November 1, 2025 • 17 mins
In 1991, Dan Beck became Michael Jackson's main marketing contact at Epic Records. For five rollercoaster years, he was immersed in a world of unequalled stardom, dealing with the outsized ambition, whims and idiosyncrasies of the world's most famous entertainer. It was a pivotal point in Jackson's career. His last album had failed to repeat the record-shattering success of Thriller. Rumors about his personal life and his eccentricities had made him the subject of gossip and accusations. Tabloids had begun calling him "Wacko Jacko." "You've Got Michael" tells the story of the high-stakes battle to save Jackson's career and market his 1995 greatest hits album, as told by the record executive closest to him.Rather than rehash a controversial career, You've Got Michael details the inner workings of the music business at its mega-platinum height. Between the frequent 2:00 a.m. phone calls, pleas to get Michael to complete the new songs for the HIStory greatest hits package and the handling of unpredictable developments, You've Got Michael is a gripping drama about working with a supreme talent through the most difficult time in his career.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Dan Beck.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
I'll tell you what I have asked more people in
my journey in radio is that if you could live
five minutes in my shoes, you would get a different
pair of feelings. And that's exactly what this book is.
You're giving us an opportunity to live in Michael Jackson's shoes.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Well, thank you.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
It's uh, you know, it's uh. I was hanging around
those shoes for a few years.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Now.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Am I reading this correctly? Because what I'm seeing and
what I'm feeling is You've got Michael, and it says
through his story because I don't want to see the
word history.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
I want to hear.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
I want to see his story.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Am I wrong in that?
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Uh? No, you know, and really comes uh Eric, It
comes from uh uh the whole idea.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
You know.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
I gave him the name for the album that his
story idea. And you know that double album was uh uh.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
You know.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
The first disc was his greatest hits and and that
was his history and the second album was the new Songs,
in which he was basically defending himself. And I thought,
that's his story, and so we I put those ideas
together and he loved it and uh and ran with
(01:17):
it and uh and of course his idea of history
was statues and you know, troops and wars and you
know everything we learned in history class in high school.
And uh, you know, I I had thought a little more, Uh,
I guess I thought of the momentos that you know,
(01:39):
the the silver glove, the white white sox and the
wig and shoes and that, and but Michael ran with
the idea in his vision of history.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
I can't imagine what it was like to sit down
and collaborate with him in a way that because I
mean you you even openly admit that trying to get
him into the studio to record the music was very difficult.
And it's like, how do you even share that with
somebody who has done so many great things in music.
It's like, Michael, you got to go in the studio, dude.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
Well he was in the studio with the real challenge
ery was getting him out.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Oh god.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
And because you know, and you think about it, he
was super comfortable in the studio, but he loved to create.
He was in there with Bruce Swedeen and you know,
engineers and producers and songwriters and musicians that he was
so comfortable with and love to be with and loved
(02:39):
to create. It was the challenge of finishing and then
facing the public, you know, particularly after all the you know,
the media challenges and everything, and that was you know,
that was a fearful thing for him. It was for
us too, and you know, but a big part of
my job was to to get him to understand that
(03:03):
we were going to be there too, to do everything
we could to make it a success. You know.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Wow, it's a moment in history where the average music
fan only knows what they read in the tabloids. And
yet you're stepping through with this book. You've got Michael
living through his story. This is finally the book where
we can all say, oh, my god, he was he
was he was just in trouble and we and now
we what can we do to help him out?
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Right? Right?
Speaker 3 (03:33):
And you know, and you know, there was so much
pressure on all of us, you know, and you know,
the record company had their priorities, Michael had his, many
of it matched. You know that we had the same
concerns and challenges that he did. And and of course
(03:55):
we're on the business side of it. We don't you know,
we didn't know, uh, you know, what was behind the
scenes or any of that. We only knew that, you know,
we had a responsibility to the artist to you know,
to support his work, you know, and support his creative efforts.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
I'm so glad that you brought up the business side
because that's one of the things that I wanted to
talk about, because right there in the beginning of the book,
you set up readers as well as a listener so
brilliantly in that forward. And it's like, you know, requiring
an album, there's a lot of things that go into it.
It's like a movie. It's a miracle that you even
get done with it.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
Yeah, it's well, you know, things have changed so much,
you know, and you know, some of the enormous challenges
we had back then artists don't have today. But they
have new challenges that we didn't face. And you know,
it's it's never easy for any of these artists. It's
(04:55):
not easy. You know, it wasn't easy for Michael back then.
