In Episode 10 of Stuck on Sound, Joey Stuckey sits down with music marketing strategist, author, educator, and Cyber PR founder Ariel Hyatt for a practical and deeply human conversation about what it really takes to build a lasting music career in the digital age.
Ariel traces her path from a childhood shaped by theater, art, dyslexia, and music to the early days of independent music marketing, where she cut her teeth in scrappy grassroots scenes before launching her own publicity company at age 23. That journey eventually became Cyber PR, where Ariel has spent decades helping artists make sense of a music business that never stops changing.
Joey and Ariel dig into some of the most urgent questions facing artists today: how to understand your artistic identity, how to find the right fans, why fake numbers and playlist-driven “buzz marketing” can leave artists with no real audience, and why 200 genuine fans can matter more than thousands of empty streams. Ariel makes the case for moving from shallow visibility to meaningful connection, what she calls shifting from buzz to bond.
The conversation also explores the overwhelming pace of modern content, the loss of music as a focused listening experience, the value of physical releases and fan experiences, and why artists need a plan, a team, and a clear sense of what they are actually building.
Later, Joey and Ariel discuss AI in the music space, where Ariel offers a balanced view: useful as a tool for marketing, organization, and efficiency, but dangerous when it floods platforms with more low-value content and makes it even harder for human artists to be heard.
The result is an essential episode for independent artists who want to stop chasing vanity metrics and start building a more intentional, sustainable, fan-centered career.
You can find more information about Ariel and her work at:
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Episode Transcript
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Joey Stuckey (00:00):
Welcome once again to Stuck on Sound, a podcast
for nerds by nerds, and we areproud of it.
And I have one of someone thatI have followed for years.
I have been in the same spacesuh with her, but never got a
chance to actually shake herhand and meet her in person.
But she is one of, in my mind,the most important voices in the
(00:23):
music community uh today andand has been for probably 20
years.
And it's Ariel Hyatt.
And I was just so excited toget chance to talk to you today,
my friend.
Thanks for coming on.
Ariel Hyatt (00:32):
My pleasure.
Thank you for such a nice warmintroduction.
It's so nice to know anyone'sbeen paying attention for all
these years.
Joey Stuckey (00:39):
Oh, I pay attention.
I ain't doing nothing butlistening.
Uh seriously, I I'm I reallymean it.
Uh I I want to talk to youabout so many things, and I
could literally talk for hours,but we we won't.
But um I want to start with youon something um that it's a
burning question for me.
And we we have several uhpieces of wisdom of yours that I
(01:03):
want to want to have you takeus through a little in just a
moment.
But I do always like to startoff with how you got into this
absolutely nutty business thatwe are in.
Now, I have uh uh justdissected your bio and checked
it out, and it seems to me thatyour parents were a big part of
you doing what you do.
(01:24):
Uh, but I'd like you just totell me a little bit about that
and and just how you foundyourself, you know, in this
entertainment space.
Ariel Hyatt (01:32):
Amazing.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Okay.
So, yes, you're right.
I do come very luckily from ahome where the arts was the most
important thing.
A lot of people come fromsports houses where, you know,
football teams or playing sportswas the thing.
At my house, it was theater andarts.
And I had two parents who wereextremely committed to being
(01:58):
patrons of the arts.
And we weren't, you know,zillionaires or anything, but I,
you know, I think anyone thatappreciates art is a patron of
the arts.
And so so that was the kind ofhousehold I grew up in where
anyone that was a creator,whether it was a visual artist
or a musician or a theaterperson, was the most important
(02:21):
kind of person.
My dad was a filmmaker, mymother ran a children's theater
as her first career.
And so I'm I feel very luckythat I I got brought up in a
place where the arts werereally, really revered as like
the the ultimate way that anyhuman could express themselves.
And I had as a child dyslexia.
(02:46):
And I was studying at or I wassent to a very elite private
school, which is what we did inthe 80s in New York, because
public schools here were notwhat they are today.
And they threw me out of theschool in second grade because I
couldn't read at the same rateas everyone else.
And clearly I was very smart,they said, but I I couldn't
(03:10):
make, I couldn't make it in thepack with everyone else.
And my parents were worriedthat this was happening, and
they went on a quest to help melearn.
And I got connected to abrilliant tutor who figured out
that everything was confusing asfar as math and reading and
(03:32):
science, but I loved music.
And I in my music class, I wasso confused by looking at the
notes, that was crazy.
But I had a really good ear andI had a perfect pitch.
And so she started teaching mehow to read and do arithmetic
and write and organize the worldthrough singing and music.
(03:56):
So this is my very long answerto a very short question of how
did you arrive here?
I I arrived here because musicfor me was the way the world
makes sense.
Joey Stuckey (04:09):
I and I love this.
So that is so perfect.
And I'm I am I'm thrilled bythis answer.
It's very poignant and verypowerful.
And I I had a feeling in myheart that you had to be some
kind of musician, althoughthat's not kind of your your, I
guess, your day job, for lack ofa better word, but uh, but it
(04:32):
but it I had I had a feelingbecause you had such an
understanding of what it meansto be an artist and you're
helping other artists to dotheir thing, I I felt like there
had to be some kind ofbackground of music for you.
Now, did did you, you know,everybody knows you as uh an
author of books, uh, you know, aconsultant, a strategist uh for
(04:57):
the music industry.
But I mean, were you an artistin your own right?
Did you did you try this crazything of putting out records and
stuff like that yourself beforeyou got into into helping
others?
Ariel Hyatt (05:08):
I did not.
So I I did follow my parents intheir footsteps, and I went to
college for theater.
I was a theater major, and Isang in the a cappella singing
group, both of them, both thethe all-female group and the
co-ed group, all the way upthrough college.
And I always dated the bassplayer.
(05:29):
That was my thing.
Um, and no, I I sort of watchedhim and all his friends, you
know, going for it and startingbands.
And I thought, you know, that'snot really for me.
And I didn't want to pursueacting because, again, as a
dyslexic, when you go to anaudition, you are tasked with
(05:52):
memorizing very quickly apassage, a script, a scene.
And that's not something that Icould do off book.
And and so as a theater major,I kept getting passed over for
all the roles because I didn'taudition well.
So I would be in the chorus orI would be, you know, a
(06:15):
whatever, I'd get a role, but itwould be a minor role.
And the director would alwayssay to me at the end of the run,
I don't know why you weren'tthe star of this play, because
you you really are great.
Joey Stuckey (06:25):
You got it, yeah.
Ariel Hyatt (06:26):
And I would say, well, the reason is I couldn't
deliver on the day that you weresupposed to deliver.
So um I graduated with myliberal arts degree in theater,
which which was you know goodfor almost nothing in the world.
Joey Stuckey (06:41):
I understood.
Ariel Hyatt (06:42):
And a and a giant passion for so I discovered
growing up in New York City wasamazing in the 80s because CBGBs
and limelight, and there wereso many incredible all ages, and
they didn't actually cardanyway, but I I could go and see
music.
I could see music any night ofthe week.
(07:03):
On the night I graduated highschool, I saw the stray cats
tear down, tear down the oldwrits.
So I I started seeing music ata really young age, and it was
so thrilling to see live music.
And so when I graduated, mymother was a career consultant,
and she said, Well, what are yougonna do?
And I said, Well, I want to bein the record business.
(07:25):
I want to be in music.
And so my mother called the oneperson she actually knew, who
she had known for many years,Mr.
Clive Davis.
And and guess what?
Clive didn't call us back.
He was not he was not jumpingat the idea of employing a brand
(07:46):
new theater major.
So um so we had we took thatone shot and that was it.
And then I I started likeeveryone else in the music
industry, taking unpaidinternships and my journey there
commenced.
So that was it.
Joey Stuckey (08:03):
I, you know, it's funny because I mean, listen, I
I'm um I'm gonna be honest withyou, I am uh lovingly brutal to
my interns.
And uh I I do like to throwthem in and watch them swim.
However, I promise them that Iwill never A, ask them to do
something I have not done, or B,put them in a position to fail.
If I ask them to do something,it's because I know they can't.
(08:24):
So that's you know, I but I do,I do think that uh, you know,
you gotta work the interns alittle bit.
Uh it's kind of a fun rite ofpassage, I feel.
It's it's interesting uh whatyou said um about the the
theater, because uh as a blindperson myself, reading obviously
is a big issue.
(08:46):
And uh when I was a kid, uhthere was no ADA, there was, you
know, kid of the I we're Iwe're I'm imagining roughly the
same age.
I never ask a lady her agebecause I was raised right.
Uh so uh the uh but I mean youknow that that was a problem for
me to be a classically trainedmusician and to play orchestral
music because that too is asight reading kind of gig.
(09:08):
You you go in, you you have onerehearsal, you read, then the
next day you play.
And for me to do that wouldhave been an enormous amount of
prior memorization on my part,spending many, many, many hours
uh and not being paid wellenough to take that time.
So I did something similar inthe sense that I went to jazz
(09:31):
and rock and stuff whereimprovisation uh was prized, and
I can do that.
And and then I also made myselfthe band leader so I didn't
have to follow anybody else.
So, you know, it's I I likewhat you're saying because it's
it's the similar ethic that Icome from of finding an
alternative way to do things.
(09:52):
Yeah.
Um and and you know, I don'tknow if you've had this same
experience, but um I ended up,you know, being a business owner
pretty early uh because nothingI wanted was available, so I
had to make it.
And um, and so how how long inyour journey was it?
Uh all that to ask you thequestion of how long in your
(10:13):
journey was it before you said,I gotta hang my own shingle out.
This is, you know, I need to dodo this.
Ariel Hyatt (10:19):
Yeah.
So what you just saidcompletely resonates with me.
And I think this is also atrait of all creative people and
artists is that they see theworld differently and they do
things differently.
And for people like you andpeople like me, we had to figure
out our edge.
Joey Stuckey (10:38):
Yes.
Ariel Hyatt (10:39):
And we had to figure out how do you make it
leaning into that edge.
And I it it's extraordinarythat that's your story because
that that is really also mystory.
So yes, it was the very late80s um when I started college.
I won't say my age, but that'llgive you a sense.
(11:00):
So um grunge was reigningsupreme when I graduated from
university.
And I got a job working for ajob.
It was $68 a week as a paidintern working for one of the
top uh music publicists in theworld.
And she had these incredibleclients, Sting, Peter Gabriel,
(11:24):
In Excess, Tina Turner.
And I got I got a front rowseat to like what that looks
looks like.
And then um I I had thispassion for a little band called
The Samples.
And I I found their recordlabel.
I I had studied at Universityof Colorado Boulder, and the
(11:45):
samples were huge then.
And I got a job working at whatare records.
So that was my first job in ascrappy indie record label.
And interestingly, we're onthis topic.
The owner of that record label,his name is Rob Gordon.
He had come from the majors andhad been an AR guy, and very
(12:08):
similar story.
He was a Ritalin kid.
He was like a kid who had somuch energy and and like was a
savant when it came to playing.
He actually, his first bandthat he played in was with Trey
from Fish.
You know, he was this likeextraordinary musician and
extraordinary in the studio andgreat years.
Anyway, he at a very young agefounded his record label and he
(12:32):
had 12 of us and we were workingour butts off.
And that was that was how I cutmy teeth.
And he was, it was an amazingplace to understand how the
music business worked because hebuilt his own distribution
system, he cut out all themiddlemen, he had a street
marketing team that was hired byall the majors because we were
(12:54):
so scrappy and so good at whatwe did.
And he moved us from New YorkCity to Boulder to be closer to
the band that we weresupporting.
And the band blew up.
It was it was incredible.
So I had a front row seat tothat.
And then I very quickly gotanother offer, and I was a
concert, I was working for aconcert promoter for a year, and
(13:17):
I got a front row seat to whatit looks like to rip off artists
for a living and to play thatsort of brutal game.
It was so toxic.
My boss at the time uh drew agun on me in a meeting.
Joey Stuckey (13:30):
Oh my God.
Ariel Hyatt (13:31):
There were drug dealers and scalpers coming in
the doors all day long.
I mean, it was like it was, itwas like real edgy stuff.
And that it was veryinteresting to um to to take
that job, but I I wasn't longfor that position.
And so you're right, at a veryyoung age, age 23, I I decided
(13:54):
to hang my own shingle out.
It all started at Kinkos.
I made my own in the middle ofthe night, I made my own
business cards, and the verynext day I got on an airplane
and I flew to South bySouthwest.
It was 1996.
And I I roamed the streets ofAustin and I saw some of the
most incredible bands, and Ihanded out my little orange
(14:17):
business card, and I named mycompany REL Publicity, and I
declared that I was in business.
I love this.
