John Sykes, the chairman of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Co-Founder of MTV and VH1 and the current President of iHeartMedia Entertainment Enterprises, joined Bobby Bones to talk about his incredible career that has made a lasting impact on music on television. He explains the process of who gets voted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the note he wrote Dolly Parton to convince her to accept her nomination. John also shares how he got his start as one of the founding people at MTV and how he later created VH1 and 'Behind The Music,' and Pop-Up videos! We treat this episode as if it were a Pop-Up Video episode with fun facts behind all of the artists John mentions! He also details the importance of knowing the story being the music, what his role at iHeart now entails and more!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
When Dolly got in, she turned it down, originally saying
I don't want to block another woman who should get in.
I'm the country, I'm not rock and roll. So I
wrote her a note. She said, oh, I get it now.
The answer is still know you ought to do a
better job telling people who you are.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
We're going to do this episode a bit different.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
It's episode four oh two with John Sykes, who works
alongside me, I mean over me actually at iHeartRadio, but
he is the chairman of the Rock and Roll Hall
of Fame. That's why we initiated this conversation because obviously
this is a music podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
But dude, I'm gonna tell you I learned so much
about John.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
And I've known John for a long time, I didn't
know he's one of the people that started VAH one.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Yeah, he's like the Forst Gump of the music industry.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Crazy. This guy's stories. So you're going to hear a
lot of different stuff. We'll talk Hall of Fame, we'll
talk iHeartRadio, we'll talk VH one.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
How we start that he was part of the group
that started MTV.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
But because we talked about pop up videos, We're gonna
do this episode like a pop up video. Audio wise,
we've never done this before like this, so you'll hear
little pop ups throughout the episode with facts as we
talked to John, so he has some background, but also
we just thought it was funny if we did a
pop up video episode. So John Sykes. He is the
president of iHeartMedia Entertainment Enterprises. As Mike said, he's the
(01:22):
Forrest Gump of the music industry. I learned a lot,
you know, prior to iHeartMedia, it was just him building
and operating multiple entertainment brands. When I brought up I
don't want to say the bands, but when I brought
up one specific band and he's like, yeah, sign them
to the first publishing deal, I was like, wait what.
And then he goes, oh, yeah in this band, and
I was like wait what. It's just a great episode
(01:45):
and it all comes down to twenty nineteen, he was
named the chairman of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame,
and that's what we get into. He holds an honorary
doctor up in the Berkeley School of Music. The Berkeley
School of Music thinks you're so honorable they give you
a dot.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
That's crazy.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
And he's a member of the cable Television Hall all
the Fame, and he's one of the guys and my
company that I love so much, which is iHeartRadio. Here
he is John Sykes. It looks like you have some
sort of editing program behind you. What's going on back
there beyond me? Yeah, it looks like you're in the
middle of editing some show of some sort. What is
that on the wall of up there?
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Oh? Even handwritten or on the monitor.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Now on the monitor right there? What is that?
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Oh? Oh, the monitor is just to s line. Yeah,
the lineup of everything we've got. I just kind of
slot the shows and who's doing what where. When we
got top ten ten polls a year, I did the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony, which is
going to be massive this year. I've got the Robin
Hood event and Red So yeah, I've got to I
juggle a few things here. It's part of my I
(02:43):
like to have a lot of unpaid jobs, Bob.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
Yeah, but cool ones, which, by the way, formerly everybody.
This is John Sykes, who is the president of iHeartMedia
Entertainment Enterprises. Your music career has been so many different
places that have example, when you started the MTV, one
of the guys that started that, and you did the
very first ever VMAs. It's got to be weird to
have some of those guys who you started, they did
(03:06):
the first VMAs with, and now they're getting into the
rock and roll Hall of Fame. I mean, it's like
watching who Do You Get Old? Like Darius is my
first ever interview, and I'm like, dang, I'm getting old.
I was like a kid, and now Darius is also old.
I mean, there has to be some of those acts
that you were with when they were babies and you
were a baby that now you guys are doing massive
things together as you're getting a little older.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
It's kind of like you you're much more talented than
I am. But I mean even hip hop, even country,
you knew rock and roll, you know all that. I
was never really a talent on air talent, but I
was obsessed with music. It defined my life growing up.
It was when you grew up in a small towns
connected in New York. Mom's a college professor, dad's a
retail guy. Music was a snapshot of my culture, you know.
(03:47):
It told and Bob Dylan told me about politics. I
learned more about Bob Dylan about politics. I did from
Lyndon Johnson or Richard Nixon, thank God. And so for
me it's I look at my career as people say, god,
you have a lot of jobs. I go, no, I've
had one job. I work with artists. I love music.
I may look at it through different lenses, but to me,
(04:08):
it's an ecosystem of You know, when I was in school,
all I wanted to was start a video music channel,
Ladies and Gentlemen.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Rock and Rolling MTV.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
The station launched on August first, nineteen eighty one, at
twelve oh one am. The first music video ever played
was the Buggles video Killed the Radio Star.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Not because it was some brilliant idea to me. It
was to Bob Pittman, who was who was there and
really our leader of the five founders. It was the
next step. We all grew up with radio, television and
music and listen to our records, but we couldn't see
them move. We had open Rolling Stone again. You're you
were young enough to remember MTV or pre MTV, but barely.
(05:04):
But I remember when I had to watch a TV
show late on the Sunday night, you go, oh my god,
there's Jimmy Hendrix. I'm seeing Jimmy Hendricks move. There's Eric Clappton,
Holy cow, there is There were no movies, there was
nothing that showed artists. So for me, this was fascinated.
I was a child of television. I went to the
New House School at Syracuse. I was obsessed with television
(05:25):
and radio, and so it was the next step when
MTV kind of was established, became a hit, and Bob
and I both left, and he went into because Bob's
a genius, he went into theme parks, and he went
into AOL, and he went into Century twenty in real estate.
I was obsessed with music. Bob used to say, you
know what your problem is, You're too passionate about what
(05:46):
you do. It's like I laughed all the time with them,
but it was to me. The next step was to
when I couldn't get the money to raise MTV to
start MTV out of college, I took a job at
a record company and I met these artists that I
worked with. I met bands like Cheap Trick.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Let's talk about the band Cheap Trick.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
Cheap Trick's biggest song was released in nineteen seventy seven
when they put out the smash hit I Want You
To Want Me.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Cheap Tricks.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
Guitarist once said that their bassist Tom Peterson wrote that
song as a bit of a joke and wanted to
do a song that was a mix of pop and
heavy metal because pop was so popular at the time.
And you may know Cheap Trick as well from that
double necked guitar sometimes triple neck.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Guitar artists like Michael Jackson.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
Michael Jackson, known as the King of Pop, arguably the
greatest entertainer of music history. Michael Jackson's Thriller album was
the best selling album of all time. It sold over
seventy million copies, which is crazy and features the song Thriller.
(06:52):
Heart Heart was a band formed in Seattle, Washington, and
evolved into their name over time. They started out as
as The Army, then they went by Hocus Pocus, then
White Heart, and then they settled on just Heart. Now
you may know some of Heart's hits like this song
Barracuda and this song Crazy on You.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
And it's been incredible, incredibly rewarding to see them get
up on stage at the Rock and Roll Hall of
Fame and be inducted and Chief Trickle they got in
said we'd like to thank the guy who brought us
pizza as a college repis Syracuse on PSYCHS. I went good,
That's how I remembered I brought him pizza. But that's
(07:40):
for me. So in VH one, you know a lot
of ways to me. VH one was even more satisfying
because H one was mine.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
VH one stands for Video Hits one and it was
created by Warner Amex Satellite Entertainment Media Company in nineteen
eighty five, and the goal of H one was to
focus on the lighter, softer side of pop music, and
inside of each one they did a lot of really
cool things and John's gonna talk about that here, but
pop up videos, which is why we have the bubbles
here because it'll pop up. They tell you a little
(08:10):
factoid like this one about VH one, And.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
That's where I met Daris Rucker and Hood in the Blowfish.
That's where we met Cheryl Crow and decided, you know something,
We're going to use our power to break these careers
and then let's come and long before all these docs
are out, like now was Behind the Music, which is
our doc series. It really really kind of set I
think the tone for these thirty and thirties and these
other docks that are coming out today. So I'm really
(08:34):
proud of that. And then of course now twelve years
with Bob at iHeart and working getting to work with
you and Charlemagne and Elvis and Ryan, these incredible talent
and obviously the artist. To me, it's just part of
the circle, part of the circle of what I do
all the time, and I and every day. And they
talk about gratitude. Gratitude sounds like a cliche. It's so gratifying.
(08:55):
I'm so happy that on my worst day, I get
to get up and do this.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
This is your worst day. Ah crap, No, now, I know,
I know, I'm kidding. Hey, So you mentioned VH one.
What years were you running VH one.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
I came in. I left MTV at eighty six or
early eighty seven. I came back in ninety three. Tom
Preston was running it and Bob was long gone. Where
a bunch of us were all gone. Tom was one
of our founders and he was still there running it.
They kept saying your viewers that you're basically pulling in
from MTV or falling off the cliff as some of
these great artists like Tom Petty, the Rolling Stones, you
(09:32):
two were kind of getting into their forties.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Three massive artists.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
Here, Tom Petty, the Rolling Stones, and you two are
all in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The
Rolling Stones were inducted in nineteen eighty nine, Tom Petty
and the Heartbreakers were inducted in two thousand and two,
and you two, being the most recent, was inducted in
two thousand and five.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
And here comes Doctor Dre and Snoop and Eminem, which
are changing youth culture.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Let's talk about Eminem.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
Emine missult most albums in rap history, with roughly two
hundred and twenty seven million copies total. Snoop Dogg, also
on the top ten, was roughly forty million sold, and
Doctor Dre is widely known as one of the greatest
producers in the genre's history.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
I said, you know, we could get the MTV graduates,
as I called them. They're twenty four years old, they're
out of college, they've got a family, but they're too
busy to They're not sitting there to a kid and
study hall telling them about the next Pearl Jam record.
So I said, let us be that kind of trusted
source to turn them onto music that they're going to love.
Between twenty five and thirty four. I mean, I had
(10:34):
a lot of fun doing that because we got into
politics with behe One Safety music. Obviously, we were working
with MTV on Rock the Vote, so we were moving
culture but speaking to no longer teenagers. But like a
twenty six year old who said, I don't want to
quit music. I may be married and have a kid,
but I'm not giving up yet. I love music. I'm
going to concerts, but I need somebody to keep me
(10:56):
up to date with what's going on music. And that
was my whole idea I had for one was just
a continuation of MTV, and I came up to the
term MTV graduates. I don't think it went over too
well in the company. A lot of people running MTV
were people I had hired when I was there, and
I moved on to VH one. Despite a little bit
of sibling rivalry, we worked really close together and I
really enjoyed those years at VH one because I found
(11:19):
a whole new generation of artists. As I mentioned Jewel,
Sarah McLaughlin, Hooty in the Blowfish Cheryl. I mean, these records,
these are sold millions in cases of Hoodie tens of
millions of albums.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
Let's go to some artists here.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
Jewel was born in Utah but raised in Alaska before
living in a vand in San Diego. She would play
coffee houses. Jewel's biggest hit was You Were Meant for Me.
Sarah McLaughlin is known for I Will Remember You. Sarah
(11:55):
also opened her own music school in two thousand and
three as an outreach program that provides free after school
music education for children in Vancouver. Cheryl Crowe graduated from
the University of Missouri and became an elementary music teacher
in Saint Louis before moving to Los Angeles to pursue
an entertainment career. She landed backup vocalist roles for artists
like Michael Jackson and sting All while she was living
(12:16):
in Los Angeles, and I love her. Cheryl cro has
many hits, and probably one of the most memorable is
All I Want to Do. And finally, let's talk about
Hooty and the Blowfish. Hoody and the Blowfish derives from
Darius Rucker being inspired by his former college roommates nicknames.