It's not easy for Taylor Swift or Lady today. They've
got new challenges, you know. And but you know, going
back there, you know, we we were very dependent on radio,
and we were very concerned that pop radio would start
(05:18):
listening to the tabloids, you know, And so it was
a big fear there and but and big challenges. But
working with Michael, you know, he was a great collaborator.
He you know, he he listened, He loved having ideas,
you know, and uh, he had to get to him
(05:39):
early because if he got to be at his bonnet
about an idea, it was very difficult to convince him
otherwise because he would get himself so excited.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
When you talk about him getting there, you know, you've
got to get to him early. Well, how about that
three am phone call. Hey, I'm back, It's Michael. How
are you three thirty of the morning.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
Michael? What are you doing calling me?
Speaker 3 (06:04):
The uh? And I knew he just needed reinforcement, you know,
he just needed to hear again confidence. He needed to
hear that we had the confidence. And you know he
he's a very competitive guy, you know. I mean Kobe
Bryant has talked about Michael's competitiveness and how he mentored Kobe.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
You know.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
And and you know, I have a phone message at
home actually I uh, I you know, transcribed it in
the book of a phone message from Michael, and it
was like a new Rockney speech. You know, you know,
it was like, uh, you know, hearing a football coach
(06:46):
he was in to see, didn't get in there, you know,
And don't let MTV give up, don't let be et
off the hook, you know, and uh and he and
he finished it with thank you, thank you, thank you
for all you do. And we were about to have
our youngest daughter. And he said, and by the way,
(07:09):
you know, when that baby's born, send me pictures.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Oh yeah, that's him, that's him.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
See.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
And that's the part of the artist that we never
get to see, the one that's off the microphone, living
real life. And you know, it still has to use
the bathroom like the rest of us and things like that.
We don't get that picture until they get this book.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
Yeah, you know, yeah, I mean people boil things, you know,
it's part of the nature of our society. You know,
we boil everything down, you know, we lose the detail,
we lose the.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Texture of life, you know.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
And you know, as huge as Michael Jackson, you know, globally,
you know, I think in some ways he could separate
his persona from just being a regular guy.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
You know, please do move.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
We'll be right back with Dan Beck the name of
the book. You've got Michael, We're back with Dan Beck.
I love the way that you step into the real
realms of releasing an album because I mean the first
steps in the pre release preparation.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
I'm a radio guy.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
We we got early releases of singles, but we never
got to go through the actual sales of the albums.
How to prepare for that? How do you get it
to the to the record stores? I mean, and that's
the thing about it is we never get to see that.
But you talk about that.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Yeah, you know.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
It's of course back in the day with the physical product.
You know, I kind of added up how many retail
stores we were dealing with then, and it was about
I think the number I came up with was like
twenty three thousand different record stores, you know, including the
Walmarts of the world and all that. And yeah, we had,
(08:53):
you know, we had to manufacture everything, you know, all
you know, all the clearances and you know, the you know,
and then getting it on trucks and getting it in
the stores. At the same time it was going on
the radio, you know, and and Mauch Easier on a
superstar because you know, the demand was there. You know,
(09:17):
often a difficult thing with new artists.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Well, you know, I don't think Michael Jackson ever understood
how important he was to AM radio because it was
it was up against a big challenger first of all
too really MTV as well as FM radio and so
AM radio depended on Michael Jackson to be there. We
had off the wall. Then we went right into thriller.
We were going next, next, next, We need to have
some air here. Michael, you're the one that's going to give.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
It to us. It was amazing, you know.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
And one of the promotions that I did, and this
was later on the Dangerous album, when Michael was going
to do the Super Bowl, we we started putting together
radio contests to win win a trip to the Super Bowl.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
So I was negotiating with the NFL to.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
Get the tickets and and our promotion people were out
setting it up with major radio stations, and then we
were setting it up with international radio Tokyo and London
and you know, Sydney and you know Paris and you
know Berlin and all over the world. And I pitched
(10:31):
Michael on the idea of him reading the promos, and
I thought radio is just gonna flip out when when
they get Michael Jackson, you know, his voice saying their
call letters, and you know, we put it together.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
It was awesome.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
I mean, Michael was just a champ and doing it
took us. We probably did four hours straight of him
just reading uh uh you know, reading promos for for
the stations.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
And he loved it. You know, it's it was great.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
You gotta you gotta let me in on the insight
on that, because I do voice work. I know how
long my voice is going to last. When you're spending
four hours reading radio station copy. It's like, oh my god,
what did that do to him?
