YOU CAN Make a Living In The Music Industry Podcast John Martin Keith

This week we are wrapping up season 5 with two amazing guests! I’m talking with Eric Knight & Ritch Esra of MUBUTV (Music Business Television) in Los Angeles, CA. These guys have a combined goldmine of knowledge and advice that covers the whole gambit of the music industry. Ritch worked at two record labels; A&M in radio promotion and Arista in A&R where he had the privilege of working with the legendary Clive Davis who has signed some of the biggest artists in the world including Whitney Houston and Kelly Clarkson. Eric has opened for such acts as KISS, Dave Matthews Band, Aerosmith and Kid Rock. He started his own artist management company Persistent Management™ not only for his own career as an artist but also to create a vehicle for other artists to achieve their artistic vision and integrity. Their MUBUTV Insider Series and Insider podcast is similar to my YOU CAN Make A Living In The Music Industry podcast as they have guests from all over the industry sharing knowledge that will help you make a living in music no matter what area you are pursuing. We are a companion series to each other and I can’t recommend them enough to check out (after you listen to this episode of course!) We are discussing the importance of being educated about your chosen career path. Why you no longer need a record deal to be successful. Why you have to be a jack of all trades AND a master of all. Plus, learning who your audience is, finding where they are, then going after them. And we discuss how MUBUTV’s goal is to educate, empower and engage your music career.
Sponsors: Edenbrooke Productions - We offer consulting services and are offering listeners a 1-hour introductory special. To request more info on consulting services, email Marty at contact@johnmartinkeith.com. 
In this episode we discuss:*The importance of internships.*The Music Business Registry.*Become educated about your chosen career path.*MUBUTV (Music Business Television) is a companion type podcast to YOU CAN Make A Living In The Music Industry.*How to listen to songs for A&R.*The criteria of the kind of artists today has changed because of a copy model (CDs, tapes, etc.) to an access model (streaming for free).*Artists signings today are not just about who is successful or about their music. Today its about who they are, where are they from, what do they represent? What are their values? *You no longer need a record deal to be successful.*The real challenge today is the ability to get someone’s attention.*You must find an audience for your music before A&R or labels will put time, energy and effort   into you.*We are no longer just artists. We are business leaders.*A&R was a faith based business. That model changed with technology.*Today technology allows us to ask if there is a market for my music without A&R.*Who is my audience?*If you don’t know who your audience is at the beginning of your career, start making a serious commitment to learning who they are.*Being an artist who has been signed to a label and also an indie.*Find where your niche is, that narrow world where you can build your career.*Major labels are amplifiers to a career.*Adapting is the key.*A booking agent won’t sign you as an indie unless you can sell at least 300-500 seats on your own.*You have to be a jack of all trades and a master of all.*Learning who your audience is, finding where they are and going after them.*The more you know, the more valuable you become to companies.*MUBUTV’s goal is to educate, empower and engage your music career.*Study the lives of other successful people in the industry.*www.mubutv.com*www.youtube.com/mubutv
 
BIO:
Ritch Esra | Co-Founder
I started my career in 1978 at Record World, a leading trade magazine and have spent my entire career in this industry.  From 1980 - 1987 I worked at two record labels; A&M in radio promotion and Arista in A&R where I had the privilege of working with the legendary Clive Davis.In 1986, I began teaching several music

