Episode 5245 - Sydney Alston

Original Recording Date: February 21, 2024

Sydney Alston is a dynamic entertainment manager known for his comprehensive expertise across all dimensions of the music industry. With an illustrious background spanning artist development, A&R, marketing, sales, and promotion, Sydney's multifaceted skill set has consistently driven success in the industry. Having engaged with major label and publishing giants including UMG, Warner Brothers, Sony, Sony ATV, Warner Chapel, and more, Sydney's influence is palpable. His impactful efforts have led to the signing of emerging artists to coveted major label recording contracts and licensing deals. Sydney's discovery and development of artists have resulted in many full time music careers.  His clients' accolades include wins and contributions to the works of artists such as Chris Brown, Usher, Miguel, and Damon Marley to name a few, Grammy wins and a Eurovision award for "best song of the year."

Experienced in all facets of the music business | Artist Development | A&R | Marketing | Promotion | Expert Sales Professional | Account Executive | Product Specialist | Pro tools | Logic | Producer | Editing and Mixing Engineer | Vocal Editor | Bass Player | Microsoft | Planner | Educator | Consultive by nature | Business Developer | Excellent Interpersonal Skills | Coordinator | Relationship Management | Multitasker

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Transcript

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[Host] Stay tuned for today's episode of Breaking the Biz, an informative podcast where we dive into the world of entertainment by interviewing seasoned professionals who have made their mark in the industry. Gain invaluable insights as they share their personal journeys, offering advice on navigating the dynamic landscape of the entertainment industry. Whether you're an aspiring actor, musician, filmmaker, author, animator or any creative soul, tune in for expert career guidance, insider tips and first hand accounts on breaking into the entertainment industry. Get ready to unlock the secrets behind successful careers and fuel your own passion for the limelight. Please remember to like this video and to subscribe to our channels for more great conversations.[Host] Greetings from Breaking the Biz brought to you by Yes I Can Unity Through Music and Education. I'm William Felber, your navigator through the intriguing universe of the entertainment industry as revealed by the visionaries and creators who bring it to life. Stay tuned as we delve into diverse insights from the forefront of entertainment. Hearing from pioneers, creators and agents of change, prepare for a journey filled with tales of innovation, resilience and the undying quest for artistic brilliance.[Moderator] Welcome to Breaking The Biz Podcast with the Yes I Can crew. We've got a great guest speaker with us tonight. We have Mister Sydney Alston who is an artist manager. He's in charge also of artist development and he is the head of the DIY Media Group. Like I mentioned, he's a dynamic entertainment manager known for his comprehensive expertise across all dimensions of the music industry with an illustrious background spanning artist development, a and r marketing, sales, promotion. His skill set has consistently driven the success in the industry, having engaged with major labels and publishing giants including UMG, Warner Brothers, Sony, Sony ATV, Warner Chapel and more. Sidney's influence is palpable. His impactful efforts have led to the signing of emerging artists who conveyed major label recording contracts and licensing deals. Sydney's discovery and development of artists having resulted in many full time music careers. His accolades include wins and contributions to the works of such artists such as Chris Brown, Usher, Miguel and Damian Marley, to name a few. Grammy wins and a Eurovision award for best song of the year. So what a well rounded music individual to have with us tonight. So Sydney, I want to thank you for joining us. You are welcome. Thank you for having me. Sydney, I want to know first off, when did you fall in love with music? When did you get bit by the music bug? I've always been bit by the music bug. According to my mother, I used to when I was three years old. I figured out how to play records on the turntable and I would play records and sit down and rock and put myself to sleep or stay up all night. As it turns out, I learned those songs. I don't know, like when I was older and I could play. I just knew them. Love it. We've done music. So you learned on turntables. Um, did your parents see that you had, you were musically gifted? You know, did they buy you instruments? What? Talk me through your path. Okay, so, yeah, I listened to music. I loved music. Um, I went to school in Baltimore and they had a music program in school and so I knew I wanted to do something with music. And they, you know, give you an aptitude test to determine whether you're. You have musical aptitude. And they decided that I could play. They assigned me the instrument. I didn't get to pick what I wanted to play. They gave me a trumpet. I got pretty, you know, young, just like anybody else. I squeaked through it. By the time I got to middle school, I squeaked a lot better. By the time I got to high school, I kind of knew what I was doing. So I. I started my own band by the time I was 16. Sydney and the Silver Slide sensations. And it was a horn band. And my horns got picked up to play with an oldies band at the time called the tramps who had a big song called Disco Inferno, burn, baby, burn. And so I got to play with them at a super young age, I guess. Knew from there that music was the only thing that I could really ever do. But I went on tour. I did a really short tour with Maynard Ferguson. And after the Maynard Ferguson tour, I realized that I wasn't going to be able to have a full time career in music. At least I didn't think I could play in the trumpet. So I switched over the bass. I toured with some cover bands for a while. After that, I started an original band. We got a record deal with Virgin Records back in the round about 1990. So it's a long time ago, but that kind of taught me. I knew how to put together things. I had a bio, demo tape and pictures. I knew how to sell things just because, I don't