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Vocally?
Speaker 3 (11:21):
And well, you know, he was amazing. I actually brought
over a copywriter with me. We were at the Helmsley
Palace hotel and his suite and just the three of us.
He was sitting on the couch and we had you know,
we had the recorder on the on the coffee table
and uh, and I had this guy Joe de Pascal,
(11:44):
who was wonderful guy. Uh and Joe Joe's just guided
him through, you know, pronunciations and and uh and how
to emphasize certain certain phrases, you know, And Michael was
such a quick read. I mean really Joe would say, oh, Michael,
(12:08):
you know, let's do that when again and emphasize this
word or Michael just nailed it every time.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
It was just remarkable, you know.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
So when you when you talk about his speaking voice
right away, I'm shot back to the ET album. Was
that part of your years with Michael as well? Because
you don't see that album anywhere anymore.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
Yeah, No, that was that was actually uh, you know
I was there at Epic, but Michael was not a
sign to me at that time.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
And of course you know you're you're sitting there taking
on those gigantic headlines that seem to be getting bigger
and bigger and bigger. I mean, did your A and
R department do they have to sit there and say,
can you back off on these headlines so we can
get this out first and then you can come forward.
But I mean what kind of things did you have
to do with the press?
Speaker 3 (12:58):
Well, the number one, you know, senior management at Epic
and Sony were like, get this thing out fast before
it all collapses, you know, So there was, you know,
a rush to get it out and you know, and
then Michael had his you know, his own desire to
(13:20):
make sure he finished the record the way you know
he wanted to finish it. And there was a commitment
made to put his teaser spot in all the Loew's
theaters and Mike Mickey Schuloff, who was chairman of Sony Entertainment,
(13:42):
promised Michael at a dinner that we had with about
fifty people in LA that he'd get it at all
those theaters.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
And so it became.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
Then Michael didn't hear from Mickey, and now Michael was
following up with me and said, have you heard from Mickey?
You know, I wasn't going to be as a product manager.
It wasn't like I could get the chairman of Sony
Entertainment on the phone.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
But Michael, you know, continually was calling me about this.
And it was like Dave Glue, who was.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
Chairman of Epic, He and I determined that Michael's not
going to deliver this album until we live up to that.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
Commitment to get Woo.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
So it became a big challenge and frankly, we didn't
exactly love the teaser spot, but we knew we had
to get it on, you.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
Know, get it in the theaters.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
And I tell the whole story of the book about
the challenge, and I ended up getting Bob Kardashian in
the middle of the OJ trial to help me get
it into the theaters, which again is a whole other
story in the book.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
See this is this stuff that radio listeners and people
watching MTV never got to see when you know, they
did little. I mean, because one of the things that
you had to deal with was other people's time. Oh
my god, if they weren't there on your time, it
was their time. And then of course you wanted to
go on to form your own management company. How were
you able to even be that strong when other people's
time always got in the way.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
So well, you know, perseverance, you know, it's you know,
you know, I had a checklist and I went down
it every day, and I was going down that checklist
on multiple artists, you know, and it's like trying to
spot where the problems were, where the where the hold
ups were, and then looking for solutions. And you know,
(15:43):
every day you could maybe get a few things off
the list, you know. So but it just perseverance and
and follow up, and you know, so so often people
give up too soon, and you know, just at the
just at the point where it might succeed. Sometimes people
(16:04):
give up, and you know, I find that you just
if you follow through, even if it doesn't work out,
you can always say to yourself, I took it to
the end.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
I took it home. God.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
That is absolutely powerful. Where can people go to find
out more about you and everything that you have committed
to the music industry, because they need to know about
you as well.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
Well.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
You can go to you know, for the book, it
can go to Amazon dot com and that's for you've
got Michael. For me, my website is dan Beck writes
w r i tes dot com and there's again there's
some information.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
About the book there, and.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
You know you can find a little a bit more
about me.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
Please come back to the show anytime in the future.
