A lawyer, writer, podcaster, and teacher. He has a book called, “Break the Business: Declaring Your Independence and Achieving True Success in the Music Industry.” The audiobook version of that is being released two days after this interview comes out. He also hosts the Break the Business Podcast and has represented chart-topping hitmakers and up-and-coming musicians alike. Although he’s not a professional musician, for fun he does play guitar and ukulele.
“Without fail, every contract I’ve ever read in the realm of exclusive recording agreements has been a nightmare.”
“There’s something dreadfully wrong with how this industry is built.”
“Believe me, I haven’t made a lot of friends on the (record) label side (of the business) after I wrote this book.”
“There’s such a premium on interacting with other musicians on collaborating, on creating as much as you can because there’s so much music out there that you need to hyper-create, as I call it, to cut through the clutter. And, all of that is not conducive to signing a record contract in which you allow another organization – a label – to tell you when to record, how to record, with whom you can record, and whether you’re even allowed to record at all!”
“The learning process for independent artists is never-ending.”
“I’m a huge fan of the democratization of information that we’re seeing in the new music industry. Twenty, thirty years ago – or even more recently than that – this information was impossible for musicians to find.”
“One of the consequences of there being so much information out there is a lot of musicians don’t even know where to start.”
“The most important thing you can do is make music – lots and lots of music.”
“Creativity is a muscle; the more you use it the stronger it gets, and, conversely, if you don’t create, that muscle atrophies.”
“Under the law you have a copyright from the moment you create the work.”
“Copyright is going to be the most important thing because it’s the most important piece of property you have. It’s from which all of your value in the music industry is derived, is the rights to your music. You don’t make any money without your content.”