This week I’m talking with Julie Klinger who is the executive director of the Christian Festival Association. Julie oversees 25 festivals around the country. We are discussing what the CFA does, the importance of volunteers to make music festivals of any genre successful, how to start your own local festival and what artists who want to perform at music festivals need to do to make sure they are invited back.
Sponsors: Edenbrooke Productions - We offer consulting services and are offering listeners a 1-hour introductory special. To request more info on consulting services, email Marty at contact@johnmartinkeith.com. 
In this episode we discuss:*Honoring volunteers.*Volunteers make festivals happen.*What an executive director does for a festival association.*Maintain and support the efforts of all the festivals.*Putting showcases together to listen to new talent for the festivals.*Networking and education.*Working with national sponsors to bring into different festivals.*Every festival needs to engage in the community.*Getting the local community involved to make your festival successful.*Festivals should find partners to have mission trips through the year or local shows to keep people engaged and serving.*How to get involved working as a volunteer at a festival.*How to work your way up in a festival.*How artists and speakers get booked at festivals.*Have a servant heart.*Give a festival 3 years to even get noticed.*How to start a local festival.*As an artist, don’t ignore your promoter. *Engage with the festival fans and promote the festival to your fans.*Bad attitude artists usually won’t get invited back.*Honor who has brought you there.*www.christianfestivalassociation.com
BIO:
Julie began her career in Christian music as a volunteer for a small start-up free festival called LifeLight in Sioux Falls, SD.  While volunteering, she worked full-time as an adoption social worker receiving her Master's Degree in Social Work in 2005.  She then became the Adoption Program and Grants Director.  Over her nine years as a volunteer, the festival grew from a small one-day festival on a church lawn to the largest free outdoor Christian Music Festival in the nation.  Julie left her career in social work in 2007 and joined the LifeLight staff full-time as the Festival Director.  Eventually, Julie was promoted to the Vice President of Events and Operations at LifeLight.  
During her time at LifeLight she became an at-large board member for the Christian Festival Association (CFA) and eventually became the Vice President of the CFA Board. After leaving LifeLight in 2016, Julie returned to nonprofit management work.  Julie was offered and accepted the position as Executive Director of the CFA in January of 2019, while also continuing her nonprofit work.  Julie started her own consulting firm, The Tricycle Group, in August of 2021 and currently works full-time for various organizations helping them accelerate their momentum in the areas of program development, grant management and strategic planning.  Julie's vision for the CFA is to see the love of God spread across the country and globe through Christian music festivals and to inspire festival attendees to get involved in serving others in their communities.
The Christian Festival Association was formed in 2006 and is comprised of North America’s largest Christian music festivals united by a common goal: to bring glory to God.  We meet regularly via conference calls and at an annual meeting in Nashville to discuss matters such as talent development, spiritual content, event production and marketing, national sponsorship acquisition and much more.
The mission of the Christian Festival Association is to promote positive communication and synergies between the nation's top Christian festivals.
Our goal is to see these member organizations grow both spiritually and fiscally so that more lives can be changed for glory of God.
Our vision is to provide and facilitate an open

This week I’m talking with writer, producer and composer Brian Steckler in CA. Brian has made a successful career for himself producing albums, composing for sync and library production music with NBC, CBS, Netflix and more. Brian has won a Clio award for helping create the audio and star in one of the most famous Super Bowl ads of all time as a certain frog who liked to say “er!” We are discussing working for a jingle company and creating world famous ads, writing production library music used on countless shows, finding your niche to work in a field of music that only you can provide and how you need to decide what success looks like for you.
Sponsors: Edenbrooke Productions - We offer consulting services and are offering listeners a 1-hour introductory special. To request more info on consulting services, email Marty at contact@johnmartinkeith.com. 
In this episode we discuss:*Working for Hummingbird Productions in Nashville.*What a jingle company does.*Creating the voices of the Budweiser Frogs commercial soundtrack.*The difference in studio budgets from the 1980s and today.*Working in sync music.*Writing library production music.*Writing to briefs on a deadline.*Writing for a children’s preschool curriculum program.*Making the right connections.*Having a breadth of knowledge to do many things.*Writing custom cues for Netflix.*Putting favorite sounds into a template for speed.*Align yourself with people who are good at things you aren’t.*It’s a long term numbers game.*Send it, forget it.*Tear tracks apart to learn how to create them.*Making your first instinct sound good.*https://www.briansteckler.com/*@briansteckler on IG.
BIO:
I have made a career of creating music in a wide variety of forms and genres. The scope of my experience includes collaborations with directors, editors, and ad agencies for commercial musical purposes as well as working with individual artists, and bands to create and hone unique musical styles.This range of experience has given me a broad musical basis to draw from. I enjoy learning what people want and need musically, and then bringing even more than they expect to both the process and the result.
After receiving my BFA (piano performance) from Western Michigan University in 1993, I moved to Nashville and began my career at Hummingbird Productions, one of the leading jingle houses on Music Row at the time. It was there I co-produced the audio and lent my voice to one of the most recognized, Clio-winning Super Bowl commercials of all time: Budweiser “Frogs.” I wrote and produced national, regional, and local spots during my years at Hummingbird and it was there that I learned how to deliver great sounding audio on very tight deadlines.
I moved to Los Angeles in 1997 in order to pursue songwriting and production and began working with artists and bands crafting songs, producing tracks, and mixing my own work, as well as other producer’s songs. I wrote songs for Sony ATV Music Publishing, including co-writing with Billy Porter, Gary Barlow (Take That), Paul Stanley (KISS), 2Gether (an MTV boy band spoof series), and many others. With artist Angela Via, I co-wrote and produced a song that landed in Pokemon: The Movie and on the multi-platinum selling soundtrack album. It was also during this time I had my first taste of film scoring, working closely with Keith Forsey (Billy Idol’s long-time record producer) to create the score for Wisegirls, a film starring Mira Sorvino and Mariah Carey. 
As the record industry underwent significant changes during the Napster era, my wife and I chose to move our young family to Northern California. While maintaining my relationships in LA, I was able to work with independent artists and bands, as well as grow my skills and experience scoring, working for Universal Pictures on trailers and promos, as well as regularly placing cues in TV shows. 
Recently, I’ve written the score for the Netflix series The Day I Met El Chapo, provided the bul

