Today’s Music Industry and Finding Your Fans, with Todd McCarty

Christopher: Welcome to the show, Todd. Thank you for joining us today.

Todd: Hey, thanks for having me, Christopher.

Christopher: So, you are known for your website and blog heatonthestreet.com where you share really fascinating insights on the music industry, but I believe you are also a musician by that brand yourself, is that right? How did you get started in music?

Todd: That’s right. I play the drums since a young age maybe seven or eight years old I started playing the drums in elementary school and took private lessons. Tried my hand at playing professionally in bands, failed a few auditions, and realized that I needed to have a back-up plan, and the music business was the back-up plan.

Christopher: Interesting. I’m a bit envious. I’m currently learning drums myself, and I have these vague aspirations of joining a band as a drummer, so I’d love to hear a little bit what that process of learning drums was like for you. Where you taking lessons with a teacher? Were you just kind of self taught? Was it in your family? What did it look like for you to learn music?

Todd: Yeah, I think it started with just going to parades as a youngster, and you know, being overtaken by the pounding of the drums in the marching band. Strangely, I never ended up playing in a marching band, but it just led to drumming in grade school, and middle school and high school. Taking private lessons and always kind of identifying as “the drummer” with my friends and family and making it known that I wanted to have a career in being a drummer, and yeah, I think the most interesting part of my journey as a drummer though was the split between teachers.

I started with a very classical drum teacher who was in a philharmonic orchestra, very classically trained, and it was for me, personally boring. I wanted to be a rock star. And making that switch and realizing at a young age that I wanted to have a rock drum instructor really, really helped me out a lot. I went to a drum instructor that was just a rock guy, and he really made me love the instrument and made it exciting for me, and I progressed from there. He also just taught me a lot as a human being and how to approach the music business and was much more than a drum teacher to me.

Christopher: Tell me a little bit more about that ’cause I think a lot of our listeners will have had instruments of some kind or another, but I think it’s rare and special when you find that teacher you really connect with. So, what kinds of things was he imparting to you or opening your eyes to during that teaching period?

Todd: He definitely taught me that of course, mastering your craft and practice and drilling and not skipping steps, I think those were big lessons early on. He wouldn’t let me go right to being a rock star, you know? And he did right by me as a teacher to not let me skip steps. I think the other thing that he did was let me know that I had to, if I wanted to have a career in the music business, I had to market myself. Not just learn my craft, but I also had to learn the music business, and that was really good advice.

Christopher: Gotcha. And you mentioned before you had some failed auditions along the way. What happened that kind of shifted your track from I’m gonna be a professional drummer to maybe I’ll take a different angle into music?

Todd: I think the big moment was I auditioned to be a Disney musician. I was living in Orlando, Florida and I was playing in rock bands and touring with my band and just had an air of confidence and I walked into the audition and heard other drummers drumming and it didn’t sound like they were doing anything that I could or couldn’t do, and so I walked in there and I didn’t rehearse one bit, I just said, “Okay, what do you want from me?” And they told me to do 16 bars of jazz, 16 bars of rock, and then 16 bars of just free form soloing. And so, I did my thing and wasn’t prepared to do 16 bars, I wasn’t counting right in my head, I might have played some cool licks, but I wasn’t auditioning to their standards and thy quickly let me know I had failed and disrespected the system.

It was humbling and they really like let me have it, and I needed to hear that to understand that drumming on a professional level, your ego and your talent was only going to get you so far, there was a system and a process and there was a hundred other guys in line that were playing by their rules that were much more qualified for the job, because of that, whereas … yeah, it was a good lesson for me to learn that there was more to it than just playing and talent.

Christopher: So, was that a decisive, clear message to you and you said, “Right, that’s it. I’m not gonna be a professional drummer”? Or was it just kind of one sign along the way that maybe you’d take a different route forwards?

Todd: I think it was not I’m not going to be a professional drummer. It was just a nice ego check that when I approached the music business I had to have a respect for it. And so, from that point on I really worked to figure out the game and play the rules of the game and not try to just drive my way through it. So, I still played semi professionally in touring bands and making money and doing recording projects and that type of thing, but I don’t think I stopped fully being a professional musician until my music business career took off to the point where I just didn’t have time to do it, and even then I was still playing and it was more physical limitations that I had developing. Early signs of arthritis, the pain associated with it made me stop.