know, I just did. I got a, you know, that deal kind of fell apart. I signed another deal after that with RCA and BMG. I realized that I didn't really need to sign a deal because nothing was happening. I mean, literally, we were just waiting and waiting. We were doing better when we were without a deal. So when that deal fell apart, I just figured out a way back in Philly to push my band. I could tell you the story, but I push my band and market it so that we would grow and grow and grow. We did originals and covers and we made between 5000 and $10,000 a night and worked three, four nights a week. That's how I made my living. Until one day all of that came crashing down. One of my friends who was in one of my bands was in my band, had gotten a gig with Dru Hill and went on tour with Dru Hill. And so he asked me if I would manage him. And so I took a day off. The first time in ten years I had not shown up for a gig. Hired somebody else to take my place. My booking agent was in love with the singer in my band and he really didn't really like me. I was kind of a shrewd business guy for him. And so he convinced the band to fire me. It was my own band, right? It's another lesson I learned, too. So I came back the next day, I get a call from the manager, from the booking agent saying, hey, shit, look, the band doesn't want you anymore, okay? You're out. And so I'm like, you can't kick me out of my own band. Well, I told those guys, if they don't kick you out, they'll never work in this town again. And he actually meant that. But I had kind of control over the most important assets, the mailing list. So I let that go. Started a new band the next day and I went around to all the clubs and I, you know, I said, joy Ryder is going to come through here and play. I said, but I got a new band and no one's going to show up for those guys. You hire my band and I'll bring the people. And sure enough, that's exactly how it happened. Two months later, Joy Ryan was out of business and my next band was thriving. Okay, so then we fast forward to. I've decided I really wanted to manage my friend because he was working with much bigger people. He had decided to go on tour with Prince. And I thought that that was an excellent opportunity for me to get into the business at a next level. But I also needed a way to pay the bills if I wasn't going to be playing. So I went to a disc makers. They made cds and dvd's and cassette tapes for all kinds of projects. And, you know, I kind of went there and I got a job. Hey, I work here now, so you guys got to find me a desk. Until they actually did a real interview and hired me. So I did that while I was working for Fish. And they, you know, that became the DIY media group, which, by the way, I don't work for DIY anymore. But they bought cd baby. They sent me to LA and they made me the head of the LA office where I did marketing and sales in that office. And that allowed me to meet a lot of real players in the music business. Record labels, publishers, producers. My friend Fish introduced me to a ton of people who were making big records at the time. And I decided, you know what? I had a full time career doing music. I bet I could find somebody young, I could develop them and make them into a star. And so I started on that journey. I signed a few people and then I signed this kid named Major Maja. Major Maja is just an incredibly talented 14 year old. And I took him around to a lot of songwriters that I had met, even though I knew he wasn't really ready just yet. He ended up being in a room with some of the biggest songwriters in the world. And after we kind of really got. After he got developed, let's put it that way, he learned how to write better songs, he learned how to perform on stage, he learned to be a better singer, he learned how to become an artist, to work his branding, how he looked, how he acted, what he said. All of those things came to light. And I met a guy from Denmark named Frederick to. At a networking event, just like I met you, Brett. And Frederick was a producer, and I invited him to my house. I had a studio in my house and we recorded a song with Major. And that was the beginning of a new relationship. We did a bunch of songs with Frederick and then, you know, I said, frederick, you should just come and stay at my house and you can stay as long as you want. And if you sign this management deal with me. So I signed into a management deal a couple weeks later. We submitted some music to the Eurovision award and he won song of the year for a song that he produced. So I was kind of lucky to get into that. But because of that, I was able to parlay that into a record deal for Major Myj at Warner Brothers. And so major signed with Warner Brothers. We had a little bit of difficulty. He was underage when he signed, and his mother decided that she wanted to be his manager. And so we parted ways, unfortunately, for several years, and then not too much happened. I ended up working with major again a few years later, and he got back in the studio with some of the folks that we had worked with when he was coming up, by the way, his record deal kind of just didn't work out because his mom didn't really know what she was doing. But he's still talented. Didn't change anything. So we got him in the room. He wrote a song for Damian Marley and won a Grammy for that song. He's been. He was up for a Grammy this year. He wrote a song for Chris Brown called Summer Too Hot, but he worked with, you know, the Messengers, and they worked with Justin Bieber, Chris Brown, and a whole bunch of other, like, pop artists of that time. We worked with the writing camp. They were working with Beyonce and Rihanna. So he had worked with a bunch of really big songwriters, and we were able to get back into the room with those guys and get back to work. You know, I've worked with, I don't know, a ton of people, but that's kind of how I got to where I am now, which is managing artists, promoting artists, developing people, doing consulting work. You know, I developed a course while I was working at disc makers called achieving success with your music. And I would go around to all the, like, Guitar Centers and Sam Ash stores and music schools, and I would talk about the steps that an artist could take starting from zero to get them in the game and not trying to promise anybody