This week I am talking with Richard Casper of CreatiVets in Nashville, TN. Richard is a military veteran that suffered a brain injury in the war and has since found healing through music. He co-founded the non-profit CreatiVets to help other veterans write songs with hit songwriters that help them communicate their thoughts and feelings to start the healing process. Richard also co-founded the songwriting app We Should Write Sometime that allows writers from all over to connect with other songwriters.  We are discussing learning to write music to cope with trauma, starting multiple music related companies, changing the way music is accessible and how your anxieties and depression have to be outweighed by your excitement when writing.
Sponsors: Edenbrooke Productions - We offer consulting services and are offering listeners a 1-hour introductory special. To request more info on consulting services, email Marty at contact@johnmartinkeith.com. 
In this episode we discuss:*Being in the military and guarding the President.*Losing friends in combat and suffering a brain injury.*Taking art and creative writing in college to help with the brain injury.*Learning to write music to cope.*Connecting with Nashville writers at a songwriter’s round in Chicago.*Meeting and writing with songwriter Mark Irwin and how that began the healing process.*Bringing vets to Nashville to write with pro writers who can help them communicate their thoughts and feelings to help the start healing.*Bring in people around you to be successful.*Starting the non-profit CreatiVets.*CreatiVets helps wounded veterans heal through arts and music.*The importance of networking with people in the industry.*Creating a partnership with Big Machine Records to release music.*Starting We Should Write Sometime app.*Changing the way music is accessible.*We Should Write Your Song - custom songs for people.*weshouldwritesometime.com*How writers can write for We Should Write Sometime or We Should Write Your Song.*CreatiVets’ goal is trying to end veteran suicide.*Your anxieties and depression have to be outweighed by your excitement.*www.creativets.org*You need to be in a music town to do this professionally.*Have one person who will champion you.*https://creativets.org/
BIO:RICHARD CASPER | Co-Founder & Executive DirectorRichard co-founded CreatiVets and currently serves as the CreatiVets organization’s executive director.  Richard served four years as an infantryman in the United States Marine Corps, with a combat deployment in Fallujah, Iraq.  During his deployment, he was hit by four IEDs in just four short months, causing him to suffer from a traumatic brain injury.  Upon returning home, Richard found it hard to adjust and suffered from PTS until he discovered the healing power of music and art.  After experiencing firsthand the impact music and art had on his own recovery, Richard co-founded CreatiVets to help other veterans who are suffering.CreatiVets’ goal is to offer opportunities for relief and healing for the men and women who have sacrificed so much for our country.  Our purpose is to use various forms of art, including songwriting, visual arts, music, and creative writing, to help disabled veterans cope with service-related trauma (i.e., post-traumatic stress, or PTS) by fostering self-expression in a way that allows them to transform their stories of trauma and struggle into an art form that can inspire and motivate continued healing. Through compassion, we are helping veterans live again.Veterans suffering from PTS re-experience traumatic events years and even decades later, reliving the helplessness, fear, and horror associated with their traumatic event. Such strong, negative reactions often lead to anxiety, sadness, anger, depression, guilt, shame, irritability, behavior changes, and thoughts of suicide. These feelings can cause the individual to avoid environments that trigger reminders of the trauma, resulting in isolation and withdrawal fr