I love where your heart is still in the music industry.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
Oh absolutely, you know.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
It's uh, it's you know, it's service to musicians and artists.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
They work so hard, they're.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
Vulnerable, they need they need support, you know, and and
they're putting it out on the line. They're all entrepreneurs,
you've been and uh uh, you know, they don't get
a paycheck every two weeks and they need our support.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
Will you be brilliant today?
Speaker 1 (17:24):
Okay sir?
Speaker 3 (17:26):
All right, well, thanks Sarah. I really enjoyed meeting you
and I hope we catch up again.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
Absolutely, thank you so much
Dan Beck.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
I'll tell you what I have asked more people in
my journey in radio is that if you could live
five minutes in my shoes, you would get a different
pair of feelings. And that's exactly what this book is.
You're giving us an opportunity to live in Michael Jackson's shoes.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Well, thank you.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
It's uh, you know, it's uh. I was hanging around
those shoes for a few years.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Now.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Am I reading this correctly? Because what I'm seeing and
what I'm feeling is You've got Michael, and it says
through his story because I don't want to see the
word history.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
I want to hear.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
I want to see his story.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Am I wrong in that?
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Uh? No, you know, and really comes uh Eric, It
comes from uh uh the whole idea.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
You know.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
I gave him the name for the album that his
story idea. And you know that double album was uh uh.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
You know.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
The first disc was his greatest hits and and that
was his history and the second album was the new Songs,
in which he was basically defending himself. And I thought,
that's his story, and so we I put those ideas
together and he loved it and uh and ran with
(01:17):
it and uh and of course his idea of history
was statues and you know, troops and wars and you
know everything we learned in history class in high school.
And uh, you know, I I had thought a little more, Uh,
I guess I thought of the momentos that you know,
(01:39):
the the silver glove, the white white sox and the
wig and shoes and that, and but Michael ran with
the idea in his vision of history.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
I can't imagine what it was like to sit down
and collaborate with him in a way that because I
mean you you even openly admit that trying to get
him into the studio to record the music was very difficult.
And it's like, how do you even share that with
somebody who has done so many great things in music.
It's like, Michael, you got to go in the studio, dude.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
Well he was in the studio with the real challenge
ery was getting him out.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Oh god.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
And because you know, and you think about it, he
was super comfortable in the studio, but he loved to create.
He was in there with Bruce Swedeen and you know,
engineers and producers and songwriters and musicians that he was
so comfortable with and love to be with and loved
(02:39):
to create. It was the challenge of finishing and then
facing the public, you know, particularly after all the you know,
the media challenges and everything, and that was you know,
that was a fearful thing for him. It was for
us too, and you know, but a big part of
my job was to to get him to understand that
(03:03):
we were going to be there too, to do everything
we could to make it a success. You know.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Wow, it's a moment in history where the average music
fan only knows what they read in the tabloids. And
yet you're stepping through with this book. You've got Michael
living through his story. This is finally the book where
we can all say, oh, my god, he was he
was he was just in trouble and we and now
we what can we do to help him out?
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Right? Right?
Speaker 3 (03:33):
And you know, and you know, there was so much
pressure on all of us, you know, and you know,
the record company had their priorities, Michael had his, many
of it matched. You know that we had the same
concerns and challenges that he did. And and of course
(03:55):
we're on the business side of it. We don't you know,
we didn't know, uh, you know, what was behind the
scenes or any of that. We only knew that, you know,
we had a responsibility to the artist to you know,
to support his work, you know, and support his creative efforts.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
I'm so glad that you brought up the business side
because that's one of the things that I wanted to
talk about, because right there in the beginning of the book,
you set up readers as well as a listener so
brilliantly in that forward. And it's like, you know, requiring
an album, there's a lot of things that go into it.
It's like a movie. It's a miracle that you even
get done with it.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
Yeah, it's well, you know, things have changed so much,
you know, and you know, some of the enormous challenges
we had back then artists don't have today. But they
have new challenges that we didn't face. And you know,
it's it's never easy for any of these artists. It's
(04:55):
not easy. You know, it wasn't easy for Michael back then.
It's not easy for Taylor Swift or Lady today. They've
got new challenges, you know. And but you know, going
back there, you know, we we were very dependent on radio,
and we were very concerned that pop radio would start
(05:18):
listening to the tabloids, you know, And so it was
a big fear there and but and big challenges. But
working with Michael, you know, he was a great collaborator.