(12:37):
One of them wore big round glasses that made him
look like an owl. The other had puffy cheeks that
made him look like a blowfish.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
So it was literally Hoody was.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
One person, Blowfish was the other person, and they named
the band after that, and Hoody's biggest song, well, Hooty
and the Blowfish the band.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Their biggest song was only Want to Be with You?
Speaker 1 (12:55):
Probably another step really in my life of working with
artists and taking artists and connecting them with the public.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
Whenever I think back to VH one, you mentioned one
of them behind the music, which I loved. It was like,
that's how I got to know the freaking goo goo
dolls and the things behind.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
But also pop up videos.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
When pop up videos launched, I thought that was the
invention of my lifetime. Little do I don't know would
be the iPhone, but before the iPhone, John, it was
pop up videos. So I don't know where does pop
up videos? How does that come up? And who do
people say no to that?
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Forever?
Speaker 3 (13:33):
And then it all of a sudden it's something that
is It was a phenomenon while it was out.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Yeah, you know, there's an old saying that jan that
domin aregan used to have. They say, how do you
make it in the music business. He said, you know,
what kind of skills do you need to make it
in the music business. He said, here's the skills you need.
Get up from your desk, get on the elevator, go
up in the street, and pray you bump into a genius.
And so I was taking meetings on a VH one
(14:01):
to look for ideas that really would speak to like
an educated audience. They grew up with MTV, I thought
of themselves. Now is a little more clever than a teenager.
You know, just like when you do Bobby Earshow, you
have a voice, you have an attitude. People know Bobby
Bone Show, you have an attitude. Charlottee has an attitude
and style does DJ Envy in the folks at breakfast Club.
(14:21):
It wasn't just to me about playing songs, but what's
the attitude. And the attitude was let's have fun with
some of these artists and let's not get to me,
but let's let's kind of look at the lyricity songs.
And there's this guy named tad Low, and Tadlow who
was doing freelance work for MTV, and he was the
kind of guy that you know, you'd hire to do
(14:43):
your your birthday video for friends. He is a clever guy,
put these little video things together. When I got to
VH one, he called me. He said, hey, I'm the
guy who did that birthday video for you. I go, yeah, yeah,
what's up? And he said, I got some ideas, So
he came in and one of them was pop up
the video. And I said, it's a little bit of
biting the hand that feeds you because it's got it's
(15:04):
got a little bit of a little bit of sarcasm.
But I said, since the artists are the blood that
runs through a veins tag, you can't be that mean,
but have a little fun. That's what happened in pap
up video. Boy to that pop that just that was
but that helped define the kind of like the brand
image for VH one of just being more than a
video jukebox. So part of it was serious where we
(15:27):
do back cells, where we talk about that this is
the video you just saw, his video you're going to
see now, and obviously behind the music with stories pop
up video was let's have some fun. And then the
third one, a show we had called Storytellers, and Storytellers
was kind of like instead of unplugged, of playing the songs.
It was unplugged with the stories behind the song. And
that's where Bowie and Everyone in the Sun played. And
(15:50):
that turned out to be one of the hits for
us and put us on the map.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
One of my favorite albums. And I just had Adam
Durrett in the studio. We did an hour together. From
count of Crouse, I signed him what I signed and publishing, Yeah,
I signed, you said, I wish you should ask that
when you saw him.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Counting Crows. I love him.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
They'm a favorite band. The band name Counting Crows is
derived from one for Sorrow, which is a British nursery
rhyme about the superstitious counting of magpies, which are members
of the Crow family. Singer Adam Duratz heard the rhyme
in the film The Signs of Life, which starred his
close friend actress Mary Louise Parker, and probably their biggest song,
(16:28):
Mister Jones, was what launched the band into superstardom.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
So go on, I'll tell my story, tell me about it.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
I was just gonna say I had him in and
he was excellent and was so generous, and you know,
Adam I'd never met him before, and it's always when
you meet kind of your musical heroes, I'm always still
a little nervous that I'm gonna like him less.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
I never want to like him less. I always want
to leave the same way when I went in, I
loved Adham. I thought he was great.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
Thought he was so generous with his time and his answers,
and I just I was talking to him about the
album that really in college I listened to more than
anything else, and it was a Storyteller's album.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
It was counting Crowds across the live wire.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
And when you talk about Storytellers, one of those CDs
and the two CD you know, Counting Crow's album was
a VH one Storytellers And so I didn't know you
signed Adams.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
So how did you meet him?
Speaker 1 (17:18):
After I left MTV, I was, you know, kicking around
looking it was twenty nine and we had made our
money there, which wasn't a lot of money. Looking back
at the time, I thought was a lot of money.
But I didn't know what's going to do next. So
I kind of tried being an agent, you know, music
agent for a while. That although I respect music agents
or film agents, wasn't what I like to make things.
I really wasn't in money to be the booker. I
(17:40):
wanted to one to make it so or make the content.
I took over Christlas Records and began the president of
Christmas Records in North America. And we had we had
a great run. We had We had Billy Idol, we
had Shinead O'Connor World Party. We had been rock band
called Slaughter, We had Arrested Development Gang Star. It was
(18:02):
a great label. And I was about two years in
and EMI bought us and folded our company into another
part of EMI. And I was stuck there with another
year or two on my contract, and I had a
piece of the company side. I had to stick around
to get my money. And so they moved me over
to music publishing. And I said, I don't want music.
What does the music publisher do well? Music publishing they
(18:25):
find these artists, they're the ones well the record labels
are they're worrying about graphics and fighting over deals. The
publishers are out there finding songs out of clubs. So
I said, all right, well, I got a couple of
years here, I might as well go look for some
bands and running up being the president of a record company.
You're just in finance meetings all day. You're just you're
so far away Bobby from the music. Music publishers are
(18:48):
in the music at all times. So I would come
into the office instead of sitting in staff meetings all day,
I'd be going through tapes or CDs at the time
and talking to lawyers, because the lawyers are the ones
who were finding these are before the record companies did.
I would just be out there with my friends I
met from MTV, taking by the lunches dinners. I remember
the head of the company saying, why are you taking
(19:08):
these lawyers and agents out for lunch? And I said,
because they're out there finding these artists. So one day
a friend of mine said, I think we're gonna There
is this band called Counting Crows. You might like them,
they said, said, but they're nothing. They haven't been made
a record yet. I don't think they even met p
Bone yet. Burnette and so I went up to San
Francisco to a BMI showcase and there with about twenty
(19:31):
five people in this club were the Counting Crows playing on,
going like, how am I so lucky to be in
this room? And I'm listening and listening. So I went
back and there was Adam and at that time had
crazy hair, like so why I would like Dreadlock like
Bob Marley Hare. It was very cool and he was
(19:52):
in there and I just said, this is the greatest
record I've heard in years. And I'm the music publisher.
I don't know what what I do, but I'm a
music in Tellivision. Help. I want to sign you. So
I signed them, and I said what I would do
is I know all my friends from MTV and I
can help you get played on MTV. And Lauren Michael's
(20:13):
is a great friend of mine. And so when I
signed them, the first thing I did was I took
the talent of director Marcy Klein from SNL. I said,
you got to see the band I signed. They're great.
Took her down to Webster Hall, which was the old
Ritz in New York, and she said, I love them.
I'm going to put them on the show. All said,
what so this band When the record was just coming out,
(20:33):
they were on SNL and I and of course went
back to my friends at MTV and I promoted them
to get them on MTV. And I said, wow, this
is kind of fun of music publishing. You get to
find bands and then promote them, and something that you
can't do write a record company because you're too busy
going through the paperwork and the red tape. And another
band I signed was called Stone Temple Pilot who sold
(20:54):
seven million records SDP.
Speaker 3 (20:57):
Stone Tiple Pilots had six number ones that made Billboard
Rock charts and one number one album on the Pop
charts in nineteen ninety four.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
That album was called Purple. I loved it. I listened
to it a lot.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
They want to Grammy in nineteen ninety four for Best
Hard Rock Performance for this song Plush. Their lead singer,
Scott Wiland passed away from a drug overdose in December
of twenty fifteen.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
Went downtown in New York during this thing called CMJ
was called kind of a college music seminar. They all
the young bands and all the A and R people
would go to where the hot bands were. I went
to the club where the hot bands were all playing.
I couldn't get in, so I took my thing out
and said, there's some band called Stone Table Pilots that
the lawyer has told me about. Let me go see
them at this place called the bank. It was a
(21:44):
Tuesday night. I walked into the bank, same thing, ainst
Counting Crows there with twelve people stone table pilots ripping
the plates apart, and all I could think of was
that I'm rigan line is pray you bump into a genius.
And those are two cases where literally, by chance, I
rant into two great artists and sign them and we
(22:05):
become life on friends. And then I leave them. I
and I in my music publishing where I signed them
and went over to pH one and what were the
first two videos I put on, Don't Table Pilot and
Counting Crows. So to me, it's part of the again,
that ecosystem where if you just hang around the hoop
and be and beyond the court and be playing, you're
(22:25):
going to be able to touch every aspect of the
way fans connect with their artists. And that's where I
think I've been lucky to live in that little cyclone or.
Speaker 3 (22:33):
That sweet spot when you talk about stp from back
in the day, the Scott Wiland walking into hearing a
young Scott Wiland sing, I mean, was it undenied?
Speaker 1 (22:42):
Now?
Speaker 3 (22:42):
It's undeniable because Don't Tail Pilots were so good, so big,
rest in peace, Scott Island. But to hear him that
young and before they had broken out, were you like,
how does this band not blow up?
Speaker 1 (22:54):
You know? It's funny, Bobby. It's like, you know, success
has a million fathers and failure, but one you know
when you're in when you're in a club and you're listening,
and I love so much music. I'm a fan like
you are. I just love artists. I respect artists. They
have more talent and they're pinky than I do. But
they're just you know, I was in a band growing up.
I was obsessed with trying to be a great artist.
(23:16):
But you're in there and you're saying I like this,
you know, and I'm not. I don't have any research
data here. I can't say I'm not a focus group here.
It's like I'm saying, but boy, they feel like watching
them is like watching the Rolling Stones when I was
a kid. I mean, I may be the oldest guy
in the room here, but I still think that pretty good. Ears.
There's certainly a nose to smell it and to look
(23:38):
around and say something's going on in here. And again
I met him and Scott and Dean de Leo and
his brother, his brother Scott and Eric the drummer. Great
guys and it's funny there. As you know from working
with artists, they could be crazy and evil and mean
on stage and then you meet them backstage and like, hey,
how are you? Where are you from? And that's the
beauty of these artists, it's there. It's the persona that
(24:00):
they put out there. You know. One of the nicest
guys you ever meet is Keith Richards. You see him
on stage, you don't want to go near him. You're terrified, sweetheart.
So Scott and I love Scott, and you could see
he was struggling. But you know the great thing about
him he was I would see him anywhere, you know,
years after when I moved on to VH one and
would see him and he would be in the dark
place whatever, his eyes would light up. He is still
(24:23):
that guy with a heart of gold. Gave me a hug,
showed me baby pictures. He would be like, you know,
just the guy. And it broke my heart that we
lost him, But that's kind of part of the journey
we're all on that we look at it, look at
you started out, you know hip hop, you know rock,
and roll. Now you're a kingpin and country. So it's
about the love we have for music, and you really
(24:44):
let that music pull you along and take you on
the journey and hopefully along the way. You know, we
use some of our own talent to basically go out
and and curate and pick the good stuff that we are,
not the good stuff and stuff we think will be.
We'll work with you, connect with fans, and be a promoter.