Joey Stuckey (14:24):
And I and and uh even the blind man knows that an
orange card is gonna stand out.
I mean, that's that's a good,that's great.
I mean, that's fantastic.
Well, I and you know, I I haveto say I do love your name.
I mean, it it has such a niceartistic vibe to it, uh, and I
think that's cool.
What why did you you've you'veI guess the the company that I
(14:44):
know and that I that I've beenfollowing, you know, Cyber PR
and you know, uh is it did whatwas the what was the change
there?
Was it a change in services?
Was it a change in strategy?
What was the you know, what wasthe change from you from that
initial orange card?
Ariel Hyatt (14:59):
Yeah, so the Ariel publicity brand served me
very well for the first sevenyears of my life, and by the
way, named after Shakespeare.
So true to the uh theaterfamily that I have.
Joey Stuckey (15:10):
I think that's highly appropriate.
That's awesome.
Ariel Hyatt (15:12):
But I did decide that it's hard to be if you're
if you're running a company andit everybody expects your name
is the name on the door and it'sthe only name, it's it's really
hard.
If anyone else comes to thephone, everybody would want to
speak to me.
So I thought that's smart.
And I was getting into thedigital world.
I had an early entree to thedigital space because the kind
(15:35):
of artists I was representing asmostly a traditional publicist
was indies, all indies.
And this was during a time whenDIY and independent wasn't what
it is today at all.
It was basically an outliersbusiness.
And my clients at the time, ifyou had a CD, you had to work
(15:57):
really hard to get that CD.
It was an expensive thing to goout, record, and produce a CD.
So most of most of my clientsin those early days were hugely
touring bands that were makingfull-time livings on the road.
So I did that.
I was a tour publicist, and thebeginning of the death toll of
(16:19):
classic media was beginning tohappen.
And my artists were the canaryin the coal mines.
I was beginning to see reallyearly on, I, you know, I would
have a band coming on tour,completely independent, maybe
signed to a very tiny indie orthe or doing it all themselves.
And all these amazingjournalists that I'd gotten to
(16:39):
know at the small newspapers,and every single city in America
had at least four or fivenewspapers.
You had two dailies, and eachdaily had a pop writer, a jazz
writer, and often a classicalwriter.
And then you had a weeklyalternative paper, and then you
had tertiary papers.
So you had community, maybe youhad like a Jewish paper, an
(17:01):
Irish paper, you know, a women'spaper, a gay paper.
So at any, at any town, I wasliterally hitting 10 or 15
different newspapers.
And so all of a sudden, therewas a giant shift and the
editors started folding.
So the one, the one editor ateach newspaper started becoming
(17:24):
the music editor, doing theclassical and the jazz and the
pop.
Or even worse, the AP, theassociated press feeds were now
taking over the local musicscene.
And so I'll never forget it.
I called, I think it was likethe Cincinnati local paper.
And the writer there had alwaysbeen amazing to me.
(17:45):
And we were always, he wasalways interviewing my bands,
and I said, I've got this greatband coming through town, you
know.
And he said, Well, I can't.
I'm interviewing Elton John.
I thought, why would a tinylittle newspaper be interviewing
an international superstar?
And that's when I realized mylittle clients were not gonna
(18:06):
have a shot at a world wherethere were fewer and fewer
column inches for them.
Yeah.
So I turned to the internet.
I turned to the internet and itwas like, okay, we need to
figure out uh an alternative.
Like where where are the wherewhere are the opportunities for
(18:26):
for bands?
And I started exploring theworld of music blogs and online.
They weren't even called musicblogs, they were called web
zines.
Joey Stuckey (18:36):
I remember I do.
I've been a writer for some ofthose web zines.
Yeah, I you're this is reallyfascinating because um I've been
I've been in media as abyproduct um for a long time.
I've hosted TV shows and radioshows.
And you know, now we're like,oh, it's you past time for you
(18:56):
to do the podcast and blah blah.
And you know, I've been printjournal and all this stuff,
journalists and all this stuff,but but only because um, you
know, you have to wear a bunchof hats to make a living in the
music business.
And uh, you know,unfortunately, you know, really
what we do um is communicate.
I mean, that's that's whatmusic is, it's a form of
communication.
So if you're good atcommunicating, typically you can
(19:19):
you can move that intodifferent sort of boxes if you
need to.
But the the thing that I willsay is uh in today's world, I
would love to, I've got someother big questions for you, but
in today's world, I feel likewe've gone back to this, even
it's so hard to get someone towrite a review, uh to to do uh
(19:39):
an interview with an artist umeven online now.
So I mean, what what do youthink about the media space
today?
I mean, is it is it are we backwhere where we were when with
the independent papers startedfolding?
Or what what is what is it likeout there?
Uh, you know, trying to getcolumn, I mean, for lack of a
better word, column inches.
I mean, it's you know, it seemsit seems really difficult to
(20:02):
get to get one uh a column thatthat moves the needle forward
anymore.
Ariel Hyatt (20:08):
Exactly.
You just said it and you saidit all.
It is almost impossible.
As we know, publicity hasbecome harder and harder to get.
It has become less and less amajor part of the strategy, and
all of these other things havetaken over, which is part of why
(20:28):
I wrote my new book and part ofwhat I've been obsessed with
recently, because what ishappening right now is so
overwhelming.
And I'm sure you've gotquestions about that.
But yes, this is the this isthe weirdest time publicity is,
(20:50):
I don't want to say it's a dyingart, but when you have
platforms like Submit Hub andGroover and MusoSoup and Play to
Play, and I mean there is aso-called PR firm that the only
thing they do is they do paidvertorial and they say, Okay,
you want, you want RollingStone, it's $3,000.
(21:11):
You want LA Weekly, it's$5,000.
You want and they're justselling paid vertorial.
Joey Stuckey (21:17):
And it depresses me.
Ariel Hyatt (21:18):
Oh boy, it is and and then you think about it, is
like if you're gonna go andinvest tens of thousands of
dollars in hiring a traditionalpublicist and they're gonna
pitch their brains out andthey're not gonna really get you
a top-tier result, well, youknow, you might as well pay
$3,000 and get the guaranteed.
And truly, the youngergenerations don't care.
(21:42):
So they don't care that it wasthey don't know the difference
between paid rotorial and realeditorial.
And the album review, as youand I knew it, sadly is a a real
dying art.
And the writing of music andthe describing music in words
is.
Is something that is now notreally as heavily lauded as it
(22:06):
once was.
I still do think musicpublicity has its place, but
yes, it the column inches arealmost impossible to get, and
it's so competitive now.
Joey Stuckey (22:16):
Well, it's it's it's yeah, I mean it really uh I
don't know how to say I meanthis sounds so melodramatic, but
it does.
It it breaks my heart becausethere was a time where you could
be transported to a differentplace and and begin to
understand an artist in aprofound way by someone that
(22:36):
really cared and wrote somethinguh interesting that would give
you uh either an insight intosomeone you already followed or
maybe encourage you to take asecond chance on a band that you
hadn't connected with yet.
I mean, it was I always, youknow, as a blind person, it was
hard for me to access those inthe print form, you know, uh of
(22:58):
a actual, you know, magazine.
But online when it first, whenwe first kind of started having
magazines online, uh, you know,there were there were people
that were really gifted writersthat were doing things.
And Joey would come along withhis clunky screen reader and be
able to read, you know, some ofthese articles and it'd be a lot
of fun.
Now you uh you've mentioned uhyour newest book or latest book,
(23:20):
I guess would be a better wayto say that.
And and that is um somethingthat we for sure should talk
about.
I want to tell you um whatgalvanized me to go, uh, I'm
gonna find um Ariel's uh I'mgonna find her email address and
I'm gonna bombard her until shesays she'll come on the show.
(23:42):
And uh I saw your new, I guesstechnically we should call it a
vlogcast uh podcast that'sthat's come out.
And you talk about these.
Um I mean, this is so profoundfor any artist that that's
that's out there, and that's youknow, primarily our target
audience here.
Um, you know, you you talkabout these, you have uh some
(24:04):
pillars that you talk about.
Um, you talk about um, youknow, uh I'm I'm paraphrasing
and not gonna say it as well asyou will, but you're talking
about understanding yourartistic voice, understanding
your identity, and and and thosethings are really important,
uh, understanding who your fansare.
Uh, and then, you know, one ofthe things I I love that you've
(24:26):
kind of said, um, and again,paraphrasing here, uh, you know,
it doesn't really matter whereyou are in your journey, it
doesn't really matter how oldyou are or or what.
I mean, there is a space foryou where you can find people
that resonate with what you aredoing.
And so I really love thatbecause I think um, you know,
(24:50):
with the death of some of thegatekeepers and the
proliferation of the ability touh you know upload content to
the universe, uh that's a goodthing, but obviously there's so
much noise that it's hard to getnoticed.
There's so much, you know, somany choices, and and those
(25:12):
choices aren't really beingcurated like they once were.
So, I mean, they, you know, youhave a negative, you have a
positive, you have a plus, youhave a minus.
And and from my perspective,um, you know, and I I mean this
with no uh ill will, but I meanthere are people that are
divorced from reality that areputting music out that really
shouldn't.
Uh and you know, if it makesthem happy, that's fine.
(25:35):
But there are there are therest of us who, you know, uh
slave away uh every every day,uh trying to trying to be
compelling.
And it's it's a real challenge.
And it's, you know, at somepoint I'm thinking, am I gonna
have to go sell my plasma?
Does it make ends meet today?
Um, but I I would love to getinto your book and into these
(25:56):
concepts that you're trying toum to share with artists while
at the same time uh making surepeople know that for the full
story they need to hire you.
Ariel Hyatt (26:07):
Wow.
Okay.
So the book is called From Buzzto Bond.
I love that.
Thank you.
The reason why I called it thatis something alarming has been
happening for the last over fiveyears in our industry, and that
is the obsession with thealgorithm.
Joey Stuckey (26:27):
Preach.
Ariel Hyatt (26:28):
Whether that is the TikTok algorithm, which is the
newest kid on the block, or themeta algorithms, or the Spotify
algorithms, we have all kowtowedand are now bowing down to the
Almighty algorithm because thatis what has proliferated as the
(26:50):
new golden goose.
And so what was happening to meis people were calling me, they
call me all the time.
I run an agency and you canfill out a form and talk to me
any day.
And I get on the phone withmore people than I should every
year, but I love this part ofthe journey.
And and I would say, What'sgoing on?
Tell me about your music, tellme about your career, tell me
(27:11):
about what's happening.
And the thing that I kepthearing was, well, I hired a
Spotify playlisting company andI got 100,000, 200,000, 500,000,
whatever.
Oh, I hired a social mediamarketing strategy firm and I
got tens of thousands ofthousands of people added to my
socials, but you know, and thenI'd start doing a deep dive, and
(27:33):
I'm like, okay, you don't singin Spanish.
Why are all your fans in SouthAmerica?
You're not South Asian.
Why is there a massive amountof people in Bangladesh
listening to you?
Like this is not making senseto me.
Like the the demographic ofpeople and what I'm seeing is
not relatable.
Like there is no, and then theother thing that was really
(27:53):
killing me was artists wouldcall and say, I've just worked
so hard.
I've just, you know, I theyalways hire a, and this is no
disrespect, but they start thejourney hiring above what they
should be paying to get theirmusic produced.
So they hired the, they hiredthe very fancy Grammy
Award-winning producer.
Cool.
Joey Stuckey (28:13):
Right.
Ariel Hyatt (28:13):
Then they went and they mixed and mastered it
somewhere fabulous at the topmastering guy.
Great.
You know, and you startthinking about how much money
this is costing, right?
Then they got their visualsdone by a fabulous photographer,
and then they hired a Spotifycompany and they got tens of
thousands of Spotify plays.
And then they tried to throw arecord release party or uh
(28:37):
something in their hometown andthey put 30 or 40 people in
their hometown.
Great.
And then they kept paying forthis terrible buzz marketing.
And they're a year in they'vegot a $20,000 to $100,000 bill
and no real fans, and they can'tdrive 40 minutes or two hours
away and put 20 butts on seats.
Joey Stuckey (29:01):
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's exactly right.
Ariel Hyatt (29:03):
And this was devastating to me.
You know, coming from where Icame from, this indie scrappy
record label where it was likeall about direct a fan and all
about, you know, how do we getthe samples?
50 new fans every time we gothrough town in a grassroots
sense.
I mean, we had a 50,000-personmailing list.
We were awesome.
And I mean mailing like paperand putting envelopes with
(29:27):
little welcome letters.
I that's what we did at myrecord label.
It was a long time ago.
But that ethos always stayedwith me.
Like the fan, the real fanwhose name you know, whose
address you know, whose city youknow, who you can talk to,
that's the valuable fan.