He you know, he he listened, He loved having ideas,
you know, and uh, he had to get to him
(05:39):
early because if he got to be at his bonnet
about an idea, it was very difficult to convince him
otherwise because he would get himself so excited.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
When you talk about him getting there, you know, you've
got to get to him early. Well, how about that
three am phone call. Hey, I'm back, It's Michael. How
are you three thirty of the morning.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
Michael? What are you doing calling me?
Speaker 3 (06:04):
The uh? And I knew he just needed reinforcement, you know,
he just needed to hear again confidence. He needed to
hear that we had the confidence. And you know he
he's a very competitive guy, you know. I mean Kobe
Bryant has talked about Michael's competitiveness and how he mentored Kobe.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
You know.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
And and you know, I have a phone message at
home actually I uh, I you know, transcribed it in
the book of a phone message from Michael, and it
was like a new Rockney speech. You know, you know,
it was like, uh, you know, hearing a football coach
(06:46):
he was in to see, didn't get in there, you know,
And don't let MTV give up, don't let be et
off the hook, you know, and uh and he and
he finished it with thank you, thank you, thank you
for all you do. And we were about to have
our youngest daughter. And he said, and by the way,
(07:09):
you know, when that baby's born, send me pictures.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Oh yeah, that's him, that's him.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
See.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
And that's the part of the artist that we never
get to see, the one that's off the microphone, living
real life. And you know, it still has to use
the bathroom like the rest of us and things like that.
We don't get that picture until they get this book.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
Yeah, you know, yeah, I mean people boil things, you know,
it's part of the nature of our society. You know,
we boil everything down, you know, we lose the detail,
we lose the.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Texture of life, you know.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
And you know, as huge as Michael Jackson, you know, globally,
you know, I think in some ways he could separate
his persona from just being a regular guy.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
You know, please do move.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
We'll be right back with Dan Beck the name of
the book. You've got Michael, We're back with Dan Beck.
I love the way that you step into the real
realms of releasing an album because I mean the first
steps in the pre release preparation.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
I'm a radio guy.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
We we got early releases of singles, but we never
got to go through the actual sales of the albums.
How to prepare for that? How do you get it
to the to the record stores? I mean, and that's
the thing about it is we never get to see that.
But you talk about that.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Yeah, you know.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
It's of course back in the day with the physical product.
You know, I kind of added up how many retail
stores we were dealing with then, and it was about
I think the number I came up with was like
twenty three thousand different record stores, you know, including the
Walmarts of the world and all that. And yeah, we had,
(08:53):
you know, we had to manufacture everything, you know, all
you know, all the clearances and you know, the you know,
and then getting it on trucks and getting it in
the stores. At the same time it was going on
the radio, you know, and and Mauch Easier on a
superstar because you know, the demand was there. You know,
(09:17):
often a difficult thing with new artists.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Well, you know, I don't think Michael Jackson ever understood
how important he was to AM radio because it was
it was up against a big challenger first of all
too really MTV as well as FM radio and so
AM radio depended on Michael Jackson to be there. We
had off the wall. Then we went right into thriller.
We were going next, next, next, We need to have
some air here. Michael, you're the one that's going to give.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
It to us. It was amazing, you know.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
And one of the promotions that I did, and this
was later on the Dangerous album, when Michael was going
to do the Super Bowl, we we started putting together
radio contests to win win a trip to the Super Bowl.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
So I was negotiating with the NFL to.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
Get the tickets and and our promotion people were out
setting it up with major radio stations, and then we
were setting it up with international radio Tokyo and London
and you know, Sydney and you know Paris and you
know Berlin and all over the world. And I pitched
(10:31):
Michael on the idea of him reading the promos, and
I thought radio is just gonna flip out when when
they get Michael Jackson, you know, his voice saying their
call letters, and you know, we put it together.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
It was awesome.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
I mean, Michael was just a champ and doing it
took us. We probably did four hours straight of him
just reading uh uh you know, reading promos for for
the stations.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
And he loved it. You know, it's it was great.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
You gotta you gotta let me in on the insight
on that, because I do voice work. I know how
long my voice is going to last. When you're spending
four hours reading radio station copy. It's like, oh my god,
what did that do to him?
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Vocally?
Speaker 3 (11:21):
And well, you know, he was amazing. I actually brought
over a copywriter with me. We were at the Helmsley
Palace hotel and his suite and just the three of us.