This week I’m talking with Adam Taylor, president of APM Music. APM is the world's leading creative music house and production music library. With placements in network tv, Netflix and Disney +  to tons of blockbuster films, it’s no wonder APM is at the forefront of the sync and music production library world. Crazy thing about Adam, he has no musical bones in his body, yet he runs the largest music production library in the world! We are discussing how someone with no musical background can become the leader of music related company, the key to the music library business and what APM looks for when hiring new staff members.
Sponsors: Edenbrooke Productions - We offer consulting services and are offering listeners a 1-hour introductory special. To request more info on consulting services, email Marty at contact@johnmartinkeith.com. 
In this episode we discuss:*Leading a music company with no music background.*Going beyond the job description.*The mission of APM.*Understanding what people are looking for.*wanting artists and composers who have their own style.*Having your own voice.*What APM looks for in new writers and producers.*Representing 3rd party libraries.*Success is based on the quality of music.*Indie artist centric.*Genres that are not used often in sync.*The more popular the music style, the shorter the shelf life may be.*Exclusive vs. non-exclusive representation.*The key to the music library business.*How APM pays artists and songwriters.*Come prepared.*Understand how you might want to fit into a company.*What APM looks for when hiring new staff members.*Be open to new ideas and ways of thinking.*www.apmmusic.com*https://form.apmmusic.com/composer-submission/
 BIO:
For over two decades, Adam Taylor has been helping intellectual property companies, organizations and individuals manage and extract value from their copyrights, trademarks and patents. As president of APM, Adam continues to reinforce the company's standing as an innovative creative house and production music library with one of the most diverse collections of original music for every type of media. Prior to taking the helm at APM, Adam was president of Taylor/Fox Enterprises, where he partnered with doctors, scientists and inventors to direct market and deliver their unique, patent-protected inventions to consumers. Before that, as founding partner of Goldman/Taylor Entertainment, he developed numerous properties including the television series "Confessions of Crime" for Lifetime Network, and the PBS series "Joseph Campbell - Mythos" hosted by Academy Award® winner Susan Sarandon in partnership with the Joseph Campbell Foundation. Adam began his career at Caswell-Massey, the oldest chemists and perfumers in the U.S. established in 1752, where he served a ten-year post as president and CEO. Adam currently serves on the Board of Advisors for the Santa Monica College Academy of Entertainment and Technology, the Board of Directors for CreatiVets, a not-for-profit that uses music and the arts to help veterans heal, the advisory board of the Zelikow School of Jewish Non-Profit Management and the advisory board of Creative Community for Peace.

This week I’m talking with Rehya Stevens. Rehya is a very successful indie pop artist who also makes a great living in the sync world. She’s had placements on Lifetime, Peacock, Disney +, ABC, Hallmark and more, plus, multiple commercial ads. We are discussing filling a hole needed in the sync industry with Christmas music, how to reach out to outlets who review music and how to take the next best step when things don’t work out the way you hope.
Sponsors: Edenbrooke Productions - We offer consulting services and are offering listeners a 1-hour introductory special. To request more info on consulting services, email Marty at contact@johnmartinkeith.com. 
In this episode we discuss:*Making Christmas music for sync.*Learn what you need to learn, then throw it away.*Find a way to marry your artist self with your crafting self.*Keep making music you believe in.*Being a priority on someones list.*How to be your own PR agent as an artist.*Bloom where you are planted.*https://www.submithub.com/*How to reach out to outlets who review music.*What’s the next best step when things don’t work out?*Be genuine and do your research in sync.*Not hearing anything, doesn’t mean something’s not happening.*Show appreciation for your team.*Don’t abandon your authenticity.*https://rehyastevens.com/
BIO:Rehya Stevens is not only a gifted and highly praised singer-songwriter, she's also an insightful observer when it comes to a vast spectrum of human emotions. Granted, it’s a rare artist who can fully plough through the tangled web of feelings and experiences encountered during the often confounding journey that encompasses life’s entirety, but Rehya has been given the gift of not only perception, but also sensitivity, and with that - the ability to make music that is readily relatable to everyone fortunate enough to find it. 
Rehya is especially adept at writing music that enhances the joys of the holiday season - and in so doing, rekindles the sentiment and kinship that’s so integral to that precious time of year. It’s especially important now, given the distancing, distrust and trepidation that have become so commonplace of late. Thankfully, Rehya’s music provides a formidable space to reinforce the bonds of brotherhood and fellowship that are so essential, not only at Christmas, but every day of the year.