Christopher: I see, so this kind of phase of your story I think is what made me so interested to speak with you, because I think a lot of our listeners are somewhere on that trajectory between high school learning the instrument and out there touring with a band and trying to make it in the industry. And I think it’s so interesting that you went through that yourself, but then you took this sort of into the music business so that now you have actually the whole other side of the picture. You know what’s going on in the head of those people auditioning, the musicians for Disney. And you know what’s going on in the head of the record execs who are deciding the A and R stuff.
So, I was really keen to kind of bring you on and share some of your insights for those musicians who are on that trajectory of I want to make it in the music business. I want to have a music career. I’m somewhere on that trajectory, but I’m maybe, I’ve got ego issues, maybe I don’t understand the marketing side, maybe I’m totally baffled by what the 21st century music industry even looks like, and so maybe you can share a bit about how you got started on that side of things and where your music industry career took you.

Todd: Yeah, no, I appreciate you picking up on that. It’s definitely something I thought about throughout my music industry career, and running a record label with a staff of 20 people and hiring all of those 20 people, I did get to learn what types of people made better record company employees or music industry employees, and I definitely think that the musicians who have been in musicians shoes had empathy for musicians and really made better employees because they could empathize with the musicians. It was as simple as that. Not to say that people that weren’t musicians couldn’t do great things in the music industry, it’s just that it made it a lot easier to get along with musicians and do business together. I always thought that was important.

Christopher: That makes a lot of sense. It’s funny I was talking just last week with a few peers of mine who run similar music education websites and we were having that debate of does everyone on your team need to be a musician themselves. And on my team, everyone is. I really believe like it gives you a particular insight into the people who are using your service or your products, and to me it’s really important that everyone on my team plays an instrument or does something in music. But, you know, not everyone feels that way, so it’s interesting to hear you really saw that in the label side of things.

Todd: Yeah, it’s true. I think artists would feel better also if they can rest assured that there are a lot of musicians in the music industry that have been in their shoes, so it’s important, but I think to answer the other part of the question, you are business person right from the moment that you create a piece of music and put it out into the world. I didn’t realize it when I was booking my own concerts for my band and doing the PR and press along our tour dates that we would book. Pressing up records, and booking shows, and selling tickets. That was all entrepreneurial skills, so musicians are actually great entrepreneurs ’cause they learn from an early age how to market and promote themselves and build a lemonade stand, so have confidence in yourself that you actually have entrepreneurial skills early on in becoming a musician.

Christopher: That’s a great observation. So, what were your first positions before you got to the point of running the label with 20 employees and what was your route into the industry?

Todd: I alongside of being a touring musician, I needed to find jobs that would work well with being a musician. So, I tried a series of different things. One was a cab driver, and it allowed me to have more time to do music and be able to tour and get back two months later and still have a job. Along the way I became an inside sales person for a telcom company selling internet service and phone service bundles and stuff, and I was really good at it. I built up a big client base, and made a lot of money for the company, and I took those, but I didn’t like the telcom industry.

I wanted to do music, so I took those skills and said, “I can apply skills to record label industry”, so I got a break from a guy who trusted me and let me take on a few projects selling his music into records stores and into distributors, and I did the same thing I did for telcom, and I applied it to the music business and it worked. After a couple months that one client turned into 20 clients, and I started selling music in the record stores and distributors and I ended up doing that for a company called Fearless Records, a small independent label in California with three or four employees. They hired me as their Head of Sales, and quickly made me the General Manager after a year or two, and I stayed there for 13 years and we grew that company to 20 employees and tens of millions of dollars in revenue. So, that was my course into the business.

Christopher: Very cool. And one thing I love about your site is the simple name of it heatonthestreet.com. I think it’s fantastic. And maybe you can just explain to listeners where that phrase comes from and why you chose that for the title of the site.