He was sitting on the couch and we had you know,
we had the recorder on the on the coffee table
and uh, and I had this guy Joe de Pascal,
(11:44):
who was wonderful guy. Uh and Joe Joe's just guided
him through, you know, pronunciations and and uh and how
to emphasize certain certain phrases, you know, And Michael was
such a quick read. I mean really Joe would say, oh, Michael,
(12:08):
you know, let's do that when again and emphasize this
word or Michael just nailed it every time.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
It was just remarkable, you know.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
So when you when you talk about his speaking voice
right away, I'm shot back to the ET album. Was
that part of your years with Michael as well? Because
you don't see that album anywhere anymore.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
Yeah, No, that was that was actually uh, you know
I was there at Epic, but Michael was not a
sign to me at that time.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
And of course you know you're you're sitting there taking
on those gigantic headlines that seem to be getting bigger
and bigger and bigger. I mean, did your A and
R department do they have to sit there and say,
can you back off on these headlines so we can
get this out first and then you can come forward.
But I mean what kind of things did you have
to do with the press?
Speaker 3 (12:58):
Well, the number one, you know, senior management at Epic
and Sony were like, get this thing out fast before
it all collapses, you know, So there was, you know,
a rush to get it out and you know, and
then Michael had his you know, his own desire to
(13:20):
make sure he finished the record the way you know
he wanted to finish it. And there was a commitment
made to put his teaser spot in all the Loew's
theaters and Mike Mickey Schuloff, who was chairman of Sony Entertainment,
(13:42):
promised Michael at a dinner that we had with about
fifty people in LA that he'd get it at all
those theaters.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
And so it became.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
Then Michael didn't hear from Mickey, and now Michael was
following up with me and said, have you heard from Mickey?
You know, I wasn't going to be as a product manager.
It wasn't like I could get the chairman of Sony
Entertainment on the phone.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
But Michael, you know, continually was calling me about this.
And it was like Dave Glue, who was.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
Chairman of Epic, He and I determined that Michael's not
going to deliver this album until we live up to that.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
Commitment to get Woo.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
So it became a big challenge and frankly, we didn't
exactly love the teaser spot, but we knew we had
to get it on, you.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
Know, get it in the theaters.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
And I tell the whole story of the book about
the challenge, and I ended up getting Bob Kardashian in
the middle of the OJ trial to help me get
it into the theaters, which again is a whole other
story in the book.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
See this is this stuff that radio listeners and people
watching MTV never got to see when you know, they
did little. I mean, because one of the things that
you had to deal with was other people's time. Oh
my god, if they weren't there on your time, it
was their time. And then of course you wanted to
go on to form your own management company. How were
you able to even be that strong when other people's
time always got in the way.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
So well, you know, perseverance, you know, it's you know,
you know, I had a checklist and I went down
it every day, and I was going down that checklist
on multiple artists, you know, and it's like trying to
spot where the problems were, where the where the hold
ups were, and then looking for solutions. And you know,
(15:43):
every day you could maybe get a few things off
the list, you know. So but it just perseverance and
and follow up, and you know, so so often people
give up too soon, and you know, just at the
just at the point where it might succeed. Sometimes people
(16:04):
give up, and you know, I find that you just
if you follow through, even if it doesn't work out,
you can always say to yourself, I took it to
the end.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
I took it home. God.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
That is absolutely powerful. Where can people go to find
out more about you and everything that you have committed
to the music industry, because they need to know about
you as well.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
Well.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
You can go to you know, for the book, it
can go to Amazon dot com and that's for you've
got Michael. For me, my website is dan Beck writes
w r i tes dot com and there's again there's
some information.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
About the book there, and.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
You know you can find a little a bit more
about me.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
Please come back to the show anytime in the future.
I love where your heart is still in the music industry.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
Oh absolutely, you know.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
It's uh, it's you know, it's service to musicians and artists.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
They work so hard, they're.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
Vulnerable, they need they need support, you know, and and
they're putting it out on the line. They're all entrepreneurs,
you've been and uh uh, you know, they don't get
a paycheck every two weeks and they need our support.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
Will you be brilliant today?
Speaker 1 (17:24):
Okay sir?
Speaker 3 (17:26):
All right, well, thanks Sarah. I really enjoyed meeting you
and I hope we catch up again.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
Absolutely, thank you so much
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