And everything everything thatI've said in From Buzz to Bond
(29:50):
is basically like, yes, hate thehate the game, not the player.
If we have to play the game,great.
Throw some money down on yourSpotify so it doesn't look like
you have, you know, 19 plays amonth.
Cool.
But if you want a sustainablecareer, if what lights you up is
being in a room and people arevibing with you and singing the
(30:12):
lyrics and clapping along andyou're touching and moving and
inspiring people in real life,you have got to do the bond
marketing.
And that is the piece that, youknow, all the labels went crazy
in 2024, 2025, and all we heardabout was super fan, super fan.
Superfans, this is not a newconcept.
(30:33):
Beethoven had super fans,right?
Joey Stuckey (30:36):
List.
Ariel Hyatt (30:37):
Right.
And so all of a sudden, andalso if you have been in the
industry for more than fiveminutes, you know that Kevin
Kelly wrote in defense of athousand true fans for Wired
magazine almost 20 freakingyears ago.
And yeah, I know, I know, Iknow.
It's awful.
It just keeps going.
But that, when I first heardthat philosophy all those years
(30:58):
ago, I I was like, I got chills.
I got chills.
Oh my gosh.
If you had a thousand fans andeach one of those fans paid you
$100, that's a hundred thousanddollars.
Like to me, that was asustainable path.
And as unsexy as that is, thatis, I think, the key if what
(31:20):
your goal is is to have actualreal fans.
Now look, no disrespect.
If you are totally into likegetting a million plays on
YouTube and you want to look atthe number and that makes you
happy, and that's your dopaminehit, and that makes you feel
like you've arrived, cool.
But my work and what I'mfascinated by and where I think
(31:42):
we need to go as a humanpopulation is into community, is
into bonding, is into touchingeach other because right now
we're just getting more and moreseparate.
Social media has ripped usapart.
It this loneliness epidemic isreal.
And I don't think that we feelany better after a two-hour
(32:07):
session on TikTok.
Joey Stuckey (32:08):
Oh, I listen, you this is absolutely you have hit
something that I think ismission critical.
Um, and that is that the arts,you know, I am the first to
admit that I take my role as anartist very seriously, maybe
(32:29):
even too seriously.
But the fact is, I feel like Ihave a responsibility to society
to promote new thoughtpatterns, to preserve the
history.
Um, and I think you candirectly measure the health of
any society by its artisticcontent.
I mean, it's it's you know,it's very plain to my mind that
(32:53):
a healthy, happy, thrivingculture is one that has the arts
at the center of its spiritualand moral, you know, uh place.
That's where it's functioningfrom.
And so, you know, we we meetyou're absolutely right.
I think I think the the thingabout social media, and you
know, everybody likes to beat upon it.
Uh uh it's it's easy to do.
(33:16):
But the fact is it really haspushed people into boxes, uh
separating people more than ithas brought them together.
And and uh, and that's a realproblem.
And and it's just it's so hardto fight.
And there's also um, you know,when you and I were young and
virile, uh when we were young,uh yeah, we we we were fine
(33:40):
without cell phones, we werefine without Facebook, but we
have been given this idea thatwe have to be bombarded
constantly by content and andbeen made to believe it.
And the fact is, I actuallyknow better and still get
suckered.
Ariel Hyatt (33:57):
Oh yeah, we don't know.
I mean, we we're we're youknow, we are a hundred percent
helpless.
Yeah, the people that designslot machines design the
algorithms.
Like, have you ever been haveyou ever been to Vegas?
Joey Stuckey (34:08):
And you know, I have and I have to I have to
tell you that I'm very sadbecause when I went as a child,
my dad actually they told himthat they when I was a very sick
child, almost died a bunch.
And so my parents like took meeverywhere they would go.
They would never leave me athome, and they always wanted me
to experience everything theworld had to offer.
And so they took me to Vegas aslike uh eight-year-old.
(34:29):
And uh the the people are like,You can't bring this child on
the floor.
And my dad said, Oh, he's uhhe's a little person, actually,
he's not a child, and uh whichof course wasn't true, but uh I
did play the slots and uh won 20bucks and was just thrilled
with the as a blind child tohear the sounds, all those coins
bouncing around.
Uh and now you get a littleticket, no coins, and so even
(34:54):
that has been taken anyway.
The uh even Vegas is ruined,but but kids are allowed
everywhere, so there's I knowwell you know uh well and the
thing, I mean it's just it'sjust so funny, but I I do I
really want to home in on thispoint because uh for me, and and
you know, as you absolutelysay, and and I and I I can't
believe I mean it sounds likewe've lived in each other's head
(35:16):
somehow because this is what Itell my clients as a producer.
Uh, look, dude, if if what youwant is limousines and cars, and
yeah, uh no, no shade.
That's that's cool.
If that's what makes you feelhappy, that is your privilege to
pursue that and to do that.
But I have always been aboutthe work.
I mean, the the work of themusic has always been enough for
(35:39):
me, and all I really want isthe opportunity to tell my
story, to sing my song, and forit to mean something to
somebody.
And I don't, I actually have asong I wrote called One Song at
a Time, which is the song that'sabout the idea that I am
content to change lives slowly,one person at a time, one song
(35:59):
at a time.
I feel fulfilled doing that.
I feel fulfilled talking topeople like yourself.
I feel fulfilled going to domaster classes at universities
or whatever, and talking about,you know, producing records and
you know, I mean, and and justyou know, just but it's that
idea of community that you hitupon that I think is the the
thing.
And that and that's really whatwe need to get back to uh
(36:21):
because you can find people whoare patrons of the arts for for
lack of a better word.
And you've kind of mentionedthat earlier in our conversation
when, you know, with yourfolks.
Uh you know, there it I thinkthat's what we have to find
again because it not only givesus you know meaning to what we
do and value to our time andeffort, but also people are
(36:42):
willing to part with their cashum to be part of what you're
doing, to help and to help youand to be proud of helping you.
Like it's a thrill for me.
I mean, I've worked with a fewlegendary artists over the
years, but I don't have anyGrammys, I don't have any
Platinum Records.
Um, but what I do have is thisthe the knowledge that I've put
(37:03):
people on a firm foundation uhfor future success by giving
them some of their earlyexperiences in the music
business.
And that is really uh a greatfeeling to have.
And so I think that's you itgets back to that idea of
community, and I really lovethat you said that.
That's so cool.
Um, you know, I I wanna I wannaI know we've we we're probably
(37:25):
starting to run short on time,but I wanted to to talk a little
bit about um, you know, thealgorithms.
We we've we've touched on that,um, and I do feel that um, you
know, uh we've everybody it'seasy to beat up on Spotify and
everybody does.
And so uh I'm gonna I'm gonnado it because it's easy.
(37:47):
So it's but but I mean in allseriousness, like you know,
that's I had a guest on theother week who's uh chartered on
Billboard and uh you know uhhas a couple Grammy uh
nominations and and stuff likethat.
And you know, he has made thedecision.
Um, and he he owns his ownrecord label, which is you know
an imprint, he's the only personon it.
(38:08):
Uh, but he's made the decisionfor his new record uh to produce
it on vinyl in a box set withan illustrated book and to
provide an experience, and uhyou can't stream it.
Um what are your thoughts ongoing in that direction these
(38:29):
days?
Like going, you know, moreexperience versus you know uh
the the the the the sort oftropes that we've been tricked
into to pursuing.
Ariel Hyatt (38:43):
I think that that's brilliant.
It's brilliant.
It's saying I make art, I'm anartist, and art should not be
0.003 cents.
That's what it's saying.
That's what it's saying.
Joey Stuckey (39:00):
I love it.
Ariel Hyatt (39:02):
And you also have to be okay with I'm only going
to sell as many as I can getpeople to buy, right?
I mean, that is true.
Joey Stuckey (39:13):
Yeah.
Ariel Hyatt (39:14):
And so as long as you're okay with that, and as
long as you're good at sales andgood at doing the setup and
good at the journey that that'sgonna take you on, I I think
that that is a wonderful thingto do.
It's bringing back a formatthat likely his fans love, and
it will probably prove to be areally rewarding experience to
(39:39):
put the music out the way thathe's gonna choose to do it.
I just got off the phone with anewer client.
His name is Mark Duffy, he's anincredible singer-songwriter,
and he is also having thoughtsabout not wanting to put his
music on Spotify.
We're going with Bandcamp.
And you know, I think Bandcampis one of the most exciting
(40:03):
platforms on the internet.
It's like the the world'sbiggest online record store, and
you can browse and you can paywhat you want, and it's it's a
good medium, it's a happy mediumbetween give it all away or
not.
But I think this is somethingthat artists do need to
consider.
Like, how am I going to make astand that I'm not okay with the
(40:25):
way that things have beengoing?
And how am I going to claw backpeople's attention, people's
money, people's support,people's camaraderie?
It's it's not the easy way todo it, right?
The easy way is you pay a bunchof fake bots to do it and then
wave the numbers around.
(40:46):
But I think at the end of theday, you feel empty if if that's
the only choice you've made foryour marketing.
So I am into that vision thatyour that your client and your
friend has about that vinyl, andI think it's a great choice.
Joey Stuckey (41:04):
Yeah, I I just I love the fact that he's uh he's
decided on an experience thatyou have to actively seek, that
you have to, you know,participate in.
And he's I mean, he's you knowmade these box sets lovingly
with so much care andcraftsmanship.
And you know, he's he's youknow hired the best musicians,
(41:26):
and he's he's also a graphicartist, and and you know, uh
started as an art school guy andthen you know started playing
guitar and all this stuff.
It really is brilliant.
Um Grant Malloy Smith's hisname, by the way.
Oh yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
So Grant's Grant's uh fine, afine fellow.
He started the IndyCollaborative, you're probably
aware of him.
Um and and you know, and youknow, the the other thing I
(41:47):
would say is would would you uhwould you agree with the
statement that we have in theWestern world, uh Europe is not
as bad as we are here in theStates in my mind, but uh made
music more uh dispensable andless integral uh as part of our
(42:16):
social uh you knowconsciousness.
I it just feels to me like thestreaming has, and I again it's
easy to beat up on the streamingguys, and and you know, I I I
will acknowledge that, but I Ijust feel like almost the
ubiquitous nature of it has madeit you know just something that
(42:38):
we don't treasure as muchbecause when I was a kid in the
80s, and you know, we would wewould go and once a week or so,
um everybody would take theirallowance and go to the record
store and we'd all get togetherfor hours on a Friday night and
sit there and everybody wouldplay their record.
And sometimes we playsomebody's record twice.
(43:00):
And as a blind child who had nobusiness trying to move a
needle on a turntable, I cantell you I personally believe I
bought Michael Jackson at leastone house because I had to read
that thriller record a bunchbecause I scratched it up so
bad.
But anyway, I mean, I I don'tknow if you had the similar
experience, but I I missed thosedays.
And I, and I, you know, I my mysweet wife um at least pretends
(43:25):
that she thinks I'm reasonableand normal.
And um, I will literally buy arecord that I'm excited about.
And I say record, I mean CD orwhatever, but I will buy one and
you know, I will wait until Ihave 45 minutes to myself to
actually sit down and listen toit from start to finish.
Now, that doesn't mean that Idon't consume music on my phone
(43:47):
all day long because I have to.
Someone says I want to soundlike a Dell, I gotta know what
that means.
So, you know, I I I I doconsume music via the lazy path
of streaming, but I just wonder.
If you feel like there's been ashift away from that integral
sort of nature that music usedto have, or at least I feel like
(44:11):
it used to have.
Ariel Hyatt (44:13):
Yes.
And you're not crazy.
And it's actually true.
This is what has happened.
Music is no longer the maincourse.
It's like a side dish.
And I think part of that isabsolutely the fact that
everybody can just get as muchof it as they want.
But we also have to rememberthe way that people's brains are
wired now.
Their attention spans are down.
(44:35):
And you know, short formcontent is up.
And so it's very hard to getpeople to sit and appreciate
something that's only audio.
I I'll never forget.
I have a Miss Pac-Man like fromthe from the 80s, like the real
video game.
Joey Stuckey (44:54):
Oh, my wife was a champ.
Ariel Hyatt (44:56):
Me too.
Yeah.
So when I made my first moneythat I didn't have to pay a bill
with, I I went and I boughtthis arcade game because I I
love it.
So I had it, I still have it inmy house.
And my my friend's son, he'snow in his 20s, but he was about
nine or ten.
He came over one day and we wewere having a and a little
party.
And his father said, Oh, thisis a Miss Pac-Man machine.
(45:18):
And we set him up and he putthe quarters in.
He's playing the game, and heplayed it one or two times.
And then he looked up at us andhe said, Well, where are the
other games?