Todd: Yeah, I picked that term up, heat on the street, somewhere along the ways, I can’t remember who first said it to me, but what it means to me is organic, word of mouth promotion, because that’s really for any marketer the best form of promotion, you know, word of mouth. And once your project takes on a life of its own with the fans and on the streets, it gets so much easier. Everything falls into place, because your fans are your marketing campaign. You don’t have to advertise and when you do advertise, it converts at a lot higher ratio, so you don’t have to spend as much money. You don’t have to do a lot of the things that artists who don’t have that organic buzz have to do. And it makes it a lot easier, so that was the magic. If there’s any magic in the music business, that was it for me is the organic buzz and word of mouth buzz. So, everything that I do revolves around creating that, and it really is fan-driven. I believe anybody can make fans, and nurture those fans, and entertain those fans, so that’s what I teach on the blog heatonthestreet.com.

Christopher: Very cool, and I definitely want to pick your brains a little bit about building a fan base, but I love the way you describe it there in terms of that being the magic, like if there’s any magic to it, that’s the secret sauce. And you know, on the show, we talk a lot about the myths and misunderstandings in music that end up holding people back, you know, there’s the myth that the great musicians are all just born gifted and they can play their instrument from day one and it all comes easy to them.

When you pick that apart, you realize actually there’s a lot going on behind the scenes or under the hood that lets them do what they can do, and it sounds like it’s a little bit the same in the music industry. You know, I think we all have that kind of notion of the talented pop star who comes out of nowhere, get a record contract, and is immediately number one best-selling artist. We imagine that’s how the music industry works, but I think the way you described it just there hints at the fact that maybe actually there’s more of a system to it. There’s a bit more of a logic or a process that people can have in mind.

Todd: There definitely is. Yeah, there’s with every industry there’s just the way thing work. There’s a system in place, and if you can figure it out and learn about it and educate yourself, anybody can establish some success in the business, so I definitely don’t believe in overnight success stories. You know, even on YouTube when a seven year old virtuoso, there was somebody behind that kid teaching them and spending time with them to develop whatever gift it is that they might have. I just think it’s your mindset. It’s just believing that you can do things.

To touch on the overnight success story, I think most of those people naturally test things. It’s like trial and error. They just, it’s repetition, it’s getting your reps in and failing at things, testing different things out and seeing what works better. I’ve been involved in a lot of successes actually too, and I don’t think any of them were overnight successes. There’s a lot of hard, hard work and long years of working away.

The most recent example I can think of a number one is Portugal. the Man. They’re a band in American who had a number one, the number one selling alternative song and number one most played on the radio for alternative music for 2017. I started working with the band right from the beginning in 2003 or 2004, so it’s been well over ten years, and it took the band that long to finally break out and have a hit.

Christopher: Well, it sounds funny to say it that ten years of hard work is a reassuring thing to hear, but I think it is deeply reassuring to hear that there isn’t magic or a luck to it or at least that’s not the main thing. There is kind of a strategy or a path you can follow that will deliver the results, ’cause I think otherwise a lot of people get frustrated feeling like it’s a pot shot and when you’re 13 that’s exciting ’cause maybe you get picked, but if you’re you know 30 or 50, and you still want to make it in the music industry, that idea of a pot shot with someone picking you is not so exciting. You’d kind of prefer to have a nice proven strategy to follow.

Todd: Yeah, no there’s definitely. There’s just a mindset that you can establish. Believing in yourself and not just simplifying things and making it, “Well, if I just become the best musician possible, everything else will happen.” You do have to master not only the craft of your instrument, but of the music industry.

Christopher: Cool. Well, I want to dig into the details now in a minute, but before we move on, how common is what you just described as an attitude in the music industry, you know if we pick the average A and R guy or the head of a label. Are they thinking in terms of talent and finding the next superstar that’s just an overnight sensation? Or is everyone in the industry thinking the way you are?

Todd: No, I think within the music industry, I think everybody’s thinking along the same lines that I am. We’re not just looking for the next like virtuoso talent. We’re looking for a proven commercial success, so there’s lots of different ways for the industry to find out if your project is going to be successful. As soon as you put your music out on a streaming service it’s out there to be scrutinized and shared or crawled by an algorithm. If it has viral potential, the algorithms could pick up on it. Examples of those are YouTube, Spotify, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Google, all of those are algorithms and they’re watching how many people listen to you music, share your music, skip it you know, if they don’t like it, talking about it, leaving a comment, all of that stuff.