that they'd be a star or anything like that. But if you. You know, there's a way to get into the game and make some money so that you can make a living at it if you. If you're. If that's what you're looking to do. So that's how I, you know, started teaching them. I'm an adjunct professor at UCLA. I teach there in the summertime. That's. That's my story. I love it because, obviously, you. You've got an eye and an ear for the talent, right? Like, who would. Who knows what would have happened if mom didn't get involved? You know, mom managers and dad managers sometimes doesn't always work. Sometimes it does in a Beyonce world. But, like, you know, you need people who are professionals who really do know how to connect the dots and can be frank and not try to speak to you as a family member. And I love it. And obviously, CD baby was a big, big thing, which turned into DIY. But, I mean, that's like a dying breed if you think about, like, the cds and, you know, no one's selling their cds. There's no CD players in the car. I was just sitting in the Sublime's tour bus, our little van the other day, and it literally still has a CD player in there, and it's got all their stickers, and the thing is falling apart. But it was a magical experience just to be in. Like, you'd see they had the. They'd made a little thing where with wood, they could hold their guitars up in the top and. But, yeah, like, you don't sell cds. I mean, records are kind of coming back. You can see some bands are doing limited edition cassettes, but, you know, everything. I miss those days of tangible assets where you can look at the art, you could hold it in your hand, could flip through a lyric book. You don't get that really anymore, but it is interesting. But talk me through the importance of obviously writing a song for Damian Marley that ends up winning a Grammy. How lucrative? Everyone thinks, oh, I want to be the rock star. I want to do my own songs. But most people don't realize there's other people writing those songs and writing those hooks, and sometimes they're coming in or black eyed Peas, where's the love? And you look at the thing and there's like 26 writers on that song. Talk me through how lucrative it can really be to be a songwriter behind the scenes. Okay, so I won't use major as an example because major doesn't have that many hits, but I work with a guy named Sam Hook who does have that many hits. And, you know, Sam, talking to Sam like, he talked about his first publishing deal with Warner Brothers, which was the first five years of his career, where he just sat in rooms and he was one of the 27 people in a lot of records. And because Warner Brothers gave him an advance, he really didn't make any more money from those records. Five years goes by, he renegotiates his deal, he gets another big advance. Then he writes for. Let's see, who did he do? Ella Mae, Miley Cyrus? Excuse me. He gets some pretty big hits, and he does get some checks for a quarter of a million dollars.$500,000, he told me, was the biggest check he ever got. But those checks don't come all the time. However, guy like Sam Hook, for many years, would make roughly a million dollars a year from all of his residuals that he would make. Now, major, on the other hand, not so much. You know, he's got a. He's on. He's on, like, records with Usher that he recorded and they released, and then they retracted. They didn't do anything. Usher doesn't want that out there. You know, he's done songs with Chris Brown before that were put out, and then they were retracted if they didn't do that. Well, he's got multiple records out with Miguel, which actually did pretty well, but he doesn't have enough records that are doing things to make a living at. He makes probably about $40,000 in residuals. And the way he makes a living now is you have to pay him to go into the session. So when he's writing in the label session, they'll give him a fee, which is basically an advance. And he lives off that advance. And if he gets anything on the back and he's happy, but he's constantly chasing the feet. That's his rent. And so it's still a grind, even when you have a couple songs. But when you have big records and you have years of big records, you have songs that get synced in television and film. You have, you know, records that have been released multiple times by different artists. I mean, those kinds of things really pay. And if you have a song that, I know, I hate to say this, everybody hears this and thinks it's a joke, but you have a song that goes viral on TikTok, strangely enough, and then it turns into record sales on Apple and iTunes, Spotify and Deezer and all these other services. That gets to be a pretty nice paycheck, too. Okay, talk me through these streaming services. Lots of artists are always complaining that there is no money in streaming. I think, like most bands, unless you were selling millions of albums, there wasn't a lot of money in selling records as well. But there's definitely a discrepancy between streaming versus selling records. I mean, obviously, you could see what you were selling. You had the sound scan. I know. It's like zero, zero, three. You know? I mean, like, it's very, very hard. So, like a Carter, for example, unless you are getting that tick tock thing, an independent artist, it's very hard to survive on streaming services and platforms paying you for your music. Well, I have an artist named Joey Gray. Joey Gray is a perfect example of that. You make some money, but you don't make a lot. So Joey Gray had a song that we pushed to be viral on TikTok, and it's got probably 1.5 billion streams and, like, 200 million UGC, which is user generated content, which is a lot. It has, like, I think, 12 million streams on Spotify and about 3 million streams on iTunes. So it's a big song, kind of. And, like, I would say for the year, he made $40,000 which was good from all the streaming revenues. So. From Spotify? From everything? From everything. And when you think about 1.5 billion streams, $40,000 just doesn't seem fair. No, it doesn't seem fair. And my question is, is the record labels, obviously, they must have been the funding, the original funders of the Spotify, the iTunes, you know, there's certain platforms. I know, obviously labels got the majority of that cut before an artist did. Are they, you don't see