And we were like, Nope, this isthis is the one game.
Joey Stuckey (45:34):
This is not, you know, happy with these gods, but
what?
Exactly.
Ariel Hyatt (45:37):
He was just so used to like, you know, there should
be five or six hundred morechoices.
So this is the problem.
We're overwhelmed with choice.
It the singles world is nothelpful for asking someone to
listen to 14 tracks and get intoa concept album.
Music being listened to in thebackground, like I'm working to
this, I'm studying to this, I'msleeping to this, I'm having
(45:58):
dinner to this.
Joey Stuckey (45:59):
Yeah.
Ariel Hyatt (46:00):
It makes it passive and not active.
You know, all of that is badfor making music the main
experience.
And unfortunately, there's somany things vying for our
attention.
Streaming, I mean, how manywonderful TV shows are there to
stream on every you've got Hulu,you've got Netflix, you've got
(46:22):
HBO, all of it.
I mean, it's insane.
Joey Stuckey (46:24):
Don't forget Disney.
Yeah.
Ariel Hyatt (46:25):
Don't forget Disney and Apple.
Joey Stuckey (46:27):
Yeah, yeah.
Ariel Hyatt (46:27):
You know, all of that is vying for the attention
that you might have spentsitting listening to an album.
And so the world has changed,unfortunately, and we're never
going to get those things back.
And I think artists know this.
And we also have to think aboutwhat is the multi-hyphenite
(46:50):
piece that you're going to addinto your music that's going to
keep up with the fact thatpeople now expect and crave a
little bit more.
Joey Stuckey (47:05):
Gotcha.
I I have two last questions foryou, and I'll let you go.
They're sympatico, I think.
So um the the thing is when,and this is this is a uh
question because I firmlybelieve for whatever this is
worth, uh, that uh people shouldhire you immediately.
Um and and I really um uh Ibecause I I've always been a
(47:27):
good uh uh not that I haven'tmade mistakes, but I've always
been a fairly good judge ofcharacter and and and content uh
pretty easily.
And and I can tell that you'rethoughtful and passionate, and
that is absolutely missioncritical to have someone partner
with you to help you uhnavigate the waters uh of the
music industry or any industry.
Uh you really have to build ateam.
(47:48):
You cannot do it all byyourself, um, not for any
sustainable amount of time.
Um but what is what is yourlike average?
I'm not saying pricing oranything like that, but like
what does the average campaignlook like these days?
When I went to school formarketing the first time, um you
(48:09):
know, that was a that was the90s, so half of that stuff
doesn't apply anymore.
When I continued my educationby going to Berkeley online,
studying music business, halfthe stuff I learned there
doesn't apply anymore becausethings have changed so much the
past two to three years.
I mean, like what what kind ofstrategies are people needing to
(48:29):
commit to these days, uh, asfar as like general ideas of
budget, general amounts of timethat they they put forward uh in
in you know releasing new musicor or even just maintaining
their momentum?
Ariel Hyatt (48:45):
This is the thing that's crazy right now, is that
answer varies depending on theartist.
Joey Stuckey (48:50):
Yeah.
Ariel Hyatt (48:50):
So the thing that I don't want artists to think or
do is buy into the buzzmarketing narrative, which is I
have the thing, I now I need togo viral on TikTok, now I need
to have a hundred thousand playsor a hundred thousand streams,
or I, or it doesn't count.
So the problem with all of thebuzz marketing stuff is it's
(49:12):
brainwashed us into believingthat 200 or 300 or 500 of
something isn't enough.
And so that that's the firstthing I think we should all
focus on when it comes tomarketing.
The value of a real fan isdifferent than the value of an
empty dopamine hit.
(49:32):
And so that's where we startwith any kind of marketing plan
that we begin to put together.
Again, you nailed it when youtalked to me about what you
perceive I do and what mypodcast is talking about.
My podcast right now isunpacking the philosophies in
Buzz to Bond, which by the way,Buzz to Bond is is just like a
little, it's 66 pages long, alot of it's got a lot of
(49:55):
pictures.
It's not a deep book.
It's really a philosophy.
And the reason why it is is Ijust wanted people to have a
mind shift.
And so the mind shift is aboutlike, okay, we know that buzz
marketing is like gorgingyourself on potato chips.
It's you're you're gonna feelbad when you're done.
You're gonna feel bad.
(50:15):
Yeah.
I mean, you might feel good fora few minutes, but then you got
a stomachache and you've got abad idea.
Joey Stuckey (50:19):
Yeah, and then you're like, why did I do this?
Ariel Hyatt (50:21):
Why did I do this?
I I should probably eat asalad.
Yeah.
You know, the salad takes moreeffort.
But the so every marketingstory is different.
The first thing I like to do isstart with what the artist can
bear and what the artist feelsgood about doing, because so
many artists come to me.
A lot of my artists are older.
(50:42):
They don't want to get in frontof TikTok 43 times a week.
That's not how they're gonnasucceed.
I say, great, let's do thething that feels good.
Are you a long-form writer?
Let's write some long-formpieces of content and let's make
a blog or a travel journal.
Are you into going and makinglive music?
(51:07):
Let's make, let's record one ofyour shows.
You don't have to buy into thelike stupid TikTok trend.
You can absolutely recordyourself in the studio and cut
that up and make little videos.
Like, there's plenty of ways toreverse engineer what it is you
like to do.
And the next part of thejourney is about aligning with
(51:32):
are you gonna be okay with thekind of marketing that we do?
There are so many marketingcompanies right now, and so many
people with differentphilosophies and different ways
of helping artists get exposure.
And no one way is right.
And so that is a huge thingthat we do at my company is we
say, okay, the thing that youwill take with you forever is
(51:56):
understanding what your brandpillars are.
The thing that you will takewith you forever is
understanding how to figure outwho your fan base is.
Because the minute you pick upyour phone or turn on your
computer, there are billions ofopportunities out there, but you
don't need billions of anythingto succeed.
So the question is, how clearare you about your inner compass
(52:21):
as an artist?
Obviously, your art and yourmusic comes first, but then
there's a lot that goes intofiguring out how to stay solid
because this thing that we callthe music business, music
marketing, music production, allof it, it's not even called
pivoting anymore, which you sobeautifully spoke about is like
(52:42):
you have to keep learning andlearning new things.
Everything you learned atBerkeley seven years ago likely
doesn't exist anymore, or it'schanged so radically.
But what never changes isunderstanding your brand,
understanding your fans, andunderstanding how to connect
those two things.
So that is a huge part of whatwe do, and that's the core of
(53:03):
anyone that's good at marketing.
And Seth Godin is still theking of marketing, and I think
his philosophy of the meatballSunday is something all artists
should consider, which is yourart is a beautiful Sunday,
right?
You have a banana and you havesome ice cream and you have
beautiful whipped cream, andmaybe you like butterscotch or
(53:24):
chocolate sauce or strawberries,but then marketing can often be
like a giant greasy meatballwith tomato sauce.
And you're taking yourbeautiful Sunday and you're
shoving a big meatball on top ofit, and that is not gonna taste
good.
So not appealing.
Not appealing, not notappealing at all.
But I love that because so manyartists make the sundae and
(53:48):
then they buy into the meatballbuzz marketing crazy.
Yeah.
And then all of a suddenthey're sitting here with a big
plate of mess, wondering whynothing works.
Joey Stuckey (53:57):
So that is that is beautifully put.
And and your book, I'massuming, is available
everywhere you can buy books,Amazon and such.
Ariel Hyatt (54:04):
Absolutely.
It's it's on Amazon.
It's called From Buzz to Bond,or you can buy it right at my
website at cyberpr.com.
Joey Stuckey (54:11):
Which would be even better.
And the last question I'm andI'm I'm gonna admit that I'm
setting you up here.
So I'm just I'm telling youahead of time.
Uh, real quick thoughts onartificial intelligence in the
music space.
Oh boy, this is I have I'vegotten some wonderful answers,
and some of them were uh we'llsay colorful, and we left them
(54:32):
in because I agreed, but it wasI've had some great.
Ariel Hyatt (54:35):
Yeah, so so I'll tell you this, Joey.
I'm really happy I'm not onyour side of the desk because
this is where the reckoning ishappening, right?
It's like right now we have amillion tracks a week coming up
on Spotify, and that is like aninsane number.
Joey Stuckey (54:50):
That's crazy.
Ariel Hyatt (54:51):
It is only gonna get worse, right?
It's gonna get it's gonna getworse, it's gonna get worse,
it's gonna get because of AImusic.
I am an actual proponent forusing AI to do the things that
suck artists lifeblood away fromthem.
For example, writing 12different versions of Instagram
(55:13):
captions, figuring out how totitle an email so that people
will actually open it.
How to craft a press releasethat you need to put out for
your next tour.
These are all things thatClaude is fabulous at.
Joey Stuckey (55:31):
And I think artists are definitely the most
sophisticated for sure.
Yeah.
Ariel Hyatt (55:34):
Artists should 100% use LLMs to help them route
their tours, figure out the bestway to market, figure out how
to use it as your thinkingpartner because it is the best
unpaid intern you could have.
Joey Stuckey (55:51):
Yeah.
Ariel Hyatt (55:52):
So I think when you when you look at AI and all the
scary things as far as like thecreation of the art, that's one
story.
But using it for giving youback the hours of your life that
you're going to spend zhuzing aLinkedIn post, I'm here for it.
Joey Stuckey (56:14):
I love that.
I I mean, you know, myperspective is is essentially
the same as yours, uh, as far asum the idea that it has its
lane.
Um and and, you know, for me,um I think that if you can use
it sort of as a virtualassistant, that seems to have
value.
Uh, I think as a blind person,if it can be my eyes and tell me
(56:37):
stuff uh that I can't see, I'mall about it.
I've actually been preaching,you know, about moving to AI as
the primary accessible solutionfor the blind for about six,
seven years, um, and saying,let's get away from these screen
readers that have so manyflaws.
And not that I'm not grateful,but you know, the easy things
can defeat a screen reader,different colors and and things
(56:59):
like that.
And so, you know, it it I'm allabout it.
And then when it comes to AIbeing an artiste, uh I feel
less, I have less positivefeelings about that.
Uh and I I would like to sayI'm not a Luddite, but the thing
is, I mean, you know, I just Iwant AI to stay in its lane.
I don't want to be murdered bymy toaster.
(57:19):
Um, you know, I want, I want, Iwant Isaac Asimov's three laws
of robotics.
Uh, you know, I feel like uh,and I'm a I'm a governor of the
Grammy chapter here in inGeorgia, and you know, we
definitely have some advocacythat we do.
Um, and we we definitely feel,and I can't speak for the
recording academy, of course.
I'm speaking as myself, but I'msaying that uh, you know, I
(57:41):
definitely feel like federallegislation to put guardrails on
things uh is an appropriateidea.
Uh and then you look at some ofthe scary, weird tech
manifestos that are coming fromsome of the AI companies, and
you're like, okay, wow, thisguy's read too much Nietzsche.
You know, so it's just youknow, it's a whole thing.
But I, you know, I'm I'm withyou in that it it does have you
(58:03):
know value.
And we even for this podcast,um uh I don't do it because I I
got I I I del I love todelegate.
I gave it to somebody else inmy team to do, but you know, we
we take um we take the the thepodcast and throw it into Claude
and then have it chew up adescription of the episode.
Ariel Hyatt (58:21):
Show notes, show notes.
Yeah, I've been making podcastsfor you know since 2008.
Show notes used to take me halfa day.
Oh god, yeah.
It's terrible.
Joey Stuckey (58:30):
And you know, as for me as a blind guy, like if I
want to check punctuation, Ihave to go back and read letter
by letter on the screen.
It takes forever.
So I can't, you know, justglance at it and check.
I have to literally listen toevery letter of every word.
Oh my God, it makes me want tostart day drinking.
It's awful.
I and by the way, but blind anddrunk are not things I
(58:53):
advocate.
So I don't, I don't day drink,but there are times that I've
thought about starting.
But anyway, but that's yeah,that's it.
I I think you have such a wiseuh perspective.
And I'm so grateful that youtook the time to share it with
me today on the podcast.
And and it's just been a trueprivilege and pleasure to get a
chance to know you a little bitand and hear some of these these
(59:14):
these uh words of wisdom andand uh and and just I'm so
grateful you're out there in thetrenches keeping keeping things
moving.
Ariel Hyatt (59:22):
Thank you.
And it's so nice to hear yourstory.
And I think that your story andmy story, if you delve in with
anyone who's working in ourindustry, we're all connected in
this very same way.
Joey Stuckey (59:35):
Yeah, and you know, I come to New York from
time to time.
