding, especially digital. If I was,
you know, back in college, I would be doing all I could
to read up on AI and how does AI
(37:36):
affect intellectual property, you know, music
and other forms of creative expression. I would be focusing
almost entirely on AI because most
people my age don't really understand
the impact of AI or what can be done with AI. So
I think there's going to be a lot of opportunity for somebody who's
(37:58):
looking at the technology end of music. Wonderful. What
are the best ways to get a hold of you, Larry, if somebody wanted to
reach out to you or get in touch with you? Is it through the website?
Is it through the socials? I almost
never. I can't remember the last time I responded to the somebody on social media.
I mean, I'm really on social media mainly to see what my artists are doing
(38:19):
and saying. Right. And to follow my kids to make sure that, you
know, right. They're on the right path. Okay. You know, I.
My email address is on our website. Okay. And that's probably
the best way to. To get a hold of me. Larry, we want to thank
you so much. We are so grateful to you that we had the opportunity to
do this. I mean, we really, really appreciate it. It's a pleasure spending time with
(38:40):
you guys. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. My pleasure.
Wow. Eric, all I can say is this
did not disappoint at all. Absolutely. I am
so glad that we had a chance to talk with Larry. I mean, the conversation
was as fascinating and insightful as
I had hoped beyond. And I'm glad that we got him actually
(39:03):
in person as opposed to regular phone call or anything that he was there
present with us so you can get the full quality of this, guys. Because
this was, you know, just nothing but gold. Yeah,
absolutely. And it was a real, I
think, you know, master class in
how one must think in full
(39:24):
360 degrees of, you know, three
dimensional thinking of music, culture,
brands and songs. Like how all of those elements
from. A 50,000 foot view all the way down to the ground
level. That's right. And all of the elements that are involved with that.
One of the things that I thought was most fascinating about this because
(39:47):
it's, it's one that you don't normally think and it, it
revealed something about his consciousness and the way he looks at
business is how he talked about buying a percentage
of something with these deals rather than just buying the whole
catalog outright. Right. And you know, the way he explained it, he says, we're only
going to buy the best of the best. And when you buy a portfolio, maybe
(40:08):
you get one or two acts that would fit, you know, our criteria for wanting
to buy. That's not a way to generate value and generate
returns and artist in general, happy. So, you
know, he's really seeing it for what it is. And also by
doing that, you end up in a partnership with the artist, which makes it
much, much more significant and I think shed something
(40:30):
of a light on the way he thinks and the way that you successfully
do business in all of these arenas. Yeah. And one of the other areas
which, I mean, my God, we could be here for the next three hours talking
about all the areas of this conversation, but one of the ones that kind of
struck me was on brand building beyond traditional methods. And I think this is where
the brilliance, Larry and his team, which he spoke very highly of, which has
(40:51):
put together, you know, basically these incredible deals, was he talked
about, and I quote, we created this incredible beer for the band Styx. We'll
do a beer, call it Renegade, which is one of their famous songs. Yeah. For
those of you that don't know, we found out that this microbrewery in Maine had
a beer called Renegade. So we said, okay, let's go back to the drawing board.
We're going to call it oh Mama. And the Pittsburgh Steelers theme song is
(41:11):
Renegade. So they shipped 26,000 cases of beer, I guess,
last year. And we're going to make more money and the band is going to
make more money on the beer than the music. So again, it was coming back
from an original idea that didn't end up working out because I guess of the
name rights and they kind of rethunk their whole idea and
they created this beer and they shipped a bunch of beers to this team
(41:32):
which is already playing their music during their halftimes or during parts of
their of the game. Again, it's just when you think about it, it would seem
like something that would be obvious on, on the outside looking in, but no.
And then when you think about what it takes to come up with those concepts
and ideas. And to me, that's the brilliance of what Larry does. Yeah,
I agree 100% on that. And you know, he spoke
(41:54):
about so many things, but this is why you have to listen to it. But
mostly he spoke about the fact that it's not just
one thing. It's not just the artist, it's not
just the songs, it's not just marketing the
songwriter. It's the whole thing. When you put something together, it's
the brand. The brand meaning everything combined,
(42:16):
creating something and finding those right kinds of partnerships
to sustain the brand and build upon it. And he wants to do that for
underserved catalogs. And so far he's doing an absolutely
magnificent job with all of the examples that he gave us.
Hey insiders, thanks so much for tuning into this episode. We really
appreciate it. To get show notes, links and everything that was mentioned
(42:38):
during this interview, head on over to our Official
website at
mubutv.com/podcast/shownotes If you're enjoying the content and what
we're doing here on the show, please subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcast,
Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts from. And don't forget to rate
and review our show at iTunes. Five star reviews are always welcome
(42:59):
and help to ensure that our podcast stands out on the top rated and
new and noteworthy charts on itunes and our space. You can also
find us at social media at Facebook, Instagram, TikTok
and Twitter X, all ending with the handle mubutv, which is
spelled M U B U T V. Don't forget to catch our flagship
show, the MUBUTV Music Business Insider Video Series
(43:21):
airing every week on YouTube at YouTube.com/mubutv
this show was produced and created by Ritch Esra and
Eric Knight, theme music by Disciples of Babylon. And be sure
to tune in next week for another episode of the MUBUTV Music
Business Insider Podcast.
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