any label complaining about streaming. Are they making a good amount of that money that the artist is not? Well, you know, Joey does not have a label deal. He's doing this independently. So there is no label. However, there is distribution companies. Right. So he use. We've used them all now. We started off with amuse, then we went to cd, baby. We did distrokid, tune, core, AWOL, and now we finally landed at United Masters. And I love United Masters, by the way, compared to all the rest, we even use symphonic. So, I mean, to me, it was kind of an experiment, like, okay, this didn't do anything. Let's try these guys. They didn't do anything. Let's go here. But they all get a piece of that money and they all take it in a different way, even though technically they're saying it's the same except for symphonic, who actually gets a little bit more than everybody else. So they get their cut. ITunes gets their cut. Spotify gets their cut. Everybody gets their cut. And so that .00 $0.03 that they're supposed to pay you sometimes turns out to be zero, zero, one cents or zero, zero one $0.05. It's smaller all the time by the time you get it. Yes, streaming doesn't really do well, but you have to use that to make other things happen. I think that's the goal with being able to get a bunch of streams. Now we're actually in talks for a major record label deal. He's a kid who writes his own music, produces his own music, and has so much music right now that's not just out, but we're putting out records twice a month, two records a month. Most people can't really do that. So it allowed them to take notice to what we're actually doing and how we're really streaming with record deals. And you mentioned you need that to then lead into, obviously, the tours and the merchandise. I remember 360 deals were one of the big things that record labels were trying to do where they had your merchandise, they had your touring, they had a little bit of your music, are those deals still going out there? Are people realizing, like, hey, can't do that. My bread and butter is touring. My bread and butter is being able to sell the expensive shirt that costs so and so to keep me grinding and touring? Yes, the 360 deal is still live in a well and has been offered, and the typical 360 deal will take. Actually, the deals are different now than they were before. They don't take quite as much from the record sales because there's not very much to have, but they want to take more from the merch side of things and a little bit more from, they want to monetize your social media and be able to make money from that. And that became, that was the first time I had seen a deal where they would, they're monetizing your social media and taking a really significant cut. I had not seen that before with the old deals that we did with Warner Brothers and Universal. That wasn't a part of the 360, not quite like that, but now it is. So that's a significant amount of money. If you have a good social media following, they're going to want, they're going to want some of that. Okay, I want to know, because, like, throughout your career, you've taken tons of diverse roles from, you know, a and r, from managing, from, you know, all the different things you do. How do you make a pivotal career decision to go down a different direction? Because you're kind of like a master of all, you know what I mean? Like, you've done a little bit of everything. How do you make your decisions on what you're going to pursue? You know, in the past, they've all been dictated by something that I really wanted to do. So I really wanted to manage fish, my guitar player. And so therefore, I had to take the job at disc makers. It wasn't that I wanted to do a career pivot, but then when I was there, I was like, I got to be good at it. I can't just be some dude. So I got really good at what I was doing there so that they would give me, you know, the freedom, really, to go out and have meetings during the day and go to universal and meet up with those people and make it worthwhile for all of us, you know? So that was, that was kind of my goal once I was in it, the management thing, you know, I was working at disc makers. I guess the first client that I took on that was young, and there was a girl, she was like 16 years old, and her mom was, I don't know what to do with her. Like, blah, blah, blah. And usually working at disc makers. I mean, how many Cds do you want, you know? But for whatever reason, she got through to me. And I listened to this girl sing, and I was like, wow, she is an amazing singer. I could make a great record with her. I've never really made a record before. I'm going to hook up with some producers, and I had some friends. I had a friend named Ted Greenberg who had a couple Grammys. I had my friend fish to play guitar. So we went in the studio, engineered. I got ted to teach me how to record. I mean, he was teaching at the Art institute recording, and I was paying him to record this girl. So I was learning how to record from a Grammy award winning engineer, all while not realizing that I had other skills that I hadn't really realized yet. Like, you know, producing vocals. I became pretty good at producing vocals, and people would start calling me to produce vocals, so I would go to the studio. That's kind of one of my side gigs. I think that that helped me to be a better a and r person, to hear a real singer as somebody who has something special. And maybe it's not the fact that they can do riffs at 100 miles an hour. Maybe it's the fact that there's something really cool when they sing that has, like, a little crack in it here and there, you know? Or it's just raspy. Or maybe it's the way they pronounce their lyrics. You know, some people just pronounce words differently, and when they sing it, it just sounds cool. You know, it's like you're like, that sounds cool. And these are the kind of songs that you'd sound cool singing, you know? So all of these things that I've done kind of have led to these other paths that I've gone down. The management thing, I really love. But, like, I found myself recently. I took on a new band that's a country band. Never worked in country in my life. And my friend Fish, he's a reoccurring theme. He's like my best friend. I love it. I love it. And this is not. Is fish connected to Fishbone, by any chance? He's