Next time I'm in town, I willcall you and and my wife and I
will come and we'll we'll grabdinner or something and I will
um even my treat.
So there you go.
Look at that.
Ariel Hyatt (59:45):
Oh, I would love it.
I'm getting a podcast interviewand dinner.
I love it.
I love it.
Joey Stuckey (59:49):
I love it.
Hey, that that almost soundslike a movie.
Uh patent pending.
All right, I'll hide.
I love it.
Thank you, thank you, thankyou.
And uh make sure you check outall of the fantastic guests
we've had here on Stuck onSound.
If you are in the musicindustry, an artist, you want to
talk about technology and thebusiness of music, there are
(01:00:10):
fascinating people for you todiscover right here on Stuck on
Sound.
And you can find it whereveryour podcasts are consumed or by
just going towww.stuckonsound.com.
Welcome once again to Stuck on Sound, a podcast
for nerds by nerds, and we areproud of it.
And I have one of someone thatI have followed for years.
I have been in the same spacesuh with her, but never got a
chance to actually shake herhand and meet her in person.
But she is one of, in my mind,the most important voices in the
(00:23):
music community uh today andand has been for probably 20
years.
And it's Ariel Hyatt.
And I was just so excited toget chance to talk to you today,
my friend.
Thanks for coming on.
Ariel Hyatt (00:32):
My pleasure.
Thank you for such a nice warmintroduction.
It's so nice to know anyone'sbeen paying attention for all
these years.
Joey Stuckey (00:39):
Oh, I pay attention.
I ain't doing nothing butlistening.
Uh seriously, I I'm I reallymean it.
Uh I I want to talk to youabout so many things, and I
could literally talk for hours,but we we won't.
But um I want to start with youon something um that it's a
burning question for me.
And we we have several uhpieces of wisdom of yours that I
(01:03):
want to want to have you takeus through a little in just a
moment.
But I do always like to startoff with how you got into this
absolutely nutty business thatwe are in.
Now, I have uh uh justdissected your bio and checked
it out, and it seems to me thatyour parents were a big part of
you doing what you do.
(01:24):
Uh, but I'd like you just totell me a little bit about that
and and just how you foundyourself, you know, in this
entertainment space.
Ariel Hyatt (01:32):
Amazing.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Okay.
So, yes, you're right.
I do come very luckily from ahome where the arts was the most
important thing.
A lot of people come fromsports houses where, you know,
football teams or playing sportswas the thing.
At my house, it was theater andarts.
And I had two parents who wereextremely committed to being
(01:58):
patrons of the arts.
And we weren't, you know,zillionaires or anything, but I,
you know, I think anyone thatappreciates art is a patron of
the arts.
And so so that was the kind ofhousehold I grew up in where
anyone that was a creator,whether it was a visual artist
or a musician or a theaterperson, was the most important
(02:21):
kind of person.
My dad was a filmmaker, mymother ran a children's theater
as her first career.
And so I'm I feel very luckythat I I got brought up in a
place where the arts werereally, really revered as like
the the ultimate way that anyhuman could express themselves.
And I had as a child dyslexia.
(02:46):
And I was studying at or I wassent to a very elite private
school, which is what we did inthe 80s in New York, because
public schools here were notwhat they are today.
And they threw me out of theschool in second grade because I
couldn't read at the same rateas everyone else.
And clearly I was very smart,they said, but I I couldn't
(03:10):
make, I couldn't make it in thepack with everyone else.
And my parents were worriedthat this was happening, and
they went on a quest to help melearn.
And I got connected to abrilliant tutor who figured out
that everything was confusing asfar as math and reading and
(03:32):
science, but I loved music.
And I in my music class, I wasso confused by looking at the
notes, that was crazy.
But I had a really good ear andI had a perfect pitch.
And so she started teaching mehow to read and do arithmetic
and write and organize the worldthrough singing and music.
(03:56):
So this is my very long answerto a very short question of how
did you arrive here?
I I arrived here because musicfor me was the way the world
makes sense.
Joey Stuckey (04:09):
I and I love this.
So that is so perfect.
And I'm I am I'm thrilled bythis answer.
It's very poignant and verypowerful.
And I I had a feeling in myheart that you had to be some
kind of musician, althoughthat's not kind of your your, I
guess, your day job, for lack ofa better word, but uh, but it
(04:32):
but it I had I had a feelingbecause you had such an
understanding of what it meansto be an artist and you're
helping other artists to dotheir thing, I I felt like there
had to be some kind ofbackground of music for you.
Now, did did you, you know,everybody knows you as uh an
author of books, uh, you know, aconsultant, a strategist uh for
(04:57):
the music industry.
But I mean, were you an artistin your own right?
Did you did you try this crazything of putting out records and
stuff like that yourself beforeyou got into into helping
others?
Ariel Hyatt (05:08):
I did not.
So I I did follow my parents intheir footsteps, and I went to
college for theater.
I was a theater major, and Isang in the a cappella singing
group, both of them, both thethe all-female group and the
co-ed group, all the way upthrough college.
And I always dated the bassplayer.
(05:29):
That was my thing.
Um, and no, I I sort of watchedhim and all his friends, you
know, going for it and startingbands.
And I thought, you know, that'snot really for me.
And I didn't want to pursueacting because, again, as a
dyslexic, when you go to anaudition, you are tasked with
(05:52):
memorizing very quickly apassage, a script, a scene.
And that's not something that Icould do off book.
And and so as a theater major,I kept getting passed over for
all the roles because I didn'taudition well.
So I would be in the chorus orI would be, you know, a
(06:15):
whatever, I'd get a role, but itwould be a minor role.
And the director would alwayssay to me at the end of the run,
I don't know why you weren'tthe star of this play, because
you you really are great.
Joey Stuckey (06:25):
You got it, yeah.
Ariel Hyatt (06:26):
And I would say, well, the reason is I couldn't
deliver on the day that you weresupposed to deliver.
So um I graduated with myliberal arts degree in theater,
which which was you know goodfor almost nothing in the world.
Joey Stuckey (06:41):
I understood.
Ariel Hyatt (06:42):
And a and a giant passion for so I discovered
growing up in New York City wasamazing in the 80s because CBGBs
and limelight, and there wereso many incredible all ages, and
they didn't actually cardanyway, but I I could go and see
music.
I could see music any night ofthe week.
(07:03):
On the night I graduated highschool, I saw the stray cats
tear down, tear down the oldwrits.
So I I started seeing music ata really young age, and it was
so thrilling to see live music.
And so when I graduated, mymother was a career consultant,
and she said, Well, what are yougonna do?
And I said, Well, I want to bein the record business.
(07:25):
I want to be in music.
And so my mother called the oneperson she actually knew, who
she had known for many years,Mr.
Clive Davis.
And and guess what?
Clive didn't call us back.
He was not he was not jumpingat the idea of employing a brand
(07:46):
new theater major.
So um so we had we took thatone shot and that was it.
And then I I started likeeveryone else in the music
industry, taking unpaidinternships and my journey there
commenced.
So that was it.
Joey Stuckey (08:03):
I, you know, it's funny because I mean, listen, I
I'm um I'm gonna be honest withyou, I am uh lovingly brutal to
my interns.
And uh I I do like to throwthem in and watch them swim.
However, I promise them that Iwill never A, ask them to do
something I have not done, or B,put them in a position to fail.
If I ask them to do something,it's because I know they can't.
(08:24):
So that's you know, I but I do,I do think that uh, you know,
you gotta work the interns alittle bit.
Uh it's kind of a fun rite ofpassage, I feel.
It's it's interesting uh whatyou said um about the the
theater, because uh as a blindperson myself, reading obviously
is a big issue.
(08:46):
And uh when I was a kid, uhthere was no ADA, there was, you
know, kid of the I we're Iwe're I'm imagining roughly the
same age.
I never ask a lady her agebecause I was raised right.
Uh so uh the uh but I mean youknow that that was a problem for
me to be a classically trainedmusician and to play orchestral
music because that too is asight reading kind of gig.
(09:08):
You you go in, you you have onerehearsal, you read, then the
next day you play.
And for me to do that wouldhave been an enormous amount of
prior memorization on my part,spending many, many, many hours
uh and not being paid wellenough to take that time.
So I did something similar inthe sense that I went to jazz
(09:31):
and rock and stuff whereimprovisation uh was prized, and
I can do that.
And and then I also made myselfthe band leader so I didn't
have to follow anybody else.
So, you know, it's I I likewhat you're saying because it's
it's the similar ethic that Icome from of finding an
alternative way to do things.
(09:52):
Yeah.
Um and and you know, I don'tknow if you've had this same
experience, but um I ended up,you know, being a business owner
pretty early uh because nothingI wanted was available, so I
had to make it.
And um, and so how how long inyour journey was it?
Uh all that to ask you thequestion of how long in your
(10:13):
journey was it before you said,I gotta hang my own shingle out.
This is, you know, I need to dodo this.
Ariel Hyatt (10:19):
Yeah.
So what you just saidcompletely resonates with me.
And I think this is also atrait of all creative people and
artists is that they see theworld differently and they do
things differently.
And for people like you andpeople like me, we had to figure
out our edge.
Joey Stuckey (10:38):
Yes.
Ariel Hyatt (10:39):
And we had to figure out how do you make it
leaning into that edge.
And I it it's extraordinarythat that's your story because
that that is really also mystory.
So yes, it was the very late80s um when I started college.
I won't say my age, but that'llgive you a sense.
(11:00):
So um grunge was reigningsupreme when I graduated from
university.
And I got a job working for ajob.
It was $68 a week as a paidintern working for one of the
top uh music publicists in theworld.
And she had these incredibleclients, Sting, Peter Gabriel,
(11:24):
In Excess, Tina Turner.
And I got I got a front rowseat to like what that looks
looks like.
And then um I I had thispassion for a little band called
The Samples.
And I I found their recordlabel.
I I had studied at Universityof Colorado Boulder, and the
(11:45):
samples were huge then.
And I got a job working at whatare records.
So that was my first job in ascrappy indie record label.
And interestingly, we're onthis topic.
The owner of that record label,his name is Rob Gordon.
He had come from the majors andhad been an AR guy, and very
(12:08):
similar story.
He was a Ritalin kid.
He was like a kid who had somuch energy and and like was a
savant when it came to playing.
He actually, his first bandthat he played in was with Trey
from Fish.
You know, he was this likeextraordinary musician and
extraordinary in the studio andgreat years.
Anyway, he at a very young agefounded his record label and he
(12:32):
had 12 of us and we were workingour butts off.
And that was that was how I cutmy teeth.
And he was, it was an amazingplace to understand how the
music business worked because hebuilt his own distribution
system, he cut out all themiddlemen, he had a street
marketing team that was hired byall the majors because we were
(12:54):
so scrappy and so good at whatwe did.
And he moved us from New YorkCity to Boulder to be closer to
the band that we weresupporting.
And the band blew up.
It was it was incredible.
So I had a front row seat tothat.
And then I very quickly gotanother offer, and I was a
concert, I was working for aconcert promoter for a year, and
(13:17):
I got a front row seat to whatit looks like to rip off artists
for a living and to play thatsort of brutal game.
It was so toxic.
My boss at the time uh drew agun on me in a meeting.
Joey Stuckey (13:30):
Oh my God.
Ariel Hyatt (13:31):
There were drug dealers and scalpers coming in
the doors all day long.
I mean, it was like it was, itwas like real edgy stuff.
And that it was veryinteresting to um to to take
that job, but I I wasn't longfor that position.
And so you're right, at a veryyoung age, age 23, I I decided
(13:54):
to hang my own shingle out.
It all started at Kinkos.
I made my own in the middle ofthe night, I made my own
business cards, and the verynext day I got on an airplane
and I flew to South bySouthwest.
It was 1996.
And I I roamed the streets ofAustin and I saw some of the
most incredible bands, and Ihanded out my little orange
(14:17):
business card, and I named mycompany REL Publicity, and I
declared that I was in business.
I love this.
Joey Stuckey (14:24):
And I and and uh even the blind man knows that an
orange card is gonna stand out.
I mean, that's that's a good,that's great.
I mean, that's fantastic.
Well, I and you know, I I haveto say I do love your name.
I mean, it it has such a niceartistic vibe to it, uh, and I
think that's cool.
What why did you you've you'veI guess the the company that I
(14:44):
know and that I that I've beenfollowing, you know, Cyber PR
and you know, uh is it did whatwas the what was the change
there?
Was it a change in services?
Was it a change in strategy?
What was the you know, what wasthe change from you from that
initial orange card?
Ariel Hyatt (14:59):
Yeah, so the Ariel publicity brand served me
very well for the first sevenyears of my life, and by the
way, named after Shakespeare.
So true to the uh theaterfamily that I have.
