The New Music Business with Ari Herstand

This week on the New Music Business podcast, Ari sits down with Justin Gammella, a hit songwriter, producer, top liner, and multi-instrumentalist based in Los Angeles. With over a billion streams to his name and more than 100 released cuts, Justin’s catalog includes Bella Poarch’s viral hit “Build a Bitch” and collaborations with artists like Benson Boone, Lennon Stella, Steve Aoki, and FINNEAS. A true “working class” pop songwrite...

This week on the New Music Business podcast, Ari sits down with Oscar Höglund, the co-founder and CEO of Epidemic Sound. Epidemic Sound is a leading music and soundtracking platform for content creators. They have garnered attention for its digital rights model and soundtracking tools that help creators to elevate their content with music, while simultaneously supporting artists financially. Oscar shares insights from his journey l...

This week on the New Music Business podcast, Ari sits down with Jaclyn O’Connell, a digital marketer, creative strategist, artist manager, and founder of Bittersweet Media and Good Grief Management. Jaclyn has provided creative marketing solutions and hands-on artist management for artists and labels of all scales and sizes—from emerging artists to well-established acts and both indie and major labels. They have supported gold and ...

This week on the New Music Business podcast, Ari sits down with Danny Ross, a producer/songwriter, columnist at Forbes, professor at Berklee NYC, and the founder of the largest songwriting camp in the world, Anti Social Camp. Now in its 5th year, Anti Social Camp brings together over 250 songwriters, producers, and artists, including Cigarettes After Sex, Beach Bunny, Bryce Vine, Walk the Moon, Taja Kumari, Evan Giia, and...

This week on the New Music Business podcast, Ari sits down with Dan Melnick, the General Manager of Bandcamp. One of the earliest direct-to-fan platforms, Bandcamp empowers listeners to support artists they love directly. They have enabled fans to pay over 1.49 billion dollars and 193 million dollars directly to artists last year. Over 75k records get sold on this superfan platform every day and over half a million fans buy at leas...

In this solo episode of the New Music Business podcast, Ari untangles the complexities of royalties, registration, and publishing. After his social media video with the same message (“Don’t cut your drummer into publishing”) went viral for the wrong reasons, Ari wanted to come on the show and break down the nuances of this advice. Tune in to get clear on the differences between publishing royalties and master royalties, which royal...

This week on the New Music Business podcast, Ari sits down with Jacob Paul, the VP of Platform Growth & Brand Strategy at Kobalt and KOSIGN. Jacob has been one of the leaders behind Kobalt’s new admin publishing platform, KOSIGN, since its public launch in February 2025. Kobalt has been disrupting the traditional publishing model for years. Now their application-based platform, KOSIGN, is doing the same in the admin publishing ...

This week on the New Music Business podcast, Ari sits down with Mag Rodriguez, the founder and CEO of the direct-to-fan platform EVEN. Throughout his career, Mag has helped artists generate over 1 billion streams—but now, he’s focused on building a parallel music economy where artists sell directly to fans before streaming. “Superfan” platforms like EVEN are redefining how artists monetize their work.

Through EVEN, Mag has partn...

This week, Ari is joined by Lyor Cohen, the Global Head of Music at YouTube. Earlier in his career, Lyor led Def Jam Recordings, where he worked with artists such as Jay-Z, Ja Rule, and Ludacris. He eventually sold Def Jam to Universal and helped create the Island Def Jam Music Group. After Def Jam, Lyor became Chairman and CEO of Recorded Music at Warner Music Group. He went on to co-found 300 Entertainment (repping artists like F...

This week Ari sits down with Victoria Canal, the rising singer-songwriter known for her deeply moving and introspective music. Victoria has performed on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Later… with Jools Holland, and onstage with Coldplay at Glastonbury. She has won two Ivor Novello awards (including the Rising Star award) and recently released a new album, Slowly, It Dawns.

After ten hard-won years as a DIY artist, Victoria’s now signed wit...

This week on the New Music Business podcast, Ari sits down with Sarah McTaggart from the hit alt-pop band Transviolet. Transviolet exploded onto the scene in 2015 with their breakout single “Girls Your Age” with Epic Records. The band moved between a couple labels throughout their career, but they’re now independent. Transviolet has played Late Shows with Colbert and James Corden; they’ve had notable syncs including the Pretty Litt...

This month, for Women's History Month, we are replaying some of our favorite New Music Business episodes featuring incredible women of the industry. This episode highlights star music supervisor Jen Malone. She has placed music and worked on Euphoria, Atlanta, Creed 2, The Resident, Boomerang, Baskets, Shelter, Lady Dynamite, Step Up, and more. Jen has over a decade of highly esteemed experience in the industry.

In this episode,...

This month, for Women's History Month, we are replaying some of our favorite New Music Business episodes featuring incredible women of the industry. This episode highlights award-winning artist, songwriter, and producer, Imogen Heap. Imogen Heap has released five solo albums, an album as one half of Frou Frou, and has collaborated with countless other stars including Taylor Swift, Nitin Sawhney, Deadmau5, Eric Whitacre, Jeff Beck a...

In honor of Women’s History Month, we are replaying some of our favorite episodes featuring incredible women of the industry. This episode spotlights Grammy-nominated, hit singer and songwriter Bonnie McKee. Since the early 2000s, McKee has written 10 singles that have reached #1 in the US and UK, which have sold more than 30 million copies worldwide combined.

McKee is particularly known for collaborating with Katy Perry, co-wri...

This week Ari sits down with Simon Tikhman, the co-founder of The Core Entertainment and The Core Records. The Core Entertainment first made waves as an artist management company, guiding the careers of major country stars like Bailey Zimmerman and Nate Smith. After demonstrated success in management, The Core Entertainment partnered with Universal Music Group to launch The Core Records.

During this episode, Simon and Ari discus...

This week Ari sits down with Marc Caruso, the CEO and co-founder of Angry Mob Music, an independent music publisher based in LA. Aside from being an advocate for independent artists in the publishing world, Marc is a composer, producer, and Emmy-nominated music editor himself. He is also a board member and former President of the LA chapter of the Association of Independent Music Publishers (AIMP), a member of the Academy of Televi...

This week Ari sits down with Liz Pelly, a prominent music journalist and author of the new book Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist. Liz’s journalism has appeared in NPR, The Guardian, and Pitchfork among other prestigious publications. Preceded by an exposé in Harper’s Magazine, Pelly’s latest work, Mood Machine, pulls back the curtain on Spotify’s exploitative practices and uncovers how those p...

This week Ari sits down with Luis Navarro and Joel Niño Jr. of the duo Twin Tribes. This dark wave band out of Brownsville, TX has been gaining impressive momentum on the gothic scene—and they’re doing it entirely DIY. Twin Tribes releases their music through DistroKid and has over 30 million streams with nearly a million monthly listeners on Spotify alone. They have toured the world and managed their growing success completely ind...

This week Ari sits down with Alex Taggart, an expert on the Chinese music market. Alex spent 10 years in China overseeing local strategy for clients such as Dua Lipa, Diplo, Lauv, John Legend and so many more. He now works independently, managing artists through his own company, Isle of Management. Alex’s main focus is bringing globally-minded talent to local audiences worldwide.

This conversation gives a comprehensive introduct...