not, no. Okay. Okay. This is, like, right now, he's playing with Christina Aguilera. That's his, like, full time main gig. But he also does, like, scoring for television and film, so he does a lot of scoring, but he decided that he wanted to do a country record with this guy. And I've known this. I've known that. He's been working with this guy for seven years, right? But they did a whole bunch of pop records, and, like, they did a rock record, and they did this country record, and he said, sid, I think I got it. I think I figured it out. And he played it for me. And I'm sitting there listening to it with this country guy, and he's got his cowboy hat on, and I'm listening to it, and I'm thinking to myself, is this the same guy that was doing the pop stuff, like, few years ago that I said, no. He said, yeah. He says, did he do a rock record, too? He says, yeah, same guy. And I look at him, and I'm listening to it, and I'm like, wow, this sounds really good, man. I mean, like, why is this sound so authentic? He's like, well, I mean, it is authentic. I'm from Montana. I grew up on a ranch. I love country music. Finally, I heard something that was authentic for some reason, and I, you know. And so he had done seven national tours with a country rap artist. This is kind of fun because I'm working on it right now, and it's new and invented. So one of the drummer had a cousin who does pr. She's like a Hollywood publicist or whatever. And I started talking to her because he recommended her. She was just like, $20,000 a month, man. Like, nobody can afford that. But when I started talking to her and I realized why, she felt like she was worth $20,000. She works with a bunch of nonprofits. She builds brands, so on and so forth. I started thinking about. She said she was talking. She had just brought on this sponsor to do this make a wish project for a million dollars. I was thinking, man, that's a lot of money. I wonder if we could get the band sponsored. Do you have any possibilities? So we started talking, and she was like, you should get the band affiliated with a nonprofit. And I have really good friends that make a wish hook you guys up with make a wish. So we signed up with make a wish, and then she went down the bank of America and got us $5,000 to sponsor the first show on the tour, which we wouldn't even have a tour. We just had a show. And I was like, oh, man, this is great. So we took that. I found out, you know, that Austin had never played in his hometown in Billings, Montana. And, you know, one of the ways to really blow up your band or your artistry is to be big in your own hometown, and it's easier than you might think, unless your hometown is Los Angeles or New York, but. So we went to Montana to play, and we partnered up with some local companies there, Shipton's, Big R, Coca Cola, at a distributor there. We hooked up with, and we got sponsorships from these folks. They gave us money. We got on the news and talked about, you know, the sponsorship and the show, got on the radio and talked about the sponsorship of the show, and then a thing went off in my head. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. This is the way that we're going to do our next tour. And so for the next few months, we started crafting a business plan. We're going to partner with the nonprofit. We're not going to partner with the Make a Wish foundation. It doesn't really make sense for a country band playing bars and clubs and things like that. So we partnered with Feeding America, and the band's called Austin Martin and the Herd. So we call on the tour the feeding the herd tour. And so we partnered with those guys. We started setting up dates starting in Los Angeles this Friday. We plan at the Viper room then. You guys want to come? I'll put you on the list. So it's the viper room. Then we go down to San Diego. Then we head over to Arizona. And then after that, we're going to do this Midwest part of it. But the first three shows are incredibly important because that's where we get a chance to show what we're doing. We're going to be on good morning, Arizona. We've got press releases in Los Angeles, and we partnered with the Los Angeles food bank. We partner with the San Diego food Bank. Tomorrow we're heading to San Diego so that we can be on the morning news to talk about it. I mean, the exposure of being on the news and being on the radio is huge for a band that no one's ever heard of. So now we're making a name for ourselves. So when we get down to San Diego, we're going to do the news episode, and then we're going to go to. We got. We partnered with Kroger. They're going to give us food vouchers so that we can give away two food vouchers for a week's worth of food to some deserving family. And so we ran contests online on social media. You know, if you can do the Austin dance, you know, whoever does it the best can pick someone or nominate someone to give food to. And so we're going to give away some food when we get down to San Diego. But by the time we hone that in for the first couple of shows, when we get to Arizona, we're going to do it on the good morning, Arizona show. We found this wonderful lady who's got three kids and works two jobs and really needs this food vouchers. So we're going to give her two food vouchers so she'll get it for two weeks. We could go to her house. Good morning. Arizona is going to meet us there. They're going to film the whole thing, and we're going to get this on tv. And now we have proof of concept. When we go back to Montana, we're going to reach back out to bank of America. Over the Christmas break, we reached out to Ford to make a video, and they gave us a truck to use and we to make a video with. We put it in the video for our Christmas video, and when we returned it, it sold in an hour. People were following us online and following Austin in that truck. And when he took it back to the, to the dealer, he was like, oh, my God. I can't believe I have to let this go. This is crazy. And somebody drove up there right after that and bought it. So Ford Motor Company has been supporting us for a bit to sponsor us, but they haven't been able to really do it because they haven't seen the proof of concept. So now that they're seeing that we're giving things away, that we really are doing what we're saying we're going to do, we're going for