So, the industry has lots of ways to track all of that information and they can already tell if you have a fan base or not before you contact them or submit your demo. It’s very easy for them to recognize what artists are out there with not only talented songwriting and great art, but also who’s connecting the dots and making it successful online.

Christopher: That makes sense. Before I ask you about how someone can get to that point to where they have traction and they have a fan base, I suppose I should ask the clarifying question of how should we even be thinking about the music industry or record labels in this day and age? You know, you just mentioned streaming services. I know that some people listening are thinking you know, labels are done for. I’m just gonna put my music online and it’ll take care of itself. What would you say to someone about how to think about should I try and get a record contract? Should I try and get a label to sign me? What is the role the music industry is playing right now?

Todd: Yeah, I think staying DIY and doing things yourself and creating your own fan base and nurturing that fan base and proving to yourself that you have fans and proving to the rest of the world that you have a fan base. I think until you’ve done that, don’t enlist the help of a record label. The way to think about it is build your fan base first and then when you’re ready, you’re making money and you’re ready for larger investment or a partner, that’s what the labels for. They can come in and take something that you’ve built and pour gas on the fire. So, I think focus on that. The bigger the fan base you build, the more money you’re going to be making on your own and at that point, it’s going to be hard to justify giving up a large percentage of your income to a record label. But if a label can multiply what you’re doing and you can grow exponentially by putting some air play, TV promotion, movies, in-store play, tie ups with drink companies or fashion brands, or exposure to the mass media and publicity, then that’s when you can justify getting the help or partnering with a record label, but until then just focus on building your own business and having your own income. It’s going to be more profitable for you to do it on your own in the early days.

Christopher: Okay, perfect. Thank you. That’s a really clear mental model of how to think about the role the record label plays these days. I think probably going back 50 plus years the record label was your only route to getting your music heard beyond just playing locally to a large extent, and now we have this amazing opportunity online, but I think people haven’t quite reconciled those two, and I think the way you just described it makes a lot of sense. Yes, you can get your music out there totally DIY, you can build up a fan base, you can build up some revenue even, but then there’s still this kind of level of growth that requires the assets and the channels and the network that record label can bring to the table.

Todd: Yeah, yeah, and to add a little bit to that, because let’s face it, I think there was some research somewhere that said that 90% of musicians no matter all the bad stuff they’ve heard about record labels, 90% of the musicians if given the chance would still want to sign with a record label. But even then there’s different types of record labels, you know, if you want to be famous and be a pop star, major labels dominate that space. They have offices worldwide that specialize in all of those things I mentioned you know, air play, TV, movies, brand partnerships, and they have offices in each territory around the world that can help you do that, so they’re probably going to be the partner for you.

But there’s a lot of great independent labels out there too, and if you feel like there specialized, that independent label is specialized in a community of people or fans that you know would like your music, then an independent label might have something more to offer you than a major label. They can quickly plug you into their labels community and fan base and add a lot of fans to what you already have. Independent labels have a lot of value when it comes to specializing in a certain type of music or a certain community.

Christopher: Got you. Okay. And so, if we imagine our listener is in that phase of they’ve got some music together, they may or may not have published it at all yet, but they certainly haven’t built up a substantial fan base yet. What advice can you offer or what ideas should they be thinking about in terms of building that fan base in an efficient and successful way?

Todd: Okay, yeah. I think it depends on the musicians goals. If they’re more of a hobbyist and just doing it as an outlet for enjoyment, but still wanting to kind of put it out there for the world to consume, you need to approach it differently from a performer and somebody who wants to tour and perform and build a large fan base. Then there’s also the songwriter who might not want to be a performer, but is not necessarily doing it as a hobby that wants to make an income from it. Those are three very different approaches.

What I would say to the hobbyist is just it’s never too early to start putting your stuff out there. Put it on YouTube or Spotify, let the algorithms take control and maybe they’re gonna like it, maybe you’ll get noticed, it’s gonna take on some sort of viral life. If it’s not too big a concern to make money from it or grow a fan base, just put it out there. Don’t just do it haphazardly, put it out there with intent, so where you could kind of set it and forget it. Make a YouTube video or put it on Spotify, but do it in a way that’s smart and optimizing for those platforms. So you can research and learn how to properly put a music track or video on YouTube or how to properly put your content on Spotify or Apple Music or a streaming service. So, don’t just throw it up there.