I always say here at iHeart, which is funny. We
haven't talked much about radio here, but all the stuff
(25:06):
we add at MTV or VH one would never have
been a hit without radio. And I used to say
to everybody we would get thanked MT would get thanked
at the Grammys, but it was radio that drove that
those records home. We were maybe TikTok back then we
were basically the tip of the sphere, but actually after
that it was radio drove at home. Which is why
I was so excited to join my longtime brother Bob
(25:29):
Pittman to come back here because we could now put
a national brand called iHeart Radio on these eight hundred
and eighty amazing local outlets and sometimes scale up in
order to take a great idea and share it. I
used to always say, grow up in my town. If
it's a good idea for Schenectady, it's a good idea
for America. If the Bobby Bone Show is a good
(25:50):
idea in Nashville, it's a great idea for the rest
of the country. Because we live now in a nuclear
society where everybody everybody is everywhere, and we share so
many the same likes and dislikes. So for me, radio,
to me is probably the most powerful platform I've ever
worked on. Certainly didn't get all the pressed like MTV
(26:12):
and vh one did in the day. But if you
really want to know where the power is, it's you know,
people listen to your show every morning. When you turn
on to an artist, that's when the button is pushed.
Speaker 4 (26:22):
Let's take a quick pause for a message from our sponsor,
and we're back on the Bobby Cast.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
How in the world did you get the coolest job
in the whole world? It's that because the job that
you're paid to do is awesome. But I know the
responsibilities of that. But like the Rock and Roll Hall
of Fame, I don't know what the responsibilities are. That's
an awesome job.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
Well, yeah, Bobby, I only wish I had this job
in high school because I'd be a lot more popular.
But I've been on the board of the Rock and
Roll Hall of Fame for twenty twenty five years and
on the nominating committee, run for thirty five years by
Jan Winner, the founder of Rolling Stone, founder publisher, editor,
and about four years ago he gave it up and
(27:09):
I was nominated, voted in to run the hall. To
run the foundation, it's sometimes the greatest job in the world.
Sometimes it's the worst because no one's ever happy. The
people get in or satisfied, the people who don't are upset.
So it's kind of like the country music Hall of
Fame Cooper's Town the baseball Hall of Fame. Every time
you announced the winners, there's enough people saying, well, how
(27:30):
come zone so didn't get in? What about so and
so so? For baseball, you got to be batting about
three hundred to get in Cooper's Town. And music, it's
much more subjective. But yeah, I love it. It's an
incredible position to have. I didn't even see it coming.
They drafted me on there because I was just happy
being on the nominame committee, and I used to work
on producing the shows, but to me, it's just part
(27:51):
of my life. Music is everything for me, and it's
part of the ecosystem I have between iHeart, the Hall
of Fame, what I do with Robin Hood and I
did you know when we started MTV years ago, Bob
and I and a few others. It's my life's what
I do, and I love to live it that way.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
So if you're to be inducted into the Grand Ole Opry,
for example, or the Illuminati or all of these places
that you want to be in but you really don't
know the exactly what you have to do to get in.
Is the rock and Roll Hall of Fame like that
where there are no exact there's no exact protocol as
to how someone gets into it, just like a feeling
(28:26):
amongst a group of people that are voting, or even
how to get on the list to be voted for.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
Yeah, I figure you're right, Bobby. It's music is very personal, subjective.
So the Hall of Fame is really based on artists
that truly have contributed to the growth of rock and
roll and the impact and artists that have followed them.
So it would be not just record sales or ticket sales.
It really is the music that was made move culture
(28:51):
and did it and influenced artists that followed. I think
Barry Gordy had the greatest line of all that he
used to put on the bottom of every Motown record.
It said to the young America. And that gives me
goosebumps every time I hear that, because it was music
for teenagers, which is where rock and roll came from
in the fifties. When it came from, it wasn't one sound.
It was an amalgam of rhythm, blues, country, and gospel.
(29:15):
So it wasn't like jazz, which was a very neat
silo an elite format. Rock and roll was about six
It was about rebellion. And that's why it's a little
bit of subjective category because it's so many different sounds
that make up rock and roll, and it's continued to evolve.
So we get a lot of people saying, that's not
rock and roll. You know, Hank Williams, isn't rock and roll,
(29:38):
Dolly part isn't rock and roll? Well, yeah they are.
Country was a cornerstone of what rock and roll is
all about. Somewhere along the line, rock and roll became
known and maybe the sixties and seventies as rock. White
guys playing guitars, which is an important part. It's important
part of rock and roll, but it's just one. And
that's why sixth of the first ten artists abducted the
(29:59):
rock and roll things were black. There are and B singers.
That was part of the genesis of rock and roll.
You listened to the Beatles playing roll over Beethoven that
was written by Chuck Berry. You listen to Cream or
led Zeppelin, some of those great songs were written by
Willie Dixon, Robert Johnson, and obviously you know the impact
that Johnny Cash has had on rock and roll. So
it's an amalgam. And so that's kind of the bass
(30:22):
we use to find really as who should be inducted.
Were they part of that amalgam, that sound, that collection
of sounds that made up rock and roll? And then
the way, if you want to really get into the details,
there's a nominating committee of thirty people, and thirty people
from all walks of like Tom Morello's on that Questlove
is on that board, Dave Grohl is on that nominating committee.
Speaker 3 (30:43):
Let's talk about rage against the machine. The guitarists for Rage.
Tom Morello graduated from Harvard after receiving a scholarship and
political science, and he's right number forty in Rolling Stone's
Top one hundred greatest Guitarists.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
Moving on to The Roots, which.
Speaker 3 (30:58):
You may have seen as Jimmy Fallons house band, but
the Roots were legit far before Jimmy Fallon. The lead
singer of the Roots, Questlove also Amir Thompson that's his
real name.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
Was born and raised in Philadelphia.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
His father was a singer, his mom was a model
and a dancer, and instead of paying for babysitters, they
would take a mere Questlove to shows and have them
set up the stages before they performed. And finally, let's
talk about Dave Grohl, because not only was Dave Grohl
the drummer for Nirvana prior to creating the Food Fighters,
he also lived with lead singer Kurt Cobain from Nirvana
for the first eight months they were together. Dave Grohl
(31:30):
once said it was chaos and even wrote a song
about it called Friend of a Friend on the In
Your Honor album in two thousand and five.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
And they come up with thirteen names based on the
only I guess the number that impacts whether you're in
eligible is you had to have a record out at
least or or refirst to record out at least twenty
five years ago. After that. It really is what I
just really outlined were the parameters of who should be
(31:59):
con hitered for induction from that meeting, which is I
always like to say half debate, half World Wrestling Federation
and arguing, thirteen names come out. Then those thirteen names,
Bobby go to a larger voting group of about twelve
hundred made up probably half of former inductees and others
(32:21):
from music experts, label current artist, the reviewers, radio programmers,
and they vote on which of the thirteen nominees will
get one of the seven six or seven coveted slots
for performers. And that's really the process. It starts in January,
and it's a wild meeting because people take the gloves
(32:42):
off and go at it. In addition, and not to
get it too much into the minutia here is there
are three special categories that go along with that. The
performers group. One is called Musical Excellence producers, songwriters, side men,
side women who have influenced music, who may not be performers.
Some performance some not. For example, this year Bernie Taupin,
(33:03):
the Great Bernie taupmin wrote for Elton John is getting
in under Music Excellence because of his writing. Last year
Jimmy Jim and Terry Lewis got in from Musical Excellence
because they wrote and produced all those great records. This
year also you've got al Cooper. Al Cooper found Leonard Skinner,
produced Leonard Skinner. Before that he basically produced and worked
on played the organ for Bob Dylan and played with
(33:27):
the Rolling Stones, the Beatles. He was a legendary assidement
producer and then founded Blood, Sweat and Tears. So where
do you put a guy in the category like that, Well,
we put him into Musical Excellence. And sometimes if an
artist like Ellll Cool Jay And this year in the
case of Shaka Khan had gotten on the ballot, the
nominating ballot many many times Bobby, but hadn't been voted
(33:47):
in by the general voting group, and we are special committee,
which is the smaller group, will put them in under
Musical Excellence. And finally, the third category is the domed
Eritigan Award, which is named after Amederita and legendary head
of Atlantic Records, founder everyone from Led Zeppelin, Aretha Franklin,
the Rolling Stones, amazing record executive. And that's for a
non performer. In the past, Bill Graham has gotten out Award,
(34:10):
David Geffen has gotten out of Ward, Moe Austin, you
know the legendary record labels. Last year it was Jimmy
Iveen who was produced Bruce Springsteen. This year it's going
to be Don Cornelius, who founded Soul Trained or Them
and Blues. And that's a tough one because everybody, every
executive in the business wants that one. That's a covenant slot.
Speaker 4 (34:27):
We interrupt this interview to bring you a message from
our sponsor. Welcome back to the Bobby Cast.
Speaker 3 (34:41):
You know, you bring up something interesting when you have
humans defining art, and usually you know when you go, hey,
is this rock and roll? This happens to country music?
Is this country music? And people are like, well, that's
not rock, that's not country. But mostly I see that
people just hold said fast to the idea that the
type of music there was popular when they were in
their formidable years is only the definition of that type
(35:04):
of music.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
You know, in country music. I get it. All the time.
Speaker 3 (35:06):
And now I've been lucky enough to work in pop
and hip hop, in alternative, in country, and so I
feel like I have a pretty good grasp on that.
I'm mostly wrong when it comes to defining anything artistic
because it's hard to put a label on art generally,
and country music comes from the slave ships from Africa
and European people coming to the United States and with
(35:28):
fiddles and banjos, that's it. And so when people are like, well,
it's not country, it's not like, you know, deep South prairie,
and I'm like, well, if we want to really get
down to it, that's not country because country music is
derived from again, people from Africa and people from Europe
coming together and joining. I just find that people, when
they start to try to define art, they're always wrong.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
And I imagine that's so frustrating to you.
Speaker 3 (35:50):
When people are like Dolly Parton jay Z and we
could go down and just and pick people, and they go,
that's not rock and roll when they don't even understand
what the the NSS of rock and roll was or is.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
Exactly Bobby, what happened was before your time and even
almost before my time, because I'm older than you, there
was top forty radio, like the real like sixties top
forty radio where they would put Loretta Lynn would be on,
the Beatles, Bobby Sherman, the Rolling Stones, and the Convoy Trucker.
Song like. It was just just this collection of songs
(36:25):
that seventeen year olds had to listen to for whatever reason.
This kind of whatever wherever American culture was or is
at that time, has brought together a sound. That's why
rock and roll is so hard to define, to your point,
because and you said with country, there's sometimes some country,
kind of old school country fans are saying, no, that's
(36:47):
not country. Well, country music, just like every other format, evolves,
and then there's kind of crossroads of it all really
came in nineteen fifty five with rock and roll, and
that was really because rock roll is not one sound
you could just it's everything. And that's why when Dolly
got in, she turned it down originally saying I don't
(37:08):
want to block another woman who should get in. I'm
the country, I'm not rock and roll. So I wrote
her a note and she said, oh, I get it now.
The answers still know, but you ought to do a
better job telling people who you are. I thought was funny,
and I said, well, I just got started. But you're right.
(37:30):
I think the rock and Roll Hall of Fame now
that you know music constantly evolves, for young for culture,
it's got to do a job of going back. It's
not reinventing what it was, it's going back to the
really the genesis of what rock and roll was, to say,
this is kind of the path that we followed. But
you're right. People are always going to point fingers, that's
not rock and roll. You said, that's not country. It
(37:53):
is sometimes easier if you're in the jazz world because
jazz is a very clear lane. It's a beautifullybat format,
and you could say that's Coltrane, that's Miles Davis, that
so and so, and rock and roll is kind of
is really the music of the people. And if you
look at where a big part of rock and roll
came from was the South. I mean that's where basically
(38:13):
so much music outside of jazz came from the South
in America. That's why the Rolling Stones when they were
doing their Sticky Figures album, they went down to muscle shows.