a couple of hundred thousand dollars, and that's what we're going to need for our tour. And that's how we're going to. That's how we're going to do it. Something different. I don't know that anybody else has actually done this, but, no, I think it's fantastic. And I just want to compliment you on your growth mindset, because sometimes people are afraid to do things that they haven't done or they're not necessarily familiar with. Like, you're stepping into a country realm that you've never, you know, you know what's authentic, you know what's good music, but it's just great to go, like, I got it, I see it, and I'm gonna back it, and I'm gonna put my all into it. And sometimes we're so stuck in, like, this is, we always are told, stay in your lane. And you're like, screw it. I'm about to weave in and out I don't care. You know, good music is good music. I wouldn't be able to tell you a good country artist from another country, you know what I mean? Like, I don't know that music, but I love that you have no fear of stepping into the unknown. Did you go to any music business? I mean, like, you're very music business minded and I can tell that you've taught yourself a lot. Did you go to school for any business, anything or this is all just self taught and picking up and learning on your way? I mean, when I got, I went to Berkeley for one semester as a trumpet player, but then I got that gig playing with Maynard Ferguson. I was out. But I have had the luxury and the pleasure of being managed by some pretty big people in my career. So Larry Mazer managed one of my bands. Larry Maeser managed Kiss and the Rolling Stones and Megadeth and a whole bunch of big metal bands in the eighties. And I learned a lot from him. He got us like eleven major record label showcases and with some of the biggest people in the business, like five Davis, Tommy Mottola, you know, like James Diener, who signed Maroon five. And like, I mean, and he did it without a demo tape or a picture, just on his word. He got people to show up and we did showcases for them. So, you know, I got a chance to talk to him and hang out with him. I've always been good at networking and creating situations. One of the guys that I met who was really young, when I played in a band, I thought he had an incredible ear for music. And I hooked him up with a friend of mine who worked at Roadrunner Records. And so he got an internship there. And then he began working there. And once he decided that he really didn't want to be in the record business, I hooked him up with Larry Maeser. And he went and sat in Larry Maeser's office and worked for Larry for a couple of years. And during those couple of years he signed a few bands as a manager. And when he left Larry Mazer, he took one of the bands with him, a band called from first to last. And at the time when he took from first to last, the lead singer had lost his voice. So they kind of sat out for a minute at my friend's house and he saw this kid as a superstar and really started to brand and work with him. That kid became skrillex. And so now he mentors me. I call him up and he helps me through things, you know. So for everything, I guess, in the business, that I've done, I've met people who've been nice enough to share. You know, major had an attorney, Ari Engel, who I think is just a brilliant man. I mean, just completely brilliant dude. And he introduced me to a lot of people. He schooled me on the deals. You know what I mean? If you ever look at a record deal or management deal or publishing deal or even like a gig contract, there's a lot of legal speak in it. And being able to kind of discern what is important in the contract and what is not and what the spirit of the contract is before you go to a lawyer can save you thousands and thousands of dollars. And so he took the time with every deal and contract that we got for major and went through it with me. I mean, the Warner brothers contract was 128 pages. And I mean, he went through it with me page by page by page so that I could understand it. He showed me so much and I retained, I took notes, I studied it. I'm like, this is free. Yeah, extend of 1000 an hour or whatever it is. That's important stuff. I love the from first to last, you know, and I remember them being on warp tour, you know, and then obviously going down the route of djing. Skrillex is, you know, what a, what a huge artist and how he's changed electronic music. You answered my question. I was going to ask how important is mentorship been? And that's a great example of how important a mentor can be. And obviously for somebody to see you open the door for him and gave him an opportunity. And I really feel that's how this business should be is people remember, like, oh, you took care of me. Let me now take care of you. And there are good people in this industry. For all of the, the shisties and the shady ones, there are people who keep it real. And obviously you're here paying it forward and passing along knowledge and mentoring the next group of creatives with disabilities who are going to be entering this workforce and changing the way the music is go. So I absolutely, I love that. What? Go ahead. I didn't want to cut you off. Did you were going to say something? Yeah. I've always thought, I guess even as a really, before I knew anything, right, that if someone else was already doing it, I wanted to do it different. I felt that way in my heart, like, because I thought that these guys are doing it, it's working for them. Everybody's going to try and do that. It's just not going to work for everybody. So finding, you know, years ago, my first band that got the first record deal, it took off, we had, you know, I guess this full disclosure, this was the nineties. Things that you can't do in the two thousands that you could do in the nineties, right, was we had a wet t shirt contest. You know, even when I think about it now, I'm like, you know, that probably wasn't like. But it's a bigger thinking if you think bigger in this way, right, is that we played a gig every Thursday night. So the band came together. Kind of by luck. We got called to do a gig at this club in Wildwood, New Jersey. We practiced for half an hour and did five sets worth of material. Club owner loved it. Said, you guys want to play for the whole summer? And so we played there for the whole