To the songwriter there’s lots of ways to get involved in that, but I think the best advice I can give is get a mentor in the song writing field. You don’t have to have a network of 50 or 100 music publishers or music supervisors or people that have the power to get your music out to the masses. It might be just one or two people that you make a connection with that really like your music that help you bring 90% of your business. And not everybody has to like your music out there. Find the people that just like what you’re doing, that specialize in the type of music you’re making. It’s important to find those people. You don’t have to cast such a wide net. So, go and find the one or two music supervisors that really specialize in your music or maybe it’s film trailers or film soundtracks, or commercials or jingles, of things that you do well, and make contact with those people. They’ll bring you a lot of business.

For performers and bands, it’s a much more involved process, and if you have a group of people it’s a lot easier than being a solo artist. You can divide duties and conquer, but you want to learn how the music industry operates. You want to learn how to build a fan base. You want to set yourself up for success in every aspect of the music industry. So, I think for the performer, the best advice that would be make sure you’re building a fan base, you’re keeping in touch with those fans, you’re finding who your target fans are and trying to convert them into fans. Then once you’ve got them as fans retaining them and making them love everything that you do from the music to your merchandise to concert tickets and fan clubs and all of that.

I think that’s hopefully an overview of the different ways musicians can get into it and how to get it started.

Christopher: Thank you, yeah. And I think those three sets of advice aren’t mutually exclusive, and you know, I think that message of building up and fan base and really focusing on getting people super engaged with your music, that’s actually really key for the hobbyist as well, you know, whether or not you’re trying to build up a fan base to get the labels interested and get to that level of growth, it’s still kind of the crux of why you’re putting your music out there, right?

Todd: True.

Christopher: And I love the advice to be strategic, yes, put your stuff out there early, but don’t just fling it out there and hope for the best. You know, there are things you can learn to actually help get eyeballs or ears rather on your music, and get the exposure you’re hoping for.

Todd: Yep, that’s right.

Christopher: And I’d like to touch a little more, if you don’t mind, on what you said for songwriters in particular about finding a mentor. That’s something that’s come up on the show a few times, and I’d just love to hear your perspective on what that mentor role looks like? Who is a mentor? How do you find one? What do those conversations look like? What do they help with or not help with? How should people be thinking about the role a mentor could play in their musical life?

Todd: Yeah, I’m big on mentors. I’ve had a couple of great mentors whether it’s been musically or professionally or just kind of life advice. What they would look like my dad always gave me great advice, and one of them was he said, “If you want to get advice from somebody pick somebody that’s a generation older than you, not somebody your own age, or not somebody too much older than you, because somebody your own age doesn’t have enough perspective. They haven’t been through those experiences most likely. And somebody that’s too old their advice might be out of date.” It just might not relevant to what you’re doing, they might not understand you enough, so one generation ahead is really kind of good. People make great mentors, but a book or a class can be equally as good. And I can also warn having just one individual as a mentor might not be so healthy, might not be a broad enough opinion. It might be too narrowly focused on one skill set, so get multiple people.

I mean, I think podcasts actually are a great source of mentorship. I certainly have listened to hundreds of podcasts and picked up so much knowledge from them, so I kind of consider podcasting and podcasters as mentors to me. Yeah, so I think, well actually there is one more, probably my favorite as far as mentors is Masterminds. So, getting on a group call of three or four people with similar interests, but in different fields even and sometimes they’re called Masterminds, sometimes they’re called accountability groups. But you get on there with some friends or colleagues and you talk about what you’re working on and everybody gets ten, 15 minutes to talk about what they’re struggling with or what they’re trying to do and then they let other people talk for a couple minutes on advice on what you should do, and everybody brings a different point of view. I really enjoy those and do them, and they kind of go for a couple months, then fizz out and then you find new friends or a new group of people to do it with. I just think they’re really fun for mentoring as well.