They wanted the muscle shows players to play on some
of those songs. They wanted to capture that song, that
sound because dead Flowers very much a part of what
the Rolling Stones are about, and that came from country music.
Speaker 3 (38:33):
You ever have to is there ever a struggle separate
the art from the artist? Meaning if it turns out
somebody that's really crushed it over the course of twenty
thirty forty years they ain't that good of a person,
or there have been some story like do you ever
go we just can't do it because they're kind of
a douchebag that you know.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
The answer is no, we actually are blind to as
you would say, the douchebag filter, and that it really
is based on who they are. And by the way,
some of the rock and roll arts were bad boys
and bad girls and they broke some they broke some rules,
and that's kind of why we liked them growing up
because they we could live like carelessly through their music.
(39:12):
I mean, Keith Richards, he did every drug under the sun.
I didn't, but boy, I love that guy. I just
I just I just lived vi kerosy to Keith Richards,
you know, to me street fighting man. That was my
escape from my small town. What can a poor boy do? Gets?
You know, singing a rock and roll band. So there
are some of the art and some people have been inductives.
Maybe one or two said screw you, I'm not going
(39:33):
to be in this place. You waited too long. I'm
not coming now. Out of almost three hundred and eighty inductees,
I think one or two are Maghamdful, I think haven't.
But for the most part we're blind to that. It
really is did their music move culture? More importantly, did
their music did their music move youth culture? I go
back to those early Motown records, which is basically did
(39:54):
they create the sound of young America? Rage?
Speaker 2 (39:57):
You get some machines up this year.
Speaker 3 (39:58):
I was a big Rage fan, I mean massive, but
there was always a battle, well we're going to come
out to a football games because I was a massive
Rage fan, and it was either that of Tupac and
it was always so then it was just every other week,
but love Rage against the machine. And you mentioned that
one of the members, one of the selecting members, is yeah,
one of the members of Rage. Now does he have
to leave the room whenever you guys talk about Rage?
Speaker 1 (40:21):
You know, he liked Dave Grohl, who was also a
member of the nomin committee before his band was nominated.
They sit patiently in the room. And it's interesting because
some of these nominated committee members are so tough they
don't fold easily. So even if the artists is two
feet away from them, that artist may not get the votes.
That's how tough this room is. I feel very strange
(40:43):
being a music fan that I am, that is sitting
next to Dave Girl and not nominated in the first time. Now,
in his defense, he was nominated first ballot. He wasn't
a rage star. Rage Whoo's were not eligible until two
years ago and they got in. Rage has been and
it took a few years and Tom set there very
very quietly. But he has contributed so much to the
(41:08):
to the Hall of Fame because early on there was
a criticism of the Hall that it was too it
was too uppity, too much run by critics who turn
their nose up at popularity popular music. So bands like
Kiss Journey couldn't get in rush because this group of
nominating committee members just thought that that was below them.
(41:30):
It should be important music. Tom came in of course
with from a from a band that all the critics
love and said, that's that, you know, rock and roll
is not it's not jazz, it's not some cool, high
and inside format. It's of the people. Like I said,
it's about sex, it's about breaking the rules. So because
of Tom, a lot of these snooty you might want
(41:52):
to say, nominating committee members went, you're right, you're right.
This is the sound of young America. And about five
six years ago, the floodgame it's opened and you felt
a little bit of a democratization of rock and roll
to balance off just the high inside cool kids on
the block, and we let into some other people that
really change young people. I mean Eddie Vedder listened to
(42:15):
kids growing up. Of course he did. That's what he
was twelve years old. That's what I mean. We all
listen to music when we were teens. That may have
changed our cases, may have changed later on. That's been
interesting to see those artists in there and Questlove of
course is in the roots, but he's been very open
about supporting younger artists.
Speaker 3 (42:33):
Now Willie Nelson's up this year as well, which is
super cool and what is that dynamic like with folks
in the room again from all walks of life, and
then Willie Nelson comes up as a guy who you
have to suggest to be on the ballot and then
actually makes it. But when someone like Willie pops up
that super country or Missy Elliott that is hip hop.
Is that a different conversation than someone who was pretty
down the middle, like as a pop art, like a
(42:55):
Chryl Crow for example.
Speaker 2 (42:56):
That feels like that would be easier for everyone to understand.
Speaker 3 (43:00):
Not that one's better than the other, but a lot
of folks can understand Cheryl Crow mainstream, but Willie and
not till later, Missy, they weren't. So is that conversation
different when ours like that had brought up?
Speaker 1 (43:12):
Bobby, it was about six or seven years ago. Because
you had a group of primarily white people who were
raised on rock and roll rock excuse me, making the
decisions early on. It wasn't odd that Hank Williams got
inducted or Johnny Cash because the early voting really stemmed
from people who had a knowledge of the fifties. And
(43:35):
so when you had the original amin arrait again, seymour Stein,
Bob Krasnow on that committee, they got why Brenda Lee
should be in the rock roll fame. They got why
Fatstalmo should be in the rock roll fame. Because they
understood the really the creation and the genesis of truly
what was rock and roll. As years went by and
kind of white rock began to kind of steer the
(43:57):
perception of the rock roll fame or really the inductee,
that's where the group kind of fell into a comfort
zone of a certain sound that was naturally an extension
of white people playing rock and roll music. Well, what
I want to do coming in was again not redefined,
but really go back to the roots and the definite,
(44:18):
the true definition of rock and roll and begin to
honor the people who really should do deservedly should be
in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. So that's
now that we've I think putting Dolly in last year,
all of a sudden, Willie Nelson, who's ninety years old
this year, automatically gets in first, I mean first ballot.
I think it took a trailblazer like Dolly to I
(44:41):
don't say opened the gates, but reopened the gates to
the true genesis of rock and roll being honored because
it was happening back in the late eighties when the
Hall of Fame was established, when Johnny Cash, Hank Williams,
Brenda Lee, and again I mentioned earlier that's Domino Charles.
They were all their hall of fame that kind of
(45:02):
dipped and faded during the nineties when people kind of,
I must say, lost sight, but kind of lost track
of some of the artists that were that really were true,
true iconic artists the help shape rock and roll, and
I'm really happy to report that's coming back now.
Speaker 2 (45:19):
I when it comes to iHeart, like, what is your
job exactly?
Speaker 3 (45:22):
Because I read your fancy title, which is president of
I because you do everything. I've seen you be involved
in everything period, But president of iHeartMedia Entertainment Enterprises. That's
a lot of big words that give me a lot
of big different things. So what does that even mean?
Speaker 2 (45:34):
John?
Speaker 1 (45:34):
Well, thank you Bob Pittman for dreaming that title up
when I was I was about to go and do
yet another startup in twenty ten, I left by a
common the only people not to be fired, but it
probably would have been fired because they fired everybody eventually there.
But to me, the glory days we're going to MTV
and VH one or I don't want to say, well,
(45:54):
the way I wanted to run was gone, so I
decided to lead I was going to run a company
called Shazam, which is you can hit a hit a
song shazamit. And I thought that could be the next MTV,
the way you could base because you could your users
were opting in. I know Bobby Bones likes Lady Gaga. Okay, now, okay,
I'm going to now talk to Bobby about this. Son,
(46:16):
Bobby Bones loves counting Pros. I'm going to do this.
John Psychs loves the Rolling Stones. I'm going to connect him.
You could have a you could have this, this amazing
algorithm connected you to the people who opted in. And
then Bob called and said, I'm going to do this.
I know you like to work. You like Scale, John,
which I love Scale. And they said we're going to
take the biggest company that bigger than Google or Facebook
(46:38):
as far as reach, and kind of want you to
be a partner on it. And I said, well, I'm
not that really good at running a radio station. I
hadn't run one since college, and I'm not really interested
in running one station in one market. I kind of
like I've been trained over the years of MTV and
vh one eying to talk to the country and that's
hard because hard in this world of narrow casting to
(46:58):
talk to the country. I liked the idea of amplifying
a great idea make me better. So I said, you know,
why don't I just build out taking this platform and
build out relationships. And so we could push a button
and break an artist, and we could create events on
other platforms like video act short form video, broadcast television
(47:21):
events where we can put a lot of people under
the iHeart umbrella. And then Bob put me with Tom
Pullman as a partner to Tom runs programming for the
stations to look for the right artists and help to
break them and help to put together actually marketing packages,
which is what I did at MTV all the years
to try to break artists. And so part of my
time Tom and I are working on finding the right artists,
(47:43):
breaking them nationally, using our powerful turbines at radio to
break them, and the other half of my time looking
for new places to put all our shows, our award
shows on Fox. We're about to put jingle Ball to
another broadcast, huge broadcast network. Our festival is going to
go on one of the big streams. So I look
for partners that we can basically take to amplify the
(48:04):
iHeartRadio brand. And then I also deal with the advertisers
with Verse and Discovery warners. That's really to I always
say to them, don't just run a commercial. Have Bobby
Bones or Elvis or Ryan talk with their team about
this movie's about to come out, about this product, is
this new phone, and humanize it to your point, Bobby,
(48:27):
about being the trusted companion and not to lie or
be in any way facetious. But if they do believe
in the product and they are connected with it, talk
about it. What better way. I mean, television, you have
to buy a thirty second spot. It's one and done
and you're gone. This is the time where you could
actually have this person who you're sitting in the car
was stuck in traffic for forty five minutes saying unbelievable,
(48:49):
just that there's this new movie called, you know, called Elvis.
You know, you might think of Elvis as some old
fat lounge singer from Vegas. He was like the Clash,
He was a punk artist. In fifty nine he upset parents.
And you tell that story and the advertisers go, I
see radio can do something that no one else can do.
So Bob kind of lets me go wherever I want
to go here, and I've never had more I've never
(49:11):
stayed in the job. That's long, twelve years, but it is.
And if I find the right television opportunity, you know,
you know with I remember, I think we talked few
years ago with the Masked Singer that was coming out,
and then and you went on to do IDOL and
you know, and I did nothing to do with Idol.
I was jealous. I wish I had, but I mean
it's something that's you take. And we just put the
(49:32):
Breakfast Club on beet. That's something I always figured like
that should be. You know, I thought I was tried
so hard. I wanted you to go on CMT and
they they all the good I don't say the good people,
but you know, people who were who were really great
at CMT left and they kind of put it all.
I wanted one umbrella and they didn't see the power
of Bobby Bones that could have been great for CMT.
(49:53):
So that's kind of you. That's a long another one
of my long answers to your short question of what
do you do? It's kind of like every day, every
day is a blank slate for me. But at the
end of the day. You know, I just have it.
I have an agreement with Bob and rich sip. You know,
I'd say is it still working? And they go still working?
I go, good, I'll hang up.
Speaker 3 (50:11):
It's still working when I come to New York in
the next year or so. I mean, there are a
lot more than that, but we can get our schedules
to line up. I just want to sit down and
talk artists. I just want to with you, go this artist,
that artist, this artist, and just hear the stories and
just document some of these psych's nuggets that.
Speaker 2 (50:31):
We got to get them. We got, we gotta get
them down.
Speaker 3 (50:33):
You have so many from so many different genres, from
different eras, So so much respect for me to you
for you know, the resume that you have built and
the high level that you've built it. And good luck
with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. And don't
think I'm not going to hit you up to go, John,
I'm in town. Let's get onto microphones. I'm ready to go.
Speaker 1 (50:54):
You should come. I'm inviting you to the Rock and
Hall of Fame induction ceremony this November Friday, November third,
Barclays and if you want to witness one of those
induction ceremonies. There's nothing else like it. It's it is.
It is a cavalcade of stars that come in from
all genres. Again to our earlier conversation about that makes
a rock and roll, They're all there on the stage.
(51:14):
It'll blow your mind.