summer. A band was born right after the summer was over. We had to find gigs. We found this gig every Thursday night. We played there three Thursday nights. The same 1520 people showed up. Club owner says, I love you guys. You guys are really, really good, but no one cares. I can't make money like that. I'm just going to have to let you guys go. And I convinced him to give us one more shot, right? And this is the beginning of where I am now, really. And so I sat back and I thought about it, and we were. It was the beginning of the Internet. We had, like, newspapers. And I found this ad for ticket to the Bahamas for $80. And so I called them and I went and I got that ticket for $80. I paid $80, I got the ticket, I sat down with my band. I said, I have an idea. And they were like, what's that? We're going to get fired. We got no work. I was like, we're going to have a wet t shirt contest at the Cherrywood on Thursday night. And this is how we're going to do it. We're going to give away a trip to the Bahamas. We're going to take. We're going to make flyers, and we're going to go around to every strip bar in this whole fricking city and neighborhood, and we're going to hand out tickets, and we're going to tell them, you don't have to take off your clothes. It's really about bringing your friends. Whoever gets the biggest applause is going to win this trip to the Bahamas. Bring everybody. So when we showed up that Thursday night early to set up our gear, there was a line outside the club. I'm thinking, oh, my God, it's going to be crowded tonight, but, boy, was I so wrong. It wasn't that it was going to be crowded. It was already so crowded that people couldn't get in. There was a line of people who couldn't get in all the way around the bar because those girls brought out so many people, and it occurred to me that that was it. So whenever I'm thinking about a new artist that I'm working with, I'm thinking about, what's their wet t shirt contest? What's that going to be for them? What can they do that everybody's not doing to make them stand out from the crowd? I love it. It's like thinking outside of the box and, you know, doing with the country artists with, you know, feeding America and going that route. And I love it. Not following the. You don't have to go the same roadmap. You can go your own roadmap and find your own way, and there's many different ways to solve problems, and it's just thinking differently. I love it. What's a mantra that you live by every day? Keep pushing. You got to push through the tough times because it's always tough in the beginning. This tour is tough. I'm not making any money right now. All that money is going back into the promotion of this tour for at least the next 15 days or so. And so while I'm not making any money from that and I'm putting in a lot of time on that, I have other artists that I'm. That I am making some money from that I'm doing work for, whether it's consulting or teaching or mentoring or, you know, it's. You got to push. You got to keep pushing. You never, if you never, never stop pushing. Love it. One biggest piece of advice you would give to your younger self with all that you've learned in this industry, trust yourself. I would trust myself. I made a lot of mistakes by trusting other people and listening to them, which, you know, you got to learn. You can't. Can't learn anything if you're not listening. Actually, let me change that. I would have told my, my younger self to be a better listener and trust yourself. Yeah, I love it. Listening, you know, when we talk about communication and listening is the one piece that everyone overlooks. It's the most important part. Like, everyone's always constantly thinking, like, what am I going to say next instead of listening? And it's true, like you, we don't listen to each other. That's why there's so much miscommunication these days. So I get that. And then trusting yourself, it's true. Like, you know, you can feel the emotion, you can feel the music. You know when it, you know when it's good, you know, when you got an artist. I love that. That's something that, you know, you can't really teach. I got, I got to give one more, too because this is go for it. I have to learn this and somebody had to teach it to me a hard way. But you don't always have to be right to win. Sometimes you're already winning. You just got to let it win. You don't have to go back and say, but that's not the way I wanted to do it. You just got to let it go. If it's winning and it's working, you got to let it go and just not be right all the time. Now that's, that's some value right there. Right. It's kind of like when you would be arguing with the wife. Just sometimes you're just like. I know I said that. You're right, honey. There you go. Like you still win in the battle, so to speak. So sometimes you gotta let it go. I love that. All right, I'm going to open it up to questions from the crew. Presley got the first question. Go for it. So I want to know about your experience on your Eurovision award and your Grammy win. Well, the Eurovision awards, it almost seemed like an accident but it wasn't. My guy from Denmark, Frederick, wrote a song for artist named Emily DeForester. He met her through his publishing company. Good songs and, you know, they recorded the song together in Denmark and that was like one of the first things he was playing for me when he was in here and I was like, dude, we should submit this to the Grammys or to Eurovision or something. This song is great. And he was like, hey, do whatever you want. So we literally hooked up with good songs. Who was his publisher? They were part of the Eurovision committee and we asked them if they would submit the song on our behalf and whatnot. And we paid them a little bit of money to do it and they did it and it won. And so that was awesome. The, strangely enough, we didn't have anything to do with the Damon Marley win for the Grammys. I guess his label submitted it and then we got a winner. You know, sometimes it's not about that. I just got a billboard plaque for my friend Joey Gray who landed on number 14 on the TikTok charts. So, I mean, some of these things are just, you just, you just work in and it just happens, and you're happy that it happens, but I don't know that I work for that. I work the music. You do good music, and good things