Joey Stuckey (15:10):
I think that's highly appropriate.
That's awesome.
Ariel Hyatt (15:12):
But I did decide that it's hard to be if you're
if you're running a company andit everybody expects your name
is the name on the door and it'sthe only name, it's it's really
hard.
If anyone else comes to thephone, everybody would want to
speak to me.
So I thought that's smart.
And I was getting into thedigital world.
I had an early entree to thedigital space because the kind
(15:35):
of artists I was representing asmostly a traditional publicist
was indies, all indies.
And this was during a time whenDIY and independent wasn't what
it is today at all.
It was basically an outliersbusiness.
And my clients at the time, ifyou had a CD, you had to work
(15:57):
really hard to get that CD.
It was an expensive thing to goout, record, and produce a CD.
So most of most of my clientsin those early days were hugely
touring bands that were makingfull-time livings on the road.
So I did that.
I was a tour publicist, and thebeginning of the death toll of
(16:19):
classic media was beginning tohappen.
And my artists were the canaryin the coal mines.
I was beginning to see reallyearly on, I, you know, I would
have a band coming on tour,completely independent, maybe
signed to a very tiny indie orthe or doing it all themselves.
And all these amazingjournalists that I'd gotten to
(16:39):
know at the small newspapers,and every single city in America
had at least four or fivenewspapers.
You had two dailies, and eachdaily had a pop writer, a jazz
writer, and often a classicalwriter.
And then you had a weeklyalternative paper, and then you
had tertiary papers.
So you had community, maybe youhad like a Jewish paper, an
(17:01):
Irish paper, you know, a women'spaper, a gay paper.
So at any, at any town, I wasliterally hitting 10 or 15
different newspapers.
And so all of a sudden, therewas a giant shift and the
editors started folding.
So the one, the one editor ateach newspaper started becoming
(17:24):
the music editor, doing theclassical and the jazz and the
pop.
Or even worse, the AP, theassociated press feeds were now
taking over the local musicscene.
And so I'll never forget it.
I called, I think it was likethe Cincinnati local paper.
And the writer there had alwaysbeen amazing to me.
(17:45):
And we were always, he wasalways interviewing my bands,
and I said, I've got this greatband coming through town, you
know.
And he said, Well, I can't.
I'm interviewing Elton John.
I thought, why would a tinylittle newspaper be interviewing
an international superstar?
And that's when I realized mylittle clients were not gonna
(18:06):
have a shot at a world wherethere were fewer and fewer
column inches for them.
Yeah.
So I turned to the internet.
I turned to the internet and itwas like, okay, we need to
figure out uh an alternative.
Like where where are the wherewhere are the opportunities for
(18:26):
for bands?
And I started exploring theworld of music blogs and online.
They weren't even called musicblogs, they were called web
zines.
Joey Stuckey (18:36):
I remember I do.
I've been a writer for some ofthose web zines.
Yeah, I you're this is reallyfascinating because um I've been
I've been in media as abyproduct um for a long time.
I've hosted TV shows and radioshows.
And you know, now we're like,oh, it's you past time for you
(18:56):
to do the podcast and blah blah.
And you know, I've been printjournal and all this stuff,
journalists and all this stuff,but but only because um, you
know, you have to wear a bunchof hats to make a living in the
music business.
And uh, you know,unfortunately, you know, really
what we do um is communicate.
I mean, that's that's whatmusic is, it's a form of
communication.
So if you're good atcommunicating, typically you can
(19:19):
you can move that intodifferent sort of boxes if you
need to.
But the the thing that I willsay is uh in today's world, I
would love to, I've got someother big questions for you, but
in today's world, I feel likewe've gone back to this, even
it's so hard to get someone towrite a review, uh to to do uh
(19:39):
an interview with an artist umeven online now.
So I mean, what what do youthink about the media space
today?
I mean, is it is it are we backwhere where we were when with
the independent papers startedfolding?
Or what what is what is it likeout there?
Uh, you know, trying to getcolumn, I mean, for lack of a
better word, column inches.
I mean, it's you know, it seemsit seems really difficult to
(20:02):
get to get one uh a column thatthat moves the needle forward
anymore.
Ariel Hyatt (20:08):
Exactly.
You just said it and you saidit all.
It is almost impossible.
As we know, publicity hasbecome harder and harder to get.
It has become less and less amajor part of the strategy, and
all of these other things havetaken over, which is part of why
(20:28):
I wrote my new book and part ofwhat I've been obsessed with
recently, because what ishappening right now is so
overwhelming.
And I'm sure you've gotquestions about that.
But yes, this is the this isthe weirdest time publicity is,
(20:50):
I don't want to say it's a dyingart, but when you have
platforms like Submit Hub andGroover and MusoSoup and Play to
Play, and I mean there is aso-called PR firm that the only
thing they do is they do paidvertorial and they say, Okay,
you want, you want RollingStone, it's $3,000.
(21:11):
You want LA Weekly, it's$5,000.
You want and they're justselling paid vertorial.
Joey Stuckey (21:17):
And it depresses me.
Ariel Hyatt (21:18):
Oh boy, it is and and then you think about it, is
like if you're gonna go andinvest tens of thousands of
dollars in hiring a traditionalpublicist and they're gonna
pitch their brains out andthey're not gonna really get you
a top-tier result, well, youknow, you might as well pay
$3,000 and get the guaranteed.
And truly, the youngergenerations don't care.
(21:42):
So they don't care that it wasthey don't know the difference
between paid rotorial and realeditorial.
And the album review, as youand I knew it, sadly is a a real
dying art.
And the writing of music andthe describing music in words
is.
Is something that is now notreally as heavily lauded as it
(22:06):
once was.
I still do think musicpublicity has its place, but
yes, it the column inches arealmost impossible to get, and
it's so competitive now.
Joey Stuckey (22:16):
Well, it's it's it's yeah, I mean it really uh I
don't know how to say I meanthis sounds so melodramatic, but
it does.
It it breaks my heart becausethere was a time where you could
be transported to a differentplace and and begin to
understand an artist in aprofound way by someone that
(22:36):
really cared and wrote somethinguh interesting that would give
you uh either an insight intosomeone you already followed or
maybe encourage you to take asecond chance on a band that you
hadn't connected with yet.
I mean, it was I always, youknow, as a blind person, it was
hard for me to access those inthe print form, you know, uh of
(22:58):
a actual, you know, magazine.
But online when it first, whenwe first kind of started having
magazines online, uh, you know,there were there were people
that were really gifted writersthat were doing things.
And Joey would come along withhis clunky screen reader and be
able to read, you know, some ofthese articles and it'd be a lot
of fun.
Now you uh you've mentioned uhyour newest book or latest book,
(23:20):
I guess would be a better wayto say that.
And and that is um somethingthat we for sure should talk
about.
I want to tell you um whatgalvanized me to go, uh, I'm
gonna find um Ariel's uh I'mgonna find her email address and
I'm gonna bombard her until shesays she'll come on the show.
(23:42):
And uh I saw your new, I guesstechnically we should call it a
vlogcast uh podcast that'sthat's come out.
And you talk about these.
Um I mean, this is so profoundfor any artist that that's
that's out there, and that's youknow, primarily our target
audience here.
Um, you know, you you talkabout these, you have uh some
(24:04):
pillars that you talk about.
Um, you talk about um, youknow, uh I'm I'm paraphrasing
and not gonna say it as well asyou will, but you're talking
about understanding yourartistic voice, understanding
your identity, and and and thosethings are really important,
uh, understanding who your fansare.
Uh, and then, you know, one ofthe things I I love that you've
(24:26):
kind of said, um, and again,paraphrasing here, uh, you know,
it doesn't really matter whereyou are in your journey, it
doesn't really matter how oldyou are or or what.
I mean, there is a space foryou where you can find people
that resonate with what you aredoing.
And so I really love thatbecause I think um, you know,
(24:50):
with the death of some of thegatekeepers and the
proliferation of the ability touh you know upload content to
the universe, uh that's a goodthing, but obviously there's so
much noise that it's hard to getnoticed.
There's so much, you know, somany choices, and and those
(25:12):
choices aren't really beingcurated like they once were.
So, I mean, they, you know, youhave a negative, you have a
positive, you have a plus, youhave a minus.
And and from my perspective,um, you know, and I I mean this
with no uh ill will, but I meanthere are people that are
divorced from reality that areputting music out that really
shouldn't.
Uh and you know, if it makesthem happy, that's fine.
(25:35):
But there are there are therest of us who, you know, uh
slave away uh every every day,uh trying to trying to be
compelling.
And it's it's a real challenge.
And it's, you know, at somepoint I'm thinking, am I gonna
have to go sell my plasma?
Does it make ends meet today?
Um, but I I would love to getinto your book and into these
(25:56):
concepts that you're trying toum to share with artists while
at the same time uh making surepeople know that for the full
story they need to hire you.
Ariel Hyatt (26:07):
Wow.
Okay.
So the book is called From Buzzto Bond.
I love that.
Thank you.
The reason why I called it thatis something alarming has been
happening for the last over fiveyears in our industry, and that
is the obsession with thealgorithm.
Joey Stuckey (26:27):
Preach.
Ariel Hyatt (26:28):
Whether that is the TikTok algorithm, which is the
newest kid on the block, or themeta algorithms, or the Spotify
algorithms, we have all kowtowedand are now bowing down to the
Almighty algorithm because thatis what has proliferated as the
(26:50):
new golden goose.
And so what was happening to meis people were calling me, they
call me all the time.
I run an agency and you canfill out a form and talk to me
any day.
And I get on the phone withmore people than I should every
year, but I love this part ofthe journey.
And and I would say, What'sgoing on?
Tell me about your music, tellme about your career, tell me
(27:11):
about what's happening.
And the thing that I kepthearing was, well, I hired a
Spotify playlisting company andI got 100,000, 200,000, 500,000,
whatever.
Oh, I hired a social mediamarketing strategy firm and I
got tens of thousands ofthousands of people added to my
socials, but you know, and thenI'd start doing a deep dive, and
(27:33):
I'm like, okay, you don't singin Spanish.
Why are all your fans in SouthAmerica?
You're not South Asian.
Why is there a massive amountof people in Bangladesh
listening to you?
Like this is not making senseto me.
Like the the demographic ofpeople and what I'm seeing is
not relatable.
Like there is no, and then theother thing that was really
(27:53):
killing me was artists wouldcall and say, I've just worked
so hard.
I've just, you know, I theyalways hire a, and this is no
disrespect, but they start thejourney hiring above what they
should be paying to get theirmusic produced.
So they hired the, they hiredthe very fancy Grammy
Award-winning producer.
Cool.
Joey Stuckey (28:13):
Right.
Ariel Hyatt (28:13):
Then they went and they mixed and mastered it
somewhere fabulous at the topmastering guy.
Great.
You know, and you startthinking about how much money
this is costing, right?
Then they got their visualsdone by a fabulous photographer,
and then they hired a Spotifycompany and they got tens of
thousands of Spotify plays.
And then they tried to throw arecord release party or uh
(28:37):
something in their hometown andthey put 30 or 40 people in
their hometown.
Great.
And then they kept paying forthis terrible buzz marketing.
And they're a year in they'vegot a $20,000 to $100,000 bill
and no real fans, and they can'tdrive 40 minutes or two hours
away and put 20 butts on seats.
Joey Stuckey (29:01):
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's exactly right.
Ariel Hyatt (29:03):
And this was devastating to me.
You know, coming from where Icame from, this indie scrappy
record label where it was likeall about direct a fan and all
about, you know, how do we getthe samples?
50 new fans every time we gothrough town in a grassroots
sense.
I mean, we had a 50,000-personmailing list.
We were awesome.
And I mean mailing like paperand putting envelopes with
(29:27):
little welcome letters.
I that's what we did at myrecord label.
It was a long time ago.
But that ethos always stayedwith me.
Like the fan, the real fanwhose name you know, whose
address you know, whose city youknow, who you can talk to,
that's the valuable fan.
And everything everything thatI've said in From Buzz to Bond
(29:50):
is basically like, yes, hate thehate the game, not the player.
If we have to play the game,great.
Throw some money down on yourSpotify so it doesn't look like
you have, you know, 19 plays amonth.
Cool.
But if you want a sustainablecareer, if what lights you up is
being in a room and people arevibing with you and singing the
(30:12):
lyrics and clapping along andyou're touching and moving and
inspiring people in real life,you have got to do the bond
marketing.
And that is the piece that, youknow, all the labels went crazy
in 2024, 2025, and all we heardabout was super fan, super fan.
Superfans, this is not a newconcept.
(30:33):
Beethoven had super fans,right?
Joey Stuckey (30:36):
List.
Ariel Hyatt (30:37):
Right.