Speaker 2 (51:15):
John.
Speaker 3 (51:15):
I appreciate your time and I will see you very soon,
my friend.
Speaker 1 (51:18):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (51:19):
Bobby s anybuddy love this episode of the Bobby Cast.
Speaker 4 (51:22):
Subscribe on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
When Dolly got in, she turned it down, originally saying
I don't want to block another woman who should get in.
I'm the country, I'm not rock and roll. So I
wrote her a note. She said, oh, I get it now.
The answer is still know you ought to do a
better job telling people who you are.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
We're going to do this episode a bit different.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
It's episode four oh two with John Sykes, who works
alongside me, I mean over me actually at iHeartRadio, but
he is the chairman of the Rock and Roll Hall
of Fame. That's why we initiated this conversation because obviously
this is a music podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
But dude, I'm gonna tell you I learned so much
about John.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
And I've known John for a long time, I didn't
know he's one of the people that started VAH one.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Yeah, he's like the Forst Gump of the music industry.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Crazy. This guy's stories. So you're going to hear a
lot of different stuff. We'll talk Hall of Fame, we'll
talk iHeartRadio, we'll talk VH one.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
How we start that he was part of the group
that started MTV.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
But because we talked about pop up videos, We're gonna
do this episode like a pop up video. Audio wise,
we've never done this before like this, so you'll hear
little pop ups throughout the episode with facts as we
talked to John, so he has some background, but also
we just thought it was funny if we did a
pop up video episode. So John Sykes. He is the
president of iHeartMedia Entertainment Enterprises. As Mike said, he's the
(01:22):
Forrest Gump of the music industry. I learned a lot,
you know, prior to iHeartMedia, it was just him building
and operating multiple entertainment brands. When I brought up I
don't want to say the bands, but when I brought
up one specific band and he's like, yeah, sign them
to the first publishing deal, I was like, wait what.
And then he goes, oh, yeah in this band, and
I was like wait what. It's just a great episode
(01:45):
and it all comes down to twenty nineteen, he was
named the chairman of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame,
and that's what we get into. He holds an honorary
doctor up in the Berkeley School of Music. The Berkeley
School of Music thinks you're so honorable they give you
a dot.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
That's crazy.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
And he's a member of the cable Television Hall all
the Fame, and he's one of the guys and my
company that I love so much, which is iHeartRadio. Here
he is John Sykes. It looks like you have some
sort of editing program behind you. What's going on back
there beyond me? Yeah, it looks like you're in the
middle of editing some show of some sort. What is
that on the wall of up there?
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Oh? Even handwritten or on the monitor.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Now on the monitor right there? What is that?
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Oh? Oh, the monitor is just to s line. Yeah,
the lineup of everything we've got. I just kind of
slot the shows and who's doing what where. When we
got top ten ten polls a year, I did the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony, which is
going to be massive this year. I've got the Robin
Hood event and Red So yeah, I've got to I
juggle a few things here. It's part of my I
(02:43):
like to have a lot of unpaid jobs, Bob.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
Yeah, but cool ones, which, by the way, formerly everybody.
This is John Sykes, who is the president of iHeartMedia
Entertainment Enterprises. Your music career has been so many different
places that have example, when you started the MTV, one
of the guys that started that, and you did the
very first ever VMAs. It's got to be weird to
have some of those guys who you started, they did
(03:06):
the first VMAs with, and now they're getting into the
rock and roll Hall of Fame. I mean, it's like
watching who Do You Get Old? Like Darius is my
first ever interview, and I'm like, dang, I'm getting old.
I was like a kid, and now Darius is also old.
I mean, there has to be some of those acts
that you were with when they were babies and you
were a baby that now you guys are doing massive
things together as you're getting a little older.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
It's kind of like you you're much more talented than
I am. But I mean even hip hop, even country,
you knew rock and roll, you know all that. I
was never really a talent on air talent, but I
was obsessed with music. It defined my life growing up.
It was when you grew up in a small towns
connected in New York. Mom's a college professor, dad's a
retail guy. Music was a snapshot of my culture, you know.
(03:47):
It told and Bob Dylan told me about politics. I
learned more about Bob Dylan about politics. I did from
Lyndon Johnson or Richard Nixon, thank God. And so for
me it's I look at my career as people say, god,
you have a lot of jobs. I go, no, I've
had one job. I work with artists. I love music.
I may look at it through different lenses, but to me,
(04:08):
it's an ecosystem of You know, when I was in school,
all I wanted to was start a video music channel,
Ladies and Gentlemen.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Rock and Rolling MTV.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
The station launched on August first, nineteen eighty one, at
twelve oh one am. The first music video ever played
was the Buggles video Killed the Radio Star.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Not because it was some brilliant idea to me. It
was to Bob Pittman, who was who was there and
really our leader of the five founders. It was the
next step. We all grew up with radio, television and
music and listen to our records, but we couldn't see
them move. We had open Rolling Stone again. You're you
were young enough to remember MTV or pre MTV, but barely.
(05:04):
But I remember when I had to watch a TV
show late on the Sunday night, you go, oh my god,
there's Jimmy Hendrix. I'm seeing Jimmy Hendricks move. There's Eric Clappton,
Holy cow, there is There were no movies, there was
nothing that showed artists. So for me, this was fascinated.
I was a child of television. I went to the
New House School at Syracuse. I was obsessed with television
(05:25):
and radio, and so it was the next step when
MTV kind of was established, became a hit, and Bob
and I both left, and he went into because Bob's
a genius, he went into theme parks, and he went
into AOL, and he went into Century twenty in real estate.
I was obsessed with music. Bob used to say, you
know what your problem is, You're too passionate about what
(05:46):
you do. It's like I laughed all the time with them,
but it was to me. The next step was to
when I couldn't get the money to raise MTV to
start MTV out of college, I took a job at
a record company and I met these artists that I
worked with. I met bands like Cheap Trick.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Let's talk about the band Cheap Trick.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
Cheap Trick's biggest song was released in nineteen seventy seven
when they put out the smash hit I Want You
To Want Me.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Cheap Tricks.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
Guitarist once said that their bassist Tom Peterson wrote that
song as a bit of a joke and wanted to
do a song that was a mix of pop and
heavy metal because pop was so popular at the time.
And you may know Cheap Trick as well from that
double necked guitar sometimes triple neck.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Guitar artists like Michael Jackson.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
Michael Jackson, known as the King of Pop, arguably the
greatest entertainer of music history. Michael Jackson's Thriller album was
the best selling album of all time. It sold over
seventy million copies, which is crazy and features the song Thriller.
(06:52):
Heart Heart was a band formed in Seattle, Washington, and
evolved into their name over time. They started out as
as The Army, then they went by Hocus Pocus, then
White Heart, and then they settled on just Heart. Now
you may know some of Heart's hits like this song
Barracuda and this song Crazy on You.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
And it's been incredible, incredibly rewarding to see them get
up on stage at the Rock and Roll Hall of
Fame and be inducted and Chief Trickle they got in
said we'd like to thank the guy who brought us
pizza as a college repis Syracuse on PSYCHS. I went good,
That's how I remembered I brought him pizza. But that's
(07:40):
for me. So in VH one, you know a lot
of ways to me. VH one was even more satisfying
because H one was mine.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
VH one stands for Video Hits one and it was
created by Warner Amex Satellite Entertainment Media Company in nineteen
eighty five, and the goal of H one was to
focus on the lighter, softer side of pop music, and
inside of each one they did a lot of really
cool things and John's gonna talk about that here, but
pop up videos, which is why we have the bubbles
here because it'll pop up. They tell you a little
(08:10):
factoid like this one about VH one, And.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
That's where I met Daris Rucker and Hood in the Blowfish.
That's where we met Cheryl Crow and decided, you know something,
We're going to use our power to break these careers
and then let's come and long before all these docs
are out, like now was Behind the Music, which is
our doc series. It really really kind of set I
think the tone for these thirty and thirties and these
other docks that are coming out today. So I'm really
(08:34):
proud of that. And then of course now twelve years
with Bob at iHeart and working getting to work with
you and Charlemagne and Elvis and Ryan, these incredible talent
and obviously the artist. To me, it's just part of
the circle, part of the circle of what I do
all the time, and I and every day. And they
talk about gratitude. Gratitude sounds like a cliche. It's so gratifying.
(08:55):
I'm so happy that on my worst day, I get
to get up and do this.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
This is your worst day. Ah crap, No, now, I know,
I know, I'm kidding. Hey, So you mentioned VH one.
What years were you running VH one.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
I came in. I left MTV at eighty six or
early eighty seven. I came back in ninety three. Tom
Preston was running it and Bob was long gone. Where
a bunch of us were all gone. Tom was one
of our founders and he was still there running it.
They kept saying your viewers that you're basically pulling in
from MTV or falling off the cliff as some of
these great artists like Tom Petty, the Rolling Stones, you
(09:32):
two were kind of getting into their forties.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Three massive artists.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
Here, Tom Petty, the Rolling Stones, and you two are
all in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The
Rolling Stones were inducted in nineteen eighty nine, Tom Petty
and the Heartbreakers were inducted in two thousand and two,
and you two, being the most recent, was inducted in
two thousand and five.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
And here comes Doctor Dre and Snoop and Eminem, which
are changing youth culture.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Let's talk about Eminem.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
Emine missult most albums in rap history, with roughly two
hundred and twenty seven million copies total. Snoop Dogg, also
on the top ten, was roughly forty million sold, and
Doctor Dre is widely known as one of the greatest
producers in the genre's history.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
I said, you know, we could get the MTV graduates,
as I called them. They're twenty four years old, they're
out of college, they've got a family, but they're too
busy to They're not sitting there to a kid and
study hall telling them about the next Pearl Jam record.
So I said, let us be that kind of trusted
source to turn them onto music that they're going to love.
Between twenty five and thirty four. I mean, I had
(10:34):
a lot of fun doing that because we got into
politics with behe One Safety music. Obviously, we were working
with MTV on Rock the Vote, so we were moving
culture but speaking to no longer teenagers. But like a
twenty six year old who said, I don't want to
quit music. I may be married and have a kid,
but I'm not giving up yet. I love music. I'm
going to concerts, but I need somebody to keep me
(10:56):
up to date with what's going on music. And that
was my whole idea I had for one was just
a continuation of MTV, and I came up to the
term MTV graduates. I don't think it went over too
well in the company. A lot of people running MTV
were people I had hired when I was there, and
I moved on to VH one. Despite a little bit
of sibling rivalry, we worked really close together and I
really enjoyed those years at VH one because I found
(11:19):
a whole new generation of artists. As I mentioned Jewel,
Sarah McLaughlin, Hooty in the Blowfish Cheryl. I mean, these records,
these are sold millions in cases of Hoodie tens of
millions of albums.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
Let's go to some artists here.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
Jewel was born in Utah but raised in Alaska before
living in a vand in San Diego. She would play
coffee houses. Jewel's biggest hit was You Were Meant for Me.
Sarah McLaughlin is known for I Will Remember You. Sarah
(11:55):
also opened her own music school in two thousand and
three as an outreach program that provides free after school
music education for children in Vancouver. Cheryl Crowe graduated from
the University of Missouri and became an elementary music teacher
in Saint Louis before moving to Los Angeles to pursue
an entertainment career. She landed backup vocalist roles for artists
like Michael Jackson and sting All while she was living
(12:16):
in Los Angeles, and I love her. Cheryl cro has
many hits, and probably one of the most memorable is
All I Want to Do. And finally, let's talk about
Hooty and the Blowfish. Hoody and the Blowfish derives from
Darius Rucker being inspired by his former college roommates nicknames.
(12:37):
One of them wore big round glasses that made him
look like an owl. The other had puffy cheeks that
made him look like a blowfish.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
So it was literally Hoody was.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
One person, Blowfish was the other person, and they named
the band after that, and Hoody's biggest song, well, Hooty
and the Blowfish the band.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Their biggest song was only Want to Be with You?