Christopher: That’s a fantastic suggestion. I’ve done a lot of Mastermind groups myself on the entrepreneur side of things, and you know that conversation I alluded to earlier talking about whether your team members should be musicians or not, that was on a Mastermind call. I have to admit, I’ve never really thought about it in the context of musicians trying to make it into the music industry or trying to build a fan base. I love that idea, and you know, we’ve certainly seen the power of accountability in the sense of just partnering up inside Musical U, practice accountability, you know, did you do you practice this week. That’s worked really well, and so I can certainly imagine that you know, if you’re a hobbyist musician wanting to get your music out there, it could be a huge asset to just have a call once a week with a few other people in that same situation and share what’s the latest YouTube strategy or what’s the main thing you need to know about this, that or the other, and just share those successes and learning points too.

Todd: Yeah, it made me think of something else even in the record label business, learning marketing tactics from different people where I had a group of friends. One was into hip-hop, I was into rock music, and then we had another friend that was into EDM, and each of them ran labels, so you had three people in this group that ran record labels, but completely different mindsets. EDM musicians put out singles and are very focused on remixes and just singles. They’re marketed and sold completely different. Rock musicians are focused on making albums and marketing albums and touring and ticket sales. Hip-hop there’s a totally different culture in how to market into that world, and it’s highly promotion-driven and tapping into large communities and that. So, I learned so much from those different record labels and it helped my rock label business as well.

Christopher: Fantastic. So, I want to be respectful of your time, and we should wrap things up shortly, but I do want to make sure listeners know what are you up to these days and where can they go if they want to learn more from you about the music industry about building up a fan base and about getting their music heard?

Todd: Yeah, heatonthestreet.com is a musician’s advice blog and there’s always relevant topic for building a fan base, learning how to use Spotify and tactics for promotion on Spotify. There’s articles on how to get started in the music business and how to make money in the music business. There’s articles on 20, 30 different ways to make money in the music industry. So, there’s lot of advice to musicians on there.

I do consulting for record labels, artist, managers, and even do some coaching and mentoring for artists myself. But my main focus is trying to educate a lot of musicians and that’s what I love about heatonthestreet.com is it allows me to reach a large audience of musicians and helping more people rather than a handful of people, so eventually I hope to open up a music academy and turn Heat on the Street into an academy online. That’s not there yet, but maybe one day it will be.

Christopher: Terrific. So, the last thing I really wanted to ask you before we wrap up was you know, we’ve discussed a lot of myths or misconceptions and I think hopefully cleared up a lot of stuff for people listening, but is there one thing that people misunderstand about succeeding in the music industry that you could just kind of wave a wand and fix for them right now?

Todd: The thing I hear most frequently from musicians is if I could just get on a show with a bigger artist I could get fans that way or if I could just get a record label, then I would get fans. I’d just like to tell them that that’s a backwards approach. First you want to make the fans, and you want to create demand, then you can invite people to come see you perform or then you might attract a record label. If you grow your business, a record label will want to partner with you, but you have to build the fan base first.

So, if you support well established artists and you get that opportunity to get the show, you want to be the band that promotes and builds your fan base before you get to that show, so that the promoter comes away impressed. They gave you an opportunity to support that artist, but in fact, it turned out that the audience loved you and you were the kind of artist that stole the show, or you had a long line at the merch table, or you just gave the crowd that kind of overwhelming feeling and kind of stole the show.

That’s the artist you want to be. You don’t want to be the artist that show up and hopes to siphon fans from the headlining artist. So, that’s kind of the misconception I hear most is if we could just get the opportunity, we would be building fans much quicker. I just don’t think it works that way.

Christopher: Cool. What a fascinating insight. That’s a real mental shift for people to make, but I can see how it would be a really powerful one. So, as we mentioned there is a ton on heatonthestreet.com for you to check out if you’re looking for details on everything Todd has been talking about in terms of getting your music online or building up that fan base or even getting signed. Do check out his website for sure, and I think all that remains is to say a big thank you, Todd, you’ve been really generous with your time and your wisdom today. And I know you will have cleared up a lot of myths and confusion for our listeners, so thank you so much for joining us today.

Todd: Thanks for having me, Christopher. I hope everybody enjoyed it and please check out heatonthestreet.com and just thanks again for giving me the opportunity to come on and chat with you all.

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