happen. I love it, Korg, so glad to have you with us. Go for it, Korg. Ask your question. Um, what would I know that, like, these days, it seems like, or ever. I've read this in many sources that, like, labels don't develop artists the way that they used to, and you kind of have to develop yourself, and then they take the finished product. So, like, what would be your advice if someone feels like, especially on, like, that marketing, branding side? Like, they have no clue how to do this, and also, you feel like you're on an island with your genre? Well, that might be good. You know, finding your audience is about finding a community. There's going to be, like, audiences. Somewhere somebody has a sound that's not exactly like yours. Maybe it's super eclectic, just like you. And people who like super eclectic music, you know, they got a forum somewhere on Instagram or even maybe Facebook or, you know, TikTok. You got to find that community, wherever it is, and become a part of the community. And that way, you can start developing a fan base, and you can bring those fan bases, that fan base, back to your true, authentic self on Instagram. Instagram is a place I consider, like, a place for destination. I know who you are. Now I'm going to see what you're doing. That's Instagram. Discovery can happen anywhere. It could be clubhouse, for Christ's sakes. It could be TikTok. It could be discordant. You know, you just have to find where your community is and start engaging with those people, and it'll organically start to happen for you. Got it. Clerks. I've been trying to do that for a while, but I feel like I'm just, like, innately missing something. Are you saying that you don't. You haven't found anybody who has music that's even close to yours or found some? Yeah, I mean, kind of. But it's like. It feels like there's this. These kind of disparate sort of things. I don't know. I don't know. I mean, I don't want to risk taking up, like, too much your time, but, like. Like, I don't know. I would say, like, on TikTok, that's an interesting one, is I was able to get, like, 250 followers, and I was kind of seeing, like, okay, there's a lot of, like, people that hook up, like, sensors to their cacti and, like, you know, repurpose kids toys and, like, mess with the circuits and. And, like, you know, they're into, like, you know, apex twins, square pusher, you know, these sorts of people. And that's not bad. I'm just thinking, like, I just want to find more of them, and I want to find them in one place. Oh, you found them. So you got 250 of them right now. So you got to do the homework, because none of this is going to come easy. You're going to have to work hard. Now you got 250 of them. Go look at who their fans are, who their friends are, what they're looking at, and start. That's your community. You build it from that 250, so it becomes 350. Hey, you know, I saw that you like the same thing I like. I'm also into music. Check it out. You know, nobody likes it when you say, listen to my music. Really, it's all about being. Liking what they like, being a part of what they're part of. It's not hard. It should be easy. And that's how you build your community. They'll come to you organically. They'll find your music. If they, once they find you, they're like, okay, I like her. She's cool. She's doing the same thing. I'm checking her out. Oh, she does music, too. Oh, great. Let me check it out. Oh, I like your music. And they'll hit you up. Hey, I like your music. I mean, Joey Gray didn't really have anything going on on TikTok, but somebody took one of his songs and made an exercise video out of it, and it became this reverse edit trend. And once we saw the trend was happening, then we poured a little gasoline on it. Hey, this guy is doing the same thing with your song. Let me put some money on his post and get him out there. Let's share it. Let's share every post that somebody makes. Until all of a sudden, there were too many to share. Then it was more about, well, now it's starting to go. We're getting like, there's like 100. Now there's like 500. Now there's 100,000. It goes so fast and it's out of control. You can't even, you know, but we got it going, you know, how do we do it again? Well, let's try putting a song, and let's just use a filter. We're just going to use a filter. Put the song in a filter so we can make it go. Sure enough, we made it go. So it is trial and error. You really do have a start for your fans. Now you've got to go in and dig in and do the research. Awesome. Sydney, you are the man. I want to thank you again for spending an hour with us tonight. Like Daniel mentioned, I wish you just continued success. Keep trusting the instinct, stepping outside of the zone and out of the comfort zone. Just do you do what you believe in, it will pop. So you've done the trial, you've done the error, you've stayed relevant. You keep it going. I'm proud of that. I love it. Look forward to the next networking event and in chopping it up with you. But thank you again for inspiring the next generation. Well, thanks for having me. And you guys, good luck with everything in the future. I wish you all the best.[Host] As we conclude another enriching episode, we hope you found inspiration in the stories shared today. Lets take a moment to honor Yes I Can's role in bringing Breaking the Biz to life. Yes I Can's commitment to empowering young people with disabilities through education, advocacy and mentorship shines brightly, paving paths of opportunity and dialogue. This podcast celebrates the organizations dedication to nurturing talent and facilitating impactful discussions. Breaking the Biz is more than a podcast. It's a part of Yes I Can's broader mission to amplify voices, dismantle barriers, and craft a world that's more inclusive and accessible for everyone. Each episode is a chapter in our shared narrative of progressive education and empowerment, driven by the spirit of Yes I Can. Thank you for spending your time with us on Breaking the Biz. Continue to challenge the status quo, and share stories that resonate until our paths cross again. Lets keep transforming aspirations into achievements and infuse every endeavor with optimism. Heres to advancing the landscape of the entertainment industry one episode at a time. Time. I'm your host, William Felber. See you next time.