Speaker 1 (12:55):
Probably another step really in my life of working with
artists and taking artists and connecting them with the public.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
Whenever I think back to VH one, you mentioned one
of them behind the music, which I loved. It was like,
that's how I got to know the freaking goo goo
dolls and the things behind.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
But also pop up videos.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
When pop up videos launched, I thought that was the
invention of my lifetime. Little do I don't know would
be the iPhone, but before the iPhone, John, it was
pop up videos. So I don't know where does pop
up videos? How does that come up? And who do
people say no to that?
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Forever?
Speaker 3 (13:33):
And then it all of a sudden it's something that
is It was a phenomenon while it was out.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Yeah, you know, there's an old saying that jan that
domin aregan used to have. They say, how do you
make it in the music business. He said, you know,
what kind of skills do you need to make it
in the music business. He said, here's the skills you need.
Get up from your desk, get on the elevator, go
up in the street, and pray you bump into a genius.
And so I was taking meetings on a VH one
(14:01):
to look for ideas that really would speak to like
an educated audience. They grew up with MTV, I thought
of themselves. Now is a little more clever than a teenager.
You know, just like when you do Bobby Earshow, you
have a voice, you have an attitude. People know Bobby
Bone Show, you have an attitude. Charlottee has an attitude
and style does DJ Envy in the folks at breakfast Club.
(14:21):
It wasn't just to me about playing songs, but what's
the attitude. And the attitude was let's have fun with
some of these artists and let's not get to me,
but let's let's kind of look at the lyricity songs.
And there's this guy named tad Low, and Tadlow who
was doing freelance work for MTV, and he was the
kind of guy that you know, you'd hire to do
(14:43):
your your birthday video for friends. He is a clever guy,
put these little video things together. When I got to
VH one, he called me. He said, hey, I'm the
guy who did that birthday video for you. I go, yeah, yeah,
what's up? And he said, I got some ideas, So
he came in and one of them was pop up
the video. And I said, it's a little bit of
biting the hand that feeds you because it's got it's
(15:04):
got a little bit of a little bit of sarcasm.
But I said, since the artists are the blood that
runs through a veins tag, you can't be that mean,
but have a little fun. That's what happened in pap
up video. Boy to that pop that just that was
but that helped define the kind of like the brand
image for VH one of just being more than a
video jukebox. So part of it was serious where we
(15:27):
do back cells, where we talk about that this is
the video you just saw, his video you're going to
see now, and obviously behind the music with stories pop
up video was let's have some fun. And then the
third one, a show we had called Storytellers, and Storytellers
was kind of like instead of unplugged, of playing the songs.
It was unplugged with the stories behind the song. And
that's where Bowie and Everyone in the Sun played. And
(15:50):
that turned out to be one of the hits for
us and put us on the map.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
One of my favorite albums. And I just had Adam
Durrett in the studio. We did an hour together. From
count of Crouse, I signed him what I signed and publishing, Yeah,
I signed, you said, I wish you should ask that
when you saw him.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Counting Crows. I love him.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
They'm a favorite band. The band name Counting Crows is
derived from one for Sorrow, which is a British nursery
rhyme about the superstitious counting of magpies, which are members
of the Crow family. Singer Adam Duratz heard the rhyme
in the film The Signs of Life, which starred his
close friend actress Mary Louise Parker, and probably their biggest song,
(16:28):
Mister Jones, was what launched the band into superstardom.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
So go on, I'll tell my story, tell me about it.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
I was just gonna say I had him in and
he was excellent and was so generous, and you know,
Adam I'd never met him before, and it's always when
you meet kind of your musical heroes, I'm always still
a little nervous that I'm gonna like him less.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
I never want to like him less. I always want
to leave the same way when I went in, I
loved Adham. I thought he was great.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
Thought he was so generous with his time and his answers,
and I just I was talking to him about the
album that really in college I listened to more than
anything else, and it was a Storyteller's album.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
It was counting Crowds across the live wire.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
And when you talk about Storytellers, one of those CDs
and the two CD you know, Counting Crow's album was
a VH one Storytellers And so I didn't know you
signed Adams.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
So how did you meet him?
Speaker 1 (17:18):
After I left MTV, I was, you know, kicking around
looking it was twenty nine and we had made our
money there, which wasn't a lot of money. Looking back
at the time, I thought was a lot of money.
But I didn't know what's going to do next. So
I kind of tried being an agent, you know, music
agent for a while. That although I respect music agents
or film agents, wasn't what I like to make things.
I really wasn't in money to be the booker. I
(17:40):
wanted to one to make it so or make the content.
I took over Christlas Records and began the president of
Christmas Records in North America. And we had we had
a great run. We had We had Billy Idol, we
had Shinead O'Connor World Party. We had been rock band
called Slaughter, We had Arrested Development Gang Star. It was
(18:02):
a great label. And I was about two years in
and EMI bought us and folded our company into another
part of EMI. And I was stuck there with another
year or two on my contract, and I had a
piece of the company side. I had to stick around
to get my money. And so they moved me over
to music publishing. And I said, I don't want music.
What does the music publisher do well? Music publishing they
(18:25):
find these artists, they're the ones well the record labels
are they're worrying about graphics and fighting over deals. The
publishers are out there finding songs out of clubs. So
I said, all right, well, I got a couple of
years here, I might as well go look for some
bands and running up being the president of a record company.
You're just in finance meetings all day. You're just you're
so far away Bobby from the music. Music publishers are
(18:48):
in the music at all times. So I would come
into the office instead of sitting in staff meetings all day,
I'd be going through tapes or CDs at the time
and talking to lawyers, because the lawyers are the ones
who were finding these are before the record companies did.
I would just be out there with my friends I
met from MTV, taking by the lunches dinners. I remember
the head of the company saying, why are you taking
(19:08):
these lawyers and agents out for lunch? And I said,
because they're out there finding these artists. So one day
a friend of mine said, I think we're gonna There
is this band called Counting Crows. You might like them,
they said, said, but they're nothing. They haven't been made
a record yet. I don't think they even met p
Bone yet. Burnette and so I went up to San
Francisco to a BMI showcase and there with about twenty
(19:31):
five people in this club were the Counting Crows playing on,
going like, how am I so lucky to be in
this room? And I'm listening and listening. So I went
back and there was Adam and at that time had
crazy hair, like so why I would like Dreadlock like
Bob Marley Hare. It was very cool and he was
(19:52):
in there and I just said, this is the greatest
record I've heard in years. And I'm the music publisher.
I don't know what what I do, but I'm a
music in Tellivision. Help. I want to sign you. So
I signed them, and I said what I would do
is I know all my friends from MTV and I
can help you get played on MTV. And Lauren Michael's
(20:13):
is a great friend of mine. And so when I
signed them, the first thing I did was I took
the talent of director Marcy Klein from SNL. I said,
you got to see the band I signed. They're great.
Took her down to Webster Hall, which was the old
Ritz in New York, and she said, I love them.
I'm going to put them on the show. All said,
what so this band When the record was just coming out,
(20:33):
they were on SNL and I and of course went
back to my friends at MTV and I promoted them
to get them on MTV. And I said, wow, this
is kind of fun of music publishing. You get to
find bands and then promote them, and something that you
can't do write a record company because you're too busy
going through the paperwork and the red tape. And another
band I signed was called Stone Temple Pilot who sold
(20:54):
seven million records SDP.
Speaker 3 (20:57):
Stone Tiple Pilots had six number ones that made Billboard
Rock charts and one number one album on the Pop
charts in nineteen ninety four.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
That album was called Purple. I loved it. I listened
to it a lot.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
They want to Grammy in nineteen ninety four for Best
Hard Rock Performance for this song Plush. Their lead singer,
Scott Wiland passed away from a drug overdose in December
of twenty fifteen.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
Went downtown in New York during this thing called CMJ
was called kind of a college music seminar. They all
the young bands and all the A and R people
would go to where the hot bands were. I went
to the club where the hot bands were all playing.
I couldn't get in, so I took my thing out
and said, there's some band called Stone Table Pilots that
the lawyer has told me about. Let me go see
them at this place called the bank. It was a
(21:44):
Tuesday night. I walked into the bank, same thing, ainst
Counting Crows there with twelve people stone table pilots ripping
the plates apart, and all I could think of was
that I'm rigan line is pray you bump into a genius.
And those are two cases where literally, by chance, I
rant into two great artists and sign them and we
(22:05):
become life on friends. And then I leave them. I
and I in my music publishing where I signed them
and went over to pH one and what were the
first two videos I put on, Don't Table Pilot and
Counting Crows. So to me, it's part of the again,
that ecosystem where if you just hang around the hoop
and be and beyond the court and be playing, you're
(22:25):
going to be able to touch every aspect of the
way fans connect with their artists. And that's where I
think I've been lucky to live in that little cyclone or.
Speaker 3 (22:33):
That sweet spot when you talk about stp from back
in the day, the Scott Wiland walking into hearing a
young Scott Wiland sing, I mean, was it undenied?
Speaker 1 (22:42):
Now?
Speaker 3 (22:42):
It's undeniable because Don't Tail Pilots were so good, so big,
rest in peace, Scott Island. But to hear him that
young and before they had broken out, were you like,
how does this band not blow up?
Speaker 1 (22:54):
You know? It's funny, Bobby. It's like, you know, success
has a million fathers and failure, but one you know
when you're in when you're in a club and you're listening,
and I love so much music. I'm a fan like
you are. I just love artists. I respect artists. They
have more talent and they're pinky than I do. But
they're just you know, I was in a band growing up.
I was obsessed with trying to be a great artist.
(23:16):
But you're in there and you're saying I like this,
you know, and I'm not. I don't have any research
data here. I can't say I'm not a focus group here.
It's like I'm saying, but boy, they feel like watching
them is like watching the Rolling Stones when I was
a kid. I mean, I may be the oldest guy
in the room here, but I still think that pretty good. Ears.
There's certainly a nose to smell it and to look
(23:38):
around and say something's going on in here. And again
I met him and Scott and Dean de Leo and
his brother, his brother Scott and Eric the drummer. Great
guys and it's funny there. As you know from working
with artists, they could be crazy and evil and mean
on stage and then you meet them backstage and like, hey,
how are you? Where are you from? And that's the
beauty of these artists, it's there. It's the persona that
(24:00):
they put out there. You know. One of the nicest
guys you ever meet is Keith Richards. You see him
on stage, you don't want to go near him. You're terrified, sweetheart.
So Scott and I love Scott, and you could see
he was struggling. But you know the great thing about
him he was I would see him anywhere, you know,
years after when I moved on to VH one and
would see him and he would be in the dark
place whatever, his eyes would light up. He is still
(24:23):
that guy with a heart of gold. Gave me a hug,
showed me baby pictures. He would be like, you know,
just the guy. And it broke my heart that we
lost him, But that's kind of part of the journey
we're all on that we look at it, look at
you started out, you know hip hop, you know rock,
and roll. Now you're a kingpin and country. So it's
about the love we have for music, and you really
(24:44):
let that music pull you along and take you on
the journey and hopefully along the way. You know, we
use some of our own talent to basically go out
and and curate and pick the good stuff that we are,
not the good stuff and stuff we think will be.
We'll work with you, connect with fans, and be a promoter.