And so all of a sudden, andalso if you have been in the
industry for more than fiveminutes, you know that Kevin
Kelly wrote in defense of athousand true fans for Wired
magazine almost 20 freakingyears ago.
And yeah, I know, I know, Iknow.
It's awful.
It just keeps going.
But that, when I first heardthat philosophy all those years
(30:58):
ago, I I was like, I got chills.
I got chills.
Oh my gosh.
If you had a thousand fans andeach one of those fans paid you
$100, that's a hundred thousanddollars.
Like to me, that was asustainable path.
And as unsexy as that is, thatis, I think, the key if what
(31:20):
your goal is is to have actualreal fans.
Now look, no disrespect.
If you are totally into likegetting a million plays on
YouTube and you want to look atthe number and that makes you
happy, and that's your dopaminehit, and that makes you feel
like you've arrived, cool.
But my work and what I'mfascinated by and where I think
(31:42):
we need to go as a humanpopulation is into community, is
into bonding, is into touchingeach other because right now
we're just getting more and moreseparate.
Social media has ripped usapart.
It this loneliness epidemic isreal.
And I don't think that we feelany better after a two-hour
(32:07):
session on TikTok.
Joey Stuckey (32:08):
Oh, I listen, you this is absolutely you have hit
something that I think ismission critical.
Um, and that is that the arts,you know, I am the first to
admit that I take my role as anartist very seriously, maybe
(32:29):
even too seriously.
But the fact is, I feel like Ihave a responsibility to society
to promote new thoughtpatterns, to preserve the
history.
Um, and I think you candirectly measure the health of
any society by its artisticcontent.
I mean, it's it's you know,it's very plain to my mind that
(32:53):
a healthy, happy, thrivingculture is one that has the arts
at the center of its spiritualand moral, you know, uh place.
That's where it's functioningfrom.
And so, you know, we we meetyou're absolutely right.
I think I think the the thingabout social media, and you
know, everybody likes to beat upon it.
Uh uh it's it's easy to do.
(33:16):
But the fact is it really haspushed people into boxes, uh
separating people more than ithas brought them together.
And and uh, and that's a realproblem.
And and it's just it's so hardto fight.
And there's also um, you know,when you and I were young and
virile, uh when we were young,uh yeah, we we we were fine
(33:40):
without cell phones, we werefine without Facebook, but we
have been given this idea thatwe have to be bombarded
constantly by content and andbeen made to believe it.
And the fact is, I actuallyknow better and still get
suckered.
Ariel Hyatt (33:57):
Oh yeah, we don't know.
I mean, we we're we're youknow, we are a hundred percent
helpless.
Yeah, the people that designslot machines design the
algorithms.
Like, have you ever been haveyou ever been to Vegas?
Joey Stuckey (34:08):
And you know, I have and I have to I have to
tell you that I'm very sadbecause when I went as a child,
my dad actually they told himthat they when I was a very sick
child, almost died a bunch.
And so my parents like took meeverywhere they would go.
They would never leave me athome, and they always wanted me
to experience everything theworld had to offer.
And so they took me to Vegas aslike uh eight-year-old.
(34:29):
And uh the the people are like,You can't bring this child on
the floor.
And my dad said, Oh, he's uhhe's a little person, actually,
he's not a child, and uh whichof course wasn't true, but uh I
did play the slots and uh won 20bucks and was just thrilled
with the as a blind child tohear the sounds, all those coins
bouncing around.
Uh and now you get a littleticket, no coins, and so even
(34:54):
that has been taken anyway.
The uh even Vegas is ruined,but but kids are allowed
everywhere, so there's I knowwell you know uh well and the
thing, I mean it's just it'sjust so funny, but I I do I
really want to home in on thispoint because uh for me, and and
you know, as you absolutelysay, and and I and I I can't
believe I mean it sounds likewe've lived in each other's head
(35:16):
somehow because this is what Itell my clients as a producer.
Uh, look, dude, if if what youwant is limousines and cars, and
yeah, uh no, no shade.
That's that's cool.
If that's what makes you feelhappy, that is your privilege to
pursue that and to do that.
But I have always been aboutthe work.
I mean, the the work of themusic has always been enough for
(35:39):
me, and all I really want isthe opportunity to tell my
story, to sing my song, and forit to mean something to
somebody.
And I don't, I actually have asong I wrote called One Song at
a Time, which is the song that'sabout the idea that I am
content to change lives slowly,one person at a time, one song
(35:59):
at a time.
I feel fulfilled doing that.
I feel fulfilled talking topeople like yourself.
I feel fulfilled going to domaster classes at universities
or whatever, and talking about,you know, producing records and
you know, I mean, and and justyou know, just but it's that
idea of community that you hitupon that I think is the the
thing.
And that and that's really whatwe need to get back to uh
(36:21):
because you can find people whoare patrons of the arts for for
lack of a better word.
And you've kind of mentionedthat earlier in our conversation
when, you know, with yourfolks.
Uh you know, there it I thinkthat's what we have to find
again because it not only givesus you know meaning to what we
do and value to our time andeffort, but also people are
(36:42):
willing to part with their cashum to be part of what you're
doing, to help and to help youand to be proud of helping you.
Like it's a thrill for me.
I mean, I've worked with a fewlegendary artists over the
years, but I don't have anyGrammys, I don't have any
Platinum Records.
Um, but what I do have is thisthe the knowledge that I've put
(37:03):
people on a firm foundation uhfor future success by giving
them some of their earlyexperiences in the music
business.
And that is really uh a greatfeeling to have.
And so I think that's you itgets back to that idea of
community, and I really lovethat you said that.
That's so cool.
Um, you know, I I wanna I wannaI know we've we we're probably
(37:25):
starting to run short on time,but I wanted to to talk a little
bit about um, you know, thealgorithms.
We we've we've touched on that,um, and I do feel that um, you
know, uh we've everybody it'seasy to beat up on Spotify and
everybody does.
And so uh I'm gonna I'm gonnado it because it's easy.
(37:47):
So it's but but I mean in allseriousness, like you know,
that's I had a guest on theother week who's uh chartered on
Billboard and uh you know uhhas a couple Grammy uh
nominations and and stuff likethat.
And you know, he has made thedecision.
Um, and he he owns his ownrecord label, which is you know
an imprint, he's the only personon it.
(38:08):
Uh, but he's made the decisionfor his new record uh to produce
it on vinyl in a box set withan illustrated book and to
provide an experience, and uhyou can't stream it.
Um what are your thoughts ongoing in that direction these
(38:29):
days?
Like going, you know, moreexperience versus you know uh
the the the the the sort oftropes that we've been tricked
into to pursuing.
Ariel Hyatt (38:43):
I think that that's brilliant.
It's brilliant.
It's saying I make art, I'm anartist, and art should not be
0.003 cents.
That's what it's saying.
That's what it's saying.
Joey Stuckey (39:00):
I love it.
Ariel Hyatt (39:02):
And you also have to be okay with I'm only going
to sell as many as I can getpeople to buy, right?
I mean, that is true.
Joey Stuckey (39:13):
Yeah.
Ariel Hyatt (39:14):
And so as long as you're okay with that, and as
long as you're good at sales andgood at doing the setup and
good at the journey that that'sgonna take you on, I I think
that that is a wonderful thingto do.
It's bringing back a formatthat likely his fans love, and
it will probably prove to be areally rewarding experience to
(39:39):
put the music out the way thathe's gonna choose to do it.
I just got off the phone with anewer client.
His name is Mark Duffy, he's anincredible singer-songwriter,
and he is also having thoughtsabout not wanting to put his
music on Spotify.
We're going with Bandcamp.
And you know, I think Bandcampis one of the most exciting
(40:03):
platforms on the internet.
It's like the the world'sbiggest online record store, and
you can browse and you can paywhat you want, and it's it's a
good medium, it's a happy mediumbetween give it all away or
not.
But I think this is somethingthat artists do need to
consider.
Like, how am I going to make astand that I'm not okay with the
(40:25):
way that things have beengoing?
And how am I going to claw backpeople's attention, people's
money, people's support,people's camaraderie?
It's it's not the easy way todo it, right?
The easy way is you pay a bunchof fake bots to do it and then
wave the numbers around.
(40:46):
But I think at the end of theday, you feel empty if if that's
the only choice you've made foryour marketing.
So I am into that vision thatyour that your client and your
friend has about that vinyl, andI think it's a great choice.
Joey Stuckey (41:04):
Yeah, I I just I love the fact that he's uh he's
decided on an experience thatyou have to actively seek, that
you have to, you know,participate in.
And he's I mean, he's you knowmade these box sets lovingly
with so much care andcraftsmanship.
And you know, he's he's youknow hired the best musicians,
(41:26):
and he's he's also a graphicartist, and and you know, uh
started as an art school guy andthen you know started playing
guitar and all this stuff.
It really is brilliant.
Um Grant Malloy Smith's hisname, by the way.
Oh yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
So Grant's Grant's uh fine, afine fellow.
He started the IndyCollaborative, you're probably
aware of him.
Um and and you know, and youknow, the the other thing I
(41:47):
would say is would would you uhwould you agree with the
statement that we have in theWestern world, uh Europe is not
as bad as we are here in theStates in my mind, but uh made
music more uh dispensable andless integral uh as part of our
(42:16):
social uh you knowconsciousness.
I it just feels to me like thestreaming has, and I again it's
easy to beat up on the streamingguys, and and you know, I I I
will acknowledge that, but I Ijust feel like almost the
ubiquitous nature of it has madeit you know just something that
(42:38):
we don't treasure as muchbecause when I was a kid in the
80s, and you know, we would wewould go and once a week or so,
um everybody would take theirallowance and go to the record
store and we'd all get togetherfor hours on a Friday night and
sit there and everybody wouldplay their record.
And sometimes we playsomebody's record twice.
(43:00):
And as a blind child who had nobusiness trying to move a
needle on a turntable, I cantell you I personally believe I
bought Michael Jackson at leastone house because I had to read
that thriller record a bunchbecause I scratched it up so
bad.
But anyway, I mean, I I don'tknow if you had the similar
experience, but I I missed thosedays.
And I, and I, you know, I my mysweet wife um at least pretends
(43:25):
that she thinks I'm reasonableand normal.
And um, I will literally buy arecord that I'm excited about.
And I say record, I mean CD orwhatever, but I will buy one and
you know, I will wait until Ihave 45 minutes to myself to
actually sit down and listen toit from start to finish.
Now, that doesn't mean that Idon't consume music on my phone
(43:47):
all day long because I have to.
Someone says I want to soundlike a Dell, I gotta know what
that means.
So, you know, I I I I doconsume music via the lazy path
of streaming, but I just wonder.
If you feel like there's been ashift away from that integral
sort of nature that music usedto have, or at least I feel like
(44:11):
it used to have.
Ariel Hyatt (44:13):
Yes.
And you're not crazy.
And it's actually true.
This is what has happened.
Music is no longer the maincourse.
It's like a side dish.
And I think part of that isabsolutely the fact that
everybody can just get as muchof it as they want.
But we also have to rememberthe way that people's brains are
wired now.
Their attention spans are down.
(44:35):
And you know, short formcontent is up.
And so it's very hard to getpeople to sit and appreciate
something that's only audio.
I I'll never forget.
I have a Miss Pac-Man like fromthe from the 80s, like the real
video game.
Joey Stuckey (44:54):
Oh, my wife was a champ.
Ariel Hyatt (44:56):
Me too.
Yeah.
So when I made my first moneythat I didn't have to pay a bill
with, I I went and I boughtthis arcade game because I I
love it.
So I had it, I still have it inmy house.
And my my friend's son, he'snow in his 20s, but he was about
nine or ten.
He came over one day and we wewere having a and a little
party.
And his father said, Oh, thisis a Miss Pac-Man machine.
(45:18):
And we set him up and he putthe quarters in.
He's playing the game, and heplayed it one or two times.
And then he looked up at us andhe said, Well, where are the
other games?
And we were like, Nope, this isthis is the one game.
Joey Stuckey (45:34):
This is not, you know, happy with these gods, but
what?
Exactly.
Ariel Hyatt (45:37):
He was just so used to like, you know, there should
be five or six hundred morechoices.
So this is the problem.
We're overwhelmed with choice.
It the singles world is nothelpful for asking someone to
listen to 14 tracks and get intoa concept album.
Music being listened to in thebackground, like I'm working to
this, I'm studying to this, I'msleeping to this, I'm having
(45:58):
dinner to this.
Joey Stuckey (45:59):
Yeah.
Ariel Hyatt (46:00):
It makes it passive and not active.
You know, all of that is badfor making music the main
experience.
And unfortunately, there's somany things vying for our
attention.