I always say here at iHeart, which is funny. We
haven't talked much about radio here, but all the stuff
(25:06):
we add at MTV or VH one would never have
been a hit without radio. And I used to say
to everybody we would get thanked MT would get thanked
at the Grammys, but it was radio that drove that
those records home. We were maybe TikTok back then we
were basically the tip of the sphere, but actually after
that it was radio drove at home. Which is why
I was so excited to join my longtime brother Bob
(25:29):
Pittman to come back here because we could now put
a national brand called iHeart Radio on these eight hundred
and eighty amazing local outlets and sometimes scale up in
order to take a great idea and share it. I
used to always say, grow up in my town. If
it's a good idea for Schenectady, it's a good idea
for America. If the Bobby Bone Show is a good
(25:50):
idea in Nashville, it's a great idea for the rest
of the country. Because we live now in a nuclear
society where everybody everybody is everywhere, and we share so
many the same likes and dislikes. So for me, radio,
to me is probably the most powerful platform I've ever
worked on. Certainly didn't get all the pressed like MTV
(26:12):
and vh one did in the day. But if you
really want to know where the power is, it's you know,
people listen to your show every morning. When you turn
on to an artist, that's when the button is pushed.
Speaker 4 (26:22):
Let's take a quick pause for a message from our sponsor,
and we're back on the Bobby Cast.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
How in the world did you get the coolest job
in the whole world? It's that because the job that
you're paid to do is awesome. But I know the
responsibilities of that. But like the Rock and Roll Hall
of Fame, I don't know what the responsibilities are. That's
an awesome job.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
Well, yeah, Bobby, I only wish I had this job
in high school because I'd be a lot more popular.
But I've been on the board of the Rock and
Roll Hall of Fame for twenty twenty five years and
on the nominating committee, run for thirty five years by
Jan Winner, the founder of Rolling Stone, founder publisher, editor,
and about four years ago he gave it up and
(27:09):
I was nominated, voted in to run the hall. To
run the foundation, it's sometimes the greatest job in the world.
Sometimes it's the worst because no one's ever happy. The
people get in or satisfied, the people who don't are upset.
So it's kind of like the country music Hall of
Fame Cooper's Town the baseball Hall of Fame. Every time
you announced the winners, there's enough people saying, well, how
(27:30):
come zone so didn't get in? What about so and
so so? For baseball, you got to be batting about
three hundred to get in Cooper's Town. And music, it's
much more subjective. But yeah, I love it. It's an
incredible position to have. I didn't even see it coming.
They drafted me on there because I was just happy
being on the nominame committee, and I used to work
on producing the shows, but to me, it's just part
(27:51):
of my life. Music is everything for me, and it's
part of the ecosystem I have between iHeart, the Hall
of Fame, what I do with Robin Hood and I
did you know when we started MTV years ago, Bob
and I and a few others. It's my life's what
I do, and I love to live it that way.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
So if you're to be inducted into the Grand Ole Opry,
for example, or the Illuminati or all of these places
that you want to be in but you really don't
know the exactly what you have to do to get in.
Is the rock and Roll Hall of Fame like that
where there are no exact there's no exact protocol as
to how someone gets into it, just like a feeling
(28:26):
amongst a group of people that are voting, or even
how to get on the list to be voted for.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
Yeah, I figure you're right, Bobby. It's music is very personal, subjective.
So the Hall of Fame is really based on artists
that truly have contributed to the growth of rock and
roll and the impact and artists that have followed them.
So it would be not just record sales or ticket sales.
It really is the music that was made move culture
(28:51):
and did it and influenced artists that followed. I think
Barry Gordy had the greatest line of all that he
used to put on the bottom of every Motown record.
It said to the young America. And that gives me
goosebumps every time I hear that, because it was music
for teenagers, which is where rock and roll came from
in the fifties. When it came from, it wasn't one sound.
It was an amalgam of rhythm, blues, country, and gospel.
(29:15):
So it wasn't like jazz, which was a very neat
silo an elite format. Rock and roll was about six
It was about rebellion. And that's why it's a little
bit of subjective category because it's so many different sounds
that make up rock and roll, and it's continued to evolve.
So we get a lot of people saying, that's not
rock and roll. You know, Hank Williams, isn't rock and roll,
(29:38):
Dolly part isn't rock and roll? Well, yeah they are.
Country was a cornerstone of what rock and roll is
all about. Somewhere along the line, rock and roll became
known and maybe the sixties and seventies as rock. White
guys playing guitars, which is an important part. It's important
part of rock and roll, but it's just one. And
that's why sixth of the first ten artists abducted the
(29:59):
rock and roll things were black. There are and B singers.
That was part of the genesis of rock and roll.
You listened to the Beatles playing roll over Beethoven that
was written by Chuck Berry. You listen to Cream or
led Zeppelin, some of those great songs were written by
Willie Dixon, Robert Johnson, and obviously you know the impact
that Johnny Cash has had on rock and roll. So
it's an amalgam. And so that's kind of the bass
(30:22):
we use to find really as who should be inducted.
Were they part of that amalgam, that sound, that collection
of sounds that made up rock and roll? And then
the way, if you want to really get into the details,
there's a nominating committee of thirty people, and thirty people
from all walks of like Tom Morello's on that Questlove
is on that board, Dave Grohl is on that nominating committee.
Speaker 3 (30:43):
Let's talk about rage against the machine. The guitarists for Rage.
Tom Morello graduated from Harvard after receiving a scholarship and
political science, and he's right number forty in Rolling Stone's
Top one hundred greatest Guitarists.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
Moving on to The Roots, which.
Speaker 3 (30:58):
You may have seen as Jimmy Fallons house band, but
the Roots were legit far before Jimmy Fallon. The lead
singer of the Roots, Questlove also Amir Thompson that's his
real name.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
Was born and raised in Philadelphia.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
His father was a singer, his mom was a model
and a dancer, and instead of paying for babysitters, they
would take a mere Questlove to shows and have them
set up the stages before they performed. And finally, let's
talk about Dave Grohl, because not only was Dave Grohl
the drummer for Nirvana prior to creating the Food Fighters,
he also lived with lead singer Kurt Cobain from Nirvana
for the first eight months they were together. Dave Grohl
(31:30):
once said it was chaos and even wrote a song
about it called Friend of a Friend on the In
Your Honor album in two thousand and five.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
And they come up with thirteen names based on the
only I guess the number that impacts whether you're in
eligible is you had to have a record out at
least or or refirst to record out at least twenty
five years ago. After that. It really is what I
just really outlined were the parameters of who should be
(31:59):
con hitered for induction from that meeting, which is I
always like to say half debate, half World Wrestling Federation
and arguing, thirteen names come out. Then those thirteen names,
Bobby go to a larger voting group of about twelve
hundred made up probably half of former inductees and others
(32:21):
from music experts, label current artist, the reviewers, radio programmers,
and they vote on which of the thirteen nominees will
get one of the seven six or seven coveted slots
for performers. And that's really the process. It starts in January,
and it's a wild meeting because people take the gloves
(32:42):
off and go at it. In addition, and not to
get it too much into the minutia here is there
are three special categories that go along with that. The
performers group. One is called Musical Excellence producers, songwriters, side men,
side women who have influenced music, who may not be performers.
Some performance some not. For example, this year Bernie Taupin,
(33:03):
the Great Bernie taupmin wrote for Elton John is getting
in under Music Excellence because of his writing. Last year
Jimmy Jim and Terry Lewis got in from Musical Excellence
because they wrote and produced all those great records. This
year also you've got al Cooper. Al Cooper found Leonard Skinner,
produced Leonard Skinner. Before that he basically produced and worked
on played the organ for Bob Dylan and played with
(33:27):
the Rolling Stones, the Beatles. He was a legendary assidement
producer and then founded Blood, Sweat and Tears. So where
do you put a guy in the category like that, Well,
we put him into Musical Excellence. And sometimes if an
artist like Ellll Cool Jay And this year in the
case of Shaka Khan had gotten on the ballot, the
nominating ballot many many times Bobby, but hadn't been voted
(33:47):
in by the general voting group, and we are special committee,
which is the smaller group, will put them in under
Musical Excellence. And finally, the third category is the domed
Eritigan Award, which is named after Amederita and legendary head
of Atlantic Records, founder everyone from Led Zeppelin, Aretha Franklin,
the Rolling Stones, amazing record executive. And that's for a
non performer. In the past, Bill Graham has gotten out Award,
(34:10):
David Geffen has gotten out of Ward, Moe Austin, you
know the legendary record labels. Last year it was Jimmy
Iveen who was produced Bruce Springsteen. This year it's going
to be Don Cornelius, who founded Soul Trained or Them
and Blues. And that's a tough one because everybody, every
executive in the business wants that one. That's a covenant slot.
Speaker 4 (34:27):
We interrupt this interview to bring you a message from
our sponsor. Welcome back to the Bobby Cast.
Speaker 3 (34:41):
You know, you bring up something interesting when you have
humans defining art, and usually you know when you go, hey,
is this rock and roll? This happens to country music?
Is this country music? And people are like, well, that's
not rock, that's not country. But mostly I see that
people just hold said fast to the idea that the
type of music there was popular when they were in
their formidable years is only the definition of that type
(35:04):
of music.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
You know, in country music. I get it. All the time.
Speaker 3 (35:06):
And now I've been lucky enough to work in pop
and hip hop, in alternative, in country, and so I
feel like I have a pretty good grasp on that.
I'm mostly wrong when it comes to defining anything artistic
because it's hard to put a label on art generally,
and country music comes from the slave ships from Africa
and European people coming to the United States and with
(35:28):
fiddles and banjos, that's it. And so when people are like, well,
it's not country, it's not like, you know, deep South prairie,
and I'm like, well, if we want to really get
down to it, that's not country because country music is
derived from again, people from Africa and people from Europe
coming together and joining. I just find that people, when
they start to try to define art, they're always wrong.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
And I imagine that's so frustrating to you.
Speaker 3 (35:50):
When people are like Dolly Parton jay Z and we
could go down and just and pick people, and they go,
that's not rock and roll when they don't even understand
what the the NSS of rock and roll was or is.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
Exactly Bobby, what happened was before your time and even
almost before my time, because I'm older than you, there
was top forty radio, like the real like sixties top
forty radio where they would put Loretta Lynn would be on,
the Beatles, Bobby Sherman, the Rolling Stones, and the Convoy Trucker.
Song like. It was just just this collection of songs
(36:25):
that seventeen year olds had to listen to for whatever reason.
This kind of whatever wherever American culture was or is
at that time, has brought together a sound. That's why
rock and roll is so hard to define, to your point,
because and you said with country, there's sometimes some country,
kind of old school country fans are saying, no, that's
(36:47):
not country. Well, country music, just like every other format, evolves,
and then there's kind of crossroads of it all really
came in nineteen fifty five with rock and roll, and
that was really because rock roll is not one sound
you could just it's everything. And that's why when Dolly
got in, she turned it down originally saying I don't
(37:08):
want to block another woman who should get in. I'm
the country, I'm not rock and roll. So I wrote
her a note and she said, oh, I get it now.
The answers still know, but you ought to do a
better job telling people who you are. I thought was funny,
and I said, well, I just got started. But you're right.
(37:30):
I think the rock and Roll Hall of Fame now
that you know music constantly evolves, for young for culture,
it's got to do a job of going back. It's
not reinventing what it was, it's going back to the
really the genesis of what rock and roll was, to say,
this is kind of the path that we followed. But
you're right. People are always going to point fingers, that's
not rock and roll. You said, that's not country. It
(37:53):
is sometimes easier if you're in the jazz world because
jazz is a very clear lane. It's a beautifullybat format,
and you could say that's Coltrane, that's Miles Davis, that
so and so, and rock and roll is kind of
is really the music of the people. And if you
look at where a big part of rock and roll
came from was the South. I mean that's where basically
(38:13):
so much music outside of jazz came from the South
in America. That's why the Rolling Stones when they were
doing their Sticky Figures album, they went down to muscle shows.
They wanted the muscle shows players to play on some
of those songs. They wanted to capture that song, that
sound because dead Flowers very much a part of what
the Rolling Stones are about, and that came from country music.
Speaker 3 (38:33):
You ever have to is there ever a struggle separate
the art from the artist? Meaning if it turns out
somebody that's really crushed it over the course of twenty
thirty forty years they ain't that good of a person,
or there have been some story like do you ever
go we just can't do it because they're kind of
a douchebag that you know.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
The answer is no, we actually are blind to as
you would say, the douchebag filter, and that it really
is based on who they are. And by the way,
some of the rock and roll arts were bad boys
and bad girls and they broke some they broke some rules,
and that's kind of why we liked them growing up
because they we could live like carelessly through their music.
(39:12):
I mean, Keith Richards, he did every drug under the sun.
I didn't, but boy, I love that guy. I just
I just I just lived vi kerosy to Keith Richards,
you know, to me street fighting man. That was my
escape from my small town. What can a poor boy do? Gets?
You know, singing a rock and roll band. So there
are some of the art and some people have been inductives.
Maybe one or two said screw you, I'm not going
(39:33):
to be in this place. You waited too long. I'm
not coming now. Out of almost three hundred and eighty inductees,
I think one or two are Maghamdful, I think haven't.
But for the most part we're blind to that. It
really is did their music move culture? More importantly, did
their music did their music move youth culture? I go
back to those early Motown records, which is basically did
(39:54):
they create the sound of young America? Rage?
Speaker 2 (39:57):
You get some machines up this year.
Speaker 3 (39:58):
I was a big Rage fan, I mean massive, but
there was always a battle, well we're going to come
out to a football games because I was a massive
Rage fan, and it was either that of Tupac and
it was always so then it was just every other week,
but love Rage against the machine. And you mentioned that
one of the members, one of the selecting members, is yeah,
one of the members of Rage. Now does he have
to leave the room whenever you guys talk about Rage?
Speaker 1 (40:21):
You know, he liked Dave Grohl, who was also a
member of the nomin committee before his band was nominated.
They sit patiently in the room. And it's interesting because
some of these nominated committee members are so tough they
don't fold easily. So even if the artists is two
feet away from them, that artist may not get the votes.
That's how tough this room is. I feel very strange
(40:43):
being a music fan that I am, that is sitting
next to Dave Girl and not nominated in the first time. Now,
in his defense, he was nominated first ballot. He wasn't
a rage star. Rage Whoo's were not eligible until two
years ago and they got in. Rage has been and
it took a few years and Tom set there very
very quietly. But he has contributed so much to the
(41:08):
to the Hall of Fame because early on there was
a criticism of the Hall that it was too it
was too uppity, too much run by critics who turn
their nose up at popularity popular music. So bands like
Kiss Journey couldn't get in rush because this group of
nominating committee members just thought that that was below them.
(41:30):
It should be important music. Tom came in of course
with from a from a band that all the critics
love and said, that's that, you know, rock and roll
is not it's not jazz, it's not some cool, high
and inside format. It's of the people. Like I said,
it's about sex, it's about breaking the rules. So because
of Tom, a lot of these snooty you might want
(41:52):
to say, nominating committee members went, you're right, you're right.
This is the sound of young America. And about five
six years ago, the floodgame it's opened and you felt
a little bit of a democratization of rock and roll
to balance off just the high inside cool kids on
the block, and we let into some other people that
really change young people. I mean Eddie Vedder listened to
(42:15):
kids growing up. Of course he did. That's what he
was twelve years old. That's what I mean. We all
listen to music when we were teens. That may have
changed our cases, may have changed later on. That's been
interesting to see those artists in there and Questlove of
course is in the roots, but he's been very open
about supporting younger artists.
Speaker 3 (42:33):
Now Willie Nelson's up this year as well, which is
super cool and what is that dynamic like with folks
in the room again from all walks of life, and
then Willie Nelson comes up as a guy who you
have to suggest to be on the ballot and then
actually makes it. But when someone like Willie pops up
that super country or Missy Elliott that is hip hop.
Is that a different conversation than someone who was pretty
down the middle, like as a pop art, like a
(42:55):
Chryl Crow for example.
Speaker 2 (42:56):
That feels like that would be easier for everyone to understand.
Speaker 3 (43:00):
Not that one's better than the other, but a lot
of folks can understand Cheryl Crow mainstream, but Willie and
not till later, Missy, they weren't. So is that conversation
different when ours like that had brought up?
Speaker 1 (43:12):
Bobby, it was about six or seven years ago. Because
you had a group of primarily white people who were
raised on rock and roll rock excuse me, making the
decisions early on. It wasn't odd that Hank Williams got
inducted or Johnny Cash because the early voting really stemmed
from people who had a knowledge of the fifties. And
(43:35):
so when you had the original amin arrait again, seymour Stein,
Bob Krasnow on that committee, they got why Brenda Lee
should be in the rock roll fame. They got why
Fatstalmo should be in the rock roll fame. Because they
understood the really the creation and the genesis of truly
what was rock and roll. As years went by and
kind of white rock began to kind of steer the
(43:57):
perception of the rock roll fame or really the inductee,
that's where the group kind of fell into a comfort
zone of a certain sound that was naturally an extension
of white people playing rock and roll music. Well, what
I want to do coming in was again not redefined,
but really go back to the roots and the definite,
(44:18):
the true definition of rock and roll and begin to
honor the people who really should do deservedly should be
in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. So that's
now that we've I think putting Dolly in last year,
all of a sudden, Willie Nelson, who's ninety years old
this year, automatically gets in first, I mean first ballot.
I think it took a trailblazer like Dolly to I
(44:41):
don't say opened the gates, but reopened the gates to
the true genesis of rock and roll being honored because
it was happening back in the late eighties when the
Hall of Fame was established, when Johnny Cash, Hank Williams,
Brenda Lee, and again I mentioned earlier that's Domino Charles.
They were all their hall of fame that kind of
(45:02):
dipped and faded during the nineties when people kind of,
I must say, lost sight, but kind of lost track
of some of the artists that were that really were true,
true iconic artists the help shape rock and roll, and
I'm really happy to report that's coming back now.
Speaker 2 (45:19):
I when it comes to iHeart, like, what is your
job exactly?
Speaker 3 (45:22):
Because I read your fancy title, which is president of
I because you do everything. I've seen you be involved
in everything period, But president of iHeartMedia Entertainment Enterprises. That's
a lot of big words that give me a lot
of big different things. So what does that even mean?
Speaker 2 (45:34):
John?
Speaker 1 (45:34):
Well, thank you Bob Pittman for dreaming that title up
when I was I was about to go and do
yet another startup in twenty ten, I left by a
common the only people not to be fired, but it
probably would have been fired because they fired everybody eventually there.
But to me, the glory days we're going to MTV
and VH one or I don't want to say, well,
(45:54):
the way I wanted to run was gone, so I
decided to lead I was going to run a company
called Shazam, which is you can hit a hit a
song shazamit. And I thought that could be the next MTV,
the way you could base because you could your users
were opting in. I know Bobby Bones likes Lady Gaga. Okay, now, okay,
I'm going to now talk to Bobby about this. Son,
(46:16):
Bobby Bones loves counting Pros. I'm going to do this.
John Psychs loves the Rolling Stones. I'm going to connect him.
You could have a you could have this, this amazing
algorithm connected you to the people who opted in. And
then Bob called and said, I'm going to do this.
I know you like to work. You like Scale, John,
which I love Scale. And they said we're going to
take the biggest company that bigger than Google or Facebook
(46:38):
as far as reach, and kind of want you to
be a partner on it. And I said, well, I'm
not that really good at running a radio station. I
hadn't run one since college, and I'm not really interested
in running one station in one market. I kind of
like I've been trained over the years of MTV and
vh one eying to talk to the country and that's
hard because hard in this world of narrow casting to
(46:58):
talk to the country. I liked the idea of amplifying
a great idea make me better. So I said, you know,
why don't I just build out taking this platform and
build out relationships. And so we could push a button
and break an artist, and we could create events on
other platforms like video act short form video, broadcast television
(47:21):
events where we can put a lot of people under
the iHeart umbrella. And then Bob put me with Tom
Pullman as a partner to Tom runs programming for the
stations to look for the right artists and help to
break them and help to put together actually marketing packages,
which is what I did at MTV all the years
to try to break artists. And so part of my
time Tom and I are working on finding the right artists,
(47:43):
breaking them nationally, using our powerful turbines at radio to
break them, and the other half of my time looking
for new places to put all our shows, our award
shows on Fox. We're about to put jingle Ball to
another broadcast, huge broadcast network. Our festival is going to
go on one of the big streams. So I look
for partners that we can basically take to amplify the
(48:04):
iHeartRadio brand. And then I also deal with the advertisers
with Verse and Discovery warners. That's really to I always
say to them, don't just run a commercial. Have Bobby
Bones or Elvis or Ryan talk with their team about
this movie's about to come out, about this product, is
this new phone, and humanize it to your point, Bobby,
(48:27):
about being the trusted companion and not to lie or
be in any way facetious. But if they do believe
in the product and they are connected with it, talk
about it. What better way. I mean, television, you have
to buy a thirty second spot. It's one and done
and you're gone. This is the time where you could
actually have this person who you're sitting in the car
was stuck in traffic for forty five minutes saying unbelievable,
(48:49):
just that there's this new movie called, you know, called Elvis.
You know, you might think of Elvis as some old
fat lounge singer from Vegas. He was like the Clash,
He was a punk artist. In fifty nine he upset parents.
And you tell that story and the advertisers go, I
see radio can do something that no one else can do.
So Bob kind of lets me go wherever I want
to go here, and I've never had more I've never
(49:11):
stayed in the job. That's long, twelve years, but it is.
And if I find the right television opportunity, you know,
you know with I remember, I think we talked few
years ago with the Masked Singer that was coming out,
and then and you went on to do IDOL and
you know, and I did nothing to do with Idol.
I was jealous. I wish I had, but I mean
it's something that's you take. And we just put the
(49:32):
Breakfast Club on beet. That's something I always figured like
that should be. You know, I thought I was tried
so hard. I wanted you to go on CMT and
they they all the good I don't say the good people,
but you know, people who were who were really great
at CMT left and they kind of put it all.
I wanted one umbrella and they didn't see the power
of Bobby Bones that could have been great for CMT.
(49:53):
So that's kind of you. That's a long another one
of my long answers to your short question of what
do you do? It's kind of like every day, every
day is a blank slate for me. But at the
end of the day. You know, I just have it.
I have an agreement with Bob and rich sip. You know,
I'd say is it still working? And they go still working?
I go, good, I'll hang up.
Speaker 3 (50:11):
It's still working when I come to New York in
the next year or so. I mean, there are a
lot more than that, but we can get our schedules
to line up. I just want to sit down and
talk artists. I just want to with you, go this artist,
that artist, this artist, and just hear the stories and
just document some of these psych's nuggets that.
Speaker 2 (50:31):
We got to get them. We got, we gotta get
them down.
Speaker 3 (50:33):
You have so many from so many different genres, from
different eras, So so much respect for me to you
for you know, the resume that you have built and
the high level that you've built it. And good luck
with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. And don't
think I'm not going to hit you up to go, John,
I'm in town. Let's get onto microphones. I'm ready to go.
Speaker 1 (50:54):
You should come. I'm inviting you to the Rock and
Hall of Fame induction ceremony this November Friday, November third,
Barclays and if you want to witness one of those
induction ceremonies. There's nothing else like it. It's it is.
It is a cavalcade of stars that come in from
all genres. Again to our earlier conversation about that makes
a rock and roll, They're all there on the stage.
(51:14):
It'll blow your mind.
Speaker 2 (51:15):
John.
Speaker 3 (51:15):
I appreciate your time and I will see you very soon,
my friend.
Speaker 1 (51:18):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (51:19):
Bobby s anybuddy love this episode of the Bobby Cast.
Speaker 4 (51:22):
Subscribe on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Host
Bobby Bones
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