Streaming, I mean, how manywonderful TV shows are there to
stream on every you've got Hulu,you've got Netflix, you've got
(46:22):
HBO, all of it.
I mean, it's insane.
Joey Stuckey (46:24):
Don't forget Disney.
Yeah.
Ariel Hyatt (46:25):
Don't forget Disney and Apple.
Joey Stuckey (46:27):
Yeah, yeah.
Ariel Hyatt (46:27):
You know, all of that is vying for the attention
that you might have spentsitting listening to an album.
And so the world has changed,unfortunately, and we're never
going to get those things back.
And I think artists know this.
And we also have to think aboutwhat is the multi-hyphenite
(46:50):
piece that you're going to addinto your music that's going to
keep up with the fact thatpeople now expect and crave a
little bit more.
Joey Stuckey (47:05):
Gotcha.
I I have two last questions foryou, and I'll let you go.
They're sympatico, I think.
So um the the thing is when,and this is this is a uh
question because I firmlybelieve for whatever this is
worth, uh, that uh people shouldhire you immediately.
Um and and I really um uh Ibecause I I've always been a
(47:27):
good uh uh not that I haven'tmade mistakes, but I've always
been a fairly good judge ofcharacter and and and content uh
pretty easily.
And and I can tell that you'rethoughtful and passionate, and
that is absolutely missioncritical to have someone partner
with you to help you uhnavigate the waters uh of the
music industry or any industry.
Uh you really have to build ateam.
(47:48):
You cannot do it all byyourself, um, not for any
sustainable amount of time.
Um but what is what is yourlike average?
I'm not saying pricing oranything like that, but like
what does the average campaignlook like these days?
When I went to school formarketing the first time, um you
(48:09):
know, that was a that was the90s, so half of that stuff
doesn't apply anymore.
When I continued my educationby going to Berkeley online,
studying music business, halfthe stuff I learned there
doesn't apply anymore becausethings have changed so much the
past two to three years.
I mean, like what what kind ofstrategies are people needing to
(48:29):
commit to these days, uh, asfar as like general ideas of
budget, general amounts of timethat they they put forward uh in
in you know releasing new musicor or even just maintaining
their momentum?
Ariel Hyatt (48:45):
This is the thing that's crazy right now, is that
answer varies depending on theartist.
Joey Stuckey (48:50):
Yeah.
Ariel Hyatt (48:50):
So the thing that I don't want artists to think or
do is buy into the buzzmarketing narrative, which is I
have the thing, I now I need togo viral on TikTok, now I need
to have a hundred thousand playsor a hundred thousand streams,
or I, or it doesn't count.
So the problem with all of thebuzz marketing stuff is it's
(49:12):
brainwashed us into believingthat 200 or 300 or 500 of
something isn't enough.
And so that that's the firstthing I think we should all
focus on when it comes tomarketing.
The value of a real fan isdifferent than the value of an
empty dopamine hit.
(49:32):
And so that's where we startwith any kind of marketing plan
that we begin to put together.
Again, you nailed it when youtalked to me about what you
perceive I do and what mypodcast is talking about.
My podcast right now isunpacking the philosophies in
Buzz to Bond, which by the way,Buzz to Bond is is just like a
little, it's 66 pages long, alot of it's got a lot of
(49:55):
pictures.
It's not a deep book.
It's really a philosophy.
And the reason why it is is Ijust wanted people to have a
mind shift.
And so the mind shift is aboutlike, okay, we know that buzz
marketing is like gorgingyourself on potato chips.
It's you're you're gonna feelbad when you're done.
You're gonna feel bad.
(50:15):
Yeah.
I mean, you might feel good fora few minutes, but then you got
a stomachache and you've got abad idea.
Joey Stuckey (50:19):
Yeah, and then you're like, why did I do this?
Ariel Hyatt (50:21):
Why did I do this?
I I should probably eat asalad.
Yeah.
You know, the salad takes moreeffort.
But the so every marketingstory is different.
The first thing I like to do isstart with what the artist can
bear and what the artist feelsgood about doing, because so
many artists come to me.
A lot of my artists are older.
(50:42):
They don't want to get in frontof TikTok 43 times a week.
That's not how they're gonnasucceed.
I say, great, let's do thething that feels good.
Are you a long-form writer?
Let's write some long-formpieces of content and let's make
a blog or a travel journal.
Are you into going and makinglive music?
(51:07):
Let's make, let's record one ofyour shows.
You don't have to buy into thelike stupid TikTok trend.
You can absolutely recordyourself in the studio and cut
that up and make little videos.
Like, there's plenty of ways toreverse engineer what it is you
like to do.
And the next part of thejourney is about aligning with
(51:32):
are you gonna be okay with thekind of marketing that we do?
There are so many marketingcompanies right now, and so many
people with differentphilosophies and different ways
of helping artists get exposure.
And no one way is right.
And so that is a huge thingthat we do at my company is we
say, okay, the thing that youwill take with you forever is
(51:56):
understanding what your brandpillars are.
The thing that you will takewith you forever is
understanding how to figure outwho your fan base is.
Because the minute you pick upyour phone or turn on your
computer, there are billions ofopportunities out there, but you
don't need billions of anythingto succeed.
So the question is, how clearare you about your inner compass
(52:21):
as an artist?
Obviously, your art and yourmusic comes first, but then
there's a lot that goes intofiguring out how to stay solid
because this thing that we callthe music business, music
marketing, music production, allof it, it's not even called
pivoting anymore, which you sobeautifully spoke about is like
(52:42):
you have to keep learning andlearning new things.
Everything you learned atBerkeley seven years ago likely
doesn't exist anymore, or it'schanged so radically.
But what never changes isunderstanding your brand,
understanding your fans, andunderstanding how to connect
those two things.
So that is a huge part of whatwe do, and that's the core of
(53:03):
anyone that's good at marketing.
And Seth Godin is still theking of marketing, and I think
his philosophy of the meatballSunday is something all artists
should consider, which is yourart is a beautiful Sunday,
right?
You have a banana and you havesome ice cream and you have
beautiful whipped cream, andmaybe you like butterscotch or
(53:24):
chocolate sauce or strawberries,but then marketing can often be
like a giant greasy meatballwith tomato sauce.
And you're taking yourbeautiful Sunday and you're
shoving a big meatball on top ofit, and that is not gonna taste
good.
So not appealing.
Not appealing, not notappealing at all.
But I love that because so manyartists make the sundae and
(53:48):
then they buy into the meatballbuzz marketing crazy.
Yeah.
And then all of a suddenthey're sitting here with a big
plate of mess, wondering whynothing works.
Joey Stuckey (53:57):
So that is that is beautifully put.
And and your book, I'massuming, is available
everywhere you can buy books,Amazon and such.
Ariel Hyatt (54:04):
Absolutely.
It's it's on Amazon.
It's called From Buzz to Bond,or you can buy it right at my
website at cyberpr.com.
Joey Stuckey (54:11):
Which would be even better.
And the last question I'm andI'm I'm gonna admit that I'm
setting you up here.
So I'm just I'm telling youahead of time.
Uh, real quick thoughts onartificial intelligence in the
music space.
Oh boy, this is I have I'vegotten some wonderful answers,
and some of them were uh we'llsay colorful, and we left them
(54:32):
in because I agreed, but it wasI've had some great.
Ariel Hyatt (54:35):
Yeah, so so I'll tell you this, Joey.
I'm really happy I'm not onyour side of the desk because
this is where the reckoning ishappening, right?
It's like right now we have amillion tracks a week coming up
on Spotify, and that is like aninsane number.
Joey Stuckey (54:50):
That's crazy.
Ariel Hyatt (54:51):
It is only gonna get worse, right?
It's gonna get it's gonna getworse, it's gonna get worse,
it's gonna get because of AImusic.
I am an actual proponent forusing AI to do the things that
suck artists lifeblood away fromthem.
For example, writing 12different versions of Instagram
(55:13):
captions, figuring out how totitle an email so that people
will actually open it.
How to craft a press releasethat you need to put out for
your next tour.
These are all things thatClaude is fabulous at.
Joey Stuckey (55:31):
And I think artists are definitely the most
sophisticated for sure.
Yeah.
Ariel Hyatt (55:34):
Artists should 100% use LLMs to help them route
their tours, figure out the bestway to market, figure out how
to use it as your thinkingpartner because it is the best
unpaid intern you could have.
Joey Stuckey (55:51):
Yeah.
Ariel Hyatt (55:52):
So I think when you when you look at AI and all the
scary things as far as like thecreation of the art, that's one
story.
But using it for giving youback the hours of your life that
you're going to spend zhuzing aLinkedIn post, I'm here for it.
Joey Stuckey (56:14):
I love that.
I I mean, you know, myperspective is is essentially
the same as yours, uh, as far asum the idea that it has its
lane.
Um and and, you know, for me,um I think that if you can use
it sort of as a virtualassistant, that seems to have
value.
Uh, I think as a blind person,if it can be my eyes and tell me
(56:37):
stuff uh that I can't see, I'mall about it.
I've actually been preaching,you know, about moving to AI as
the primary accessible solutionfor the blind for about six,
seven years, um, and saying,let's get away from these screen
readers that have so manyflaws.
And not that I'm not grateful,but you know, the easy things
can defeat a screen reader,different colors and and things
(56:59):
like that.
And so, you know, it it I'm allabout it.
And then when it comes to AIbeing an artiste, uh I feel
less, I have less positivefeelings about that.
Uh and I I would like to sayI'm not a Luddite, but the thing
is, I mean, you know, I just Iwant AI to stay in its lane.
I don't want to be murdered bymy toaster.
(57:19):
Um, you know, I want, I want, Iwant Isaac Asimov's three laws
of robotics.
Uh, you know, I feel like uh,and I'm a I'm a governor of the
Grammy chapter here in inGeorgia, and you know, we
definitely have some advocacythat we do.
Um, and we we definitely feel,and I can't speak for the
recording academy, of course.
I'm speaking as myself, but I'msaying that uh, you know, I
(57:41):
definitely feel like federallegislation to put guardrails on
things uh is an appropriateidea.
Uh and then you look at some ofthe scary, weird tech
manifestos that are coming fromsome of the AI companies, and
you're like, okay, wow, thisguy's read too much Nietzsche.
You know, so it's just youknow, it's a whole thing.
But I, you know, I'm I'm withyou in that it it does have you
(58:03):
know value.
And we even for this podcast,um uh I don't do it because I I
got I I I del I love todelegate.
I gave it to somebody else inmy team to do, but you know, we
we take um we take the the thepodcast and throw it into Claude
and then have it chew up adescription of the episode.
Ariel Hyatt (58:21):
Show notes, show notes.
Yeah, I've been making podcastsfor you know since 2008.
Show notes used to take me halfa day.
Oh god, yeah.
It's terrible.
Joey Stuckey (58:30):
And you know, as for me as a blind guy, like if I
want to check punctuation, Ihave to go back and read letter
by letter on the screen.
It takes forever.
So I can't, you know, justglance at it and check.
I have to literally listen toevery letter of every word.
Oh my God, it makes me want tostart day drinking.
It's awful.
I and by the way, but blind anddrunk are not things I
(58:53):
advocate.
So I don't, I don't day drink,but there are times that I've
thought about starting.
But anyway, but that's yeah,that's it.
I I think you have such a wiseuh perspective.
And I'm so grateful that youtook the time to share it with
me today on the podcast.
And and it's just been a trueprivilege and pleasure to get a
chance to know you a little bitand and hear some of these these
(59:14):
these uh words of wisdom andand uh and and just I'm so
grateful you're out there in thetrenches keeping keeping things
moving.
Ariel Hyatt (59:22):
Thank you.
And it's so nice to hear yourstory.
And I think that your story andmy story, if you delve in with
anyone who's working in ourindustry, we're all connected in
this very same way.
Joey Stuckey (59:35):
Yeah, and you know, I come to New York from
time to time.
Next time I'm in town, I willcall you and and my wife and I
will come and we'll we'll grabdinner or something and I will
um even my treat.
So there you go.
Look at that.
Ariel Hyatt (59:45):
Oh, I would love it.
I'm getting a podcast interviewand dinner.
I love it.
I love it.
Joey Stuckey (59:49):
I love it.
Hey, that that almost soundslike a movie.
Uh patent pending.
All right, I'll hide.
I love it.
Thank you, thank you, thankyou.
And uh make sure you check outall of the fantastic guests
we've had here on Stuck onSound.
If you are in the musicindustry, an artist, you want to
talk about technology and thebusiness of music, there are
(01:00:10):
fascinating people for you todiscover right here on Stuck on
Sound.
And you can find it whereveryour podcasts are consumed or by
just going towww.stuckonsound.com.
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