Michael Walker: All right. Excited to be here today with my new friend, Dan Melnick. He's the CEO of Sonicbids and Advance Music Technologies. He's successfully led Sonicbids, overseeing their growth strategies and partnerships, and acquiring the brand from Cast and Crew Backstage to modernize its offerings for today's musicians and venues.

We talked a little backstage about the state of the music industry, especially for indie artists. It's transformed so much—it’s a completely different ballpark now. I’m really excited to have him on the podcast today to share some lessons and recommendations for artists who are taking their music careers into their own hands in today’s industry.

So, Dan, thank you so much for taking the time to be on the podcast today.

Dan Melnick: Thanks for having me, Michael.

Michael: Awesome. So, I gave Dan a quick heads-up before we got started. I just got back from our Modern Musician retreat in Puerto Rico. We were there for about 10 days, and it was absolutely amazing. But I’m in reintegration mode right now.

So, if I say anything offbeat, accidentally slip up, or reveal the fact that I’m secretly a lizard person, it’s because of the reintegration—or maybe just the lack of sleep.

Dan: You can't put that on the internet, man. People will believe you. 

Michael: You’re right. No, the lizard... I mean—

Dan: Find you now. 

Michael: Lizard people—like, I’m going to be on the official list now, along with Mark Zuckerberg and the other obvious lizard humans.

Dan: There was some Halloween special on Hulu I watched recently about a guy obsessed with that. He ended up lighting a building on fire. So yeah, let’s make sure to keep your address off the pod.

Michael: Oh, man. Yeah. Gosh. What's the best way I can prove that I'm not a lizard person? If I remember correctly, one of the giveaways is loving outer space. I do love outer space. So that's a demerit against me. I think it’s green eyes, maybe blue eyes, fast reflexes? Yeah, man. And now I’m starting to wonder... am I a lizard person? I think I need to do some self-inquiry to figure it out. Am I human? Well...

Dan: Love it. It’s great.

Michael: I would love to connect a bit more and hear your story. Starting with Sonicbids, could you share a little bit for anyone who might be connecting with you for the first time?

Can you introduce yourself and share your journey to becoming the CEO of Sonicbids?

Dan: Sure. I've been a music industry lifer. I went to school in Connecticut at Quinnipiac for mass comm, and I guess it wasn't until my senior year when I was a musician—like a lot of us get into this because we perform—that I wanted to work in the music industry.

But unfortunately for me, there wasn't really a music industry program at my college. So when I graduated, like so many other people who maybe too late in their lives decide to get into this, I didn't know enough about who even did what or how to navigate the scene. I didn't even know where to put in an application for a job post-graduation.

I remember going to the Red Light Management offices on Wall Street when I was like 22, resume in hand, because I couldn't get in touch with anybody there. I showed up, and the door guy was like, "No, bro." I was like, "Oh, I tried."

So, I kind of had my back against the wall. To make a longer story short, I started my own company booking musicians at small venues across New York City. I started at a small club, which is still there—One Six Nine Bar—but they don't do music anymore. Then I expanded to a venue called Uncle Mike's, which is also not there anymore.

It kind of exploded from there, and we were doing eight to ten shows a week. We had dozens of venues in New York alone, and we expanded to Boston, Philly, and San Francisco. At our peak, we had thousands of acts, 150 venues, and 15 bookers. We worked with Grolsch and Coors Banquet on some year-long concert series.

At 30, I was getting a little tired because I was at the venues three to four nights a week on top of working full time. That's kind of what it takes in the live realm—you still have to work during the day. So, I got burnt out and wanted to see how the other half lived after running my own business for about a decade.

I put my resume out there in the ether, and I was lucky enough to get snatched up by SonicBids within about six weeks of doing so.

It was nice when I started because it was like, "Oh my God, I don’t have to do everything. This is insane!" It was my first time working in a larger office. I watched my GM at the time struggle with all the things that I used to struggle with, from accounting to HR to tech issues and so on.

My only job when I first started was to get more venues and festivals on our platform, but I got really good at that and expanded my role to partnerships director within the first year. Then, during the pandemic, we unfortunately lost some people because, you know, we're in live music tech—that’s just how it goes.

Soon after that, I took over as GM. Throughout this whole journey, there have been a lot of technological improvements that I was asking the parent company to make over the years. It didn’t seem like they were going to do that, so I hit an impasse.

Through discussions, it became clear that there was a possibility for me to acquire the entity. I moved forward with my new co-founder today to acquire the entity with our other company, Advanced Music.

Here we are, about four months after the acquisition, and we're really excited. It's a rush, and yeah, we're pretty happy about it.

Michael: Awesome, man. Yeah, so it sounds like it's still very, very fresh at the time of recording this—about, you know, four months or so. And, yeah, talking about modernizing offerings, a lot has changed in the past 20, 50, or even 100 years in live music. So, yeah, I'd love to hear from your perspective.

First of all, for anyone who maybe has heard of SonicBids but isn't totally familiar, could you share a little bit about the main problem that SonicBids is here to help solve?

I'm also curious to hear about the modernized version of what you're looking to do there as well.

Dan: For sure. Yeah. I mean, for those unfamiliar, SonicBids is a legacy brand. They were really the first place for artists— not only independent artists, but artists in general—to represent themselves online. That's how old it is. I think it popped up around the same time as MySpace. It may even predate MySpace or launch around the same time.

Not only was it the first place for artists to represent themselves online, but it was also the first place for artists to submit electronically to different opportunities around the music space in general, particularly in the live music space. The term EPK, which at one point was at least copyrighted by SonicBids, stands for Electronic Press Kit. We were the original EPK.

A real quick way I say what it is: it's like LinkedIn Premium for musicians. That's kind of how I look at it today. There definitely have to be a lot of improvements. Historically, it was acquired by Backstage around 2013, and there really hasn't been much improvement to the software since that acquisition. That's what we are doing now.

Michael: Cool. So, SonicBids is sort of like the original EPK, and in some ways, it's like a business card for you and your music. It's a platform where you can find opportunities, especially live gigs, to submit for.

Awesome. And I'm curious, having a lot of perspective both in terms of what got us here as a music industry and where things are at right now and where they're headed, what do you think are some of the biggest challenges artists are facing in this market? How are you positioning the new and improved SonicBids to help solve these challenges?

Dan: Absolutely, man. Yeah, I love talking about this stuff. I mean, the problems still exist. I just got back—Armando is actually happening right now in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. I have some other people there repping our company. I was there on Monday and Tuesday. But the first panel I walked into, they were mentioning the same issue that has existed for as long as time, as you were kind of referring to earlier: how artists get gigs.

Which is bananas because it's 2024, almost 2025 at this point. I think the speaker mentioned Rockwood in Boston, and she was saying there are 1,500 artists that want 500 slots available in the quarter or the month at this particular venue. The same question was asked by the moderator: "So, how do these artists get these gigs?"

I think it's a two-sided coin here, right? It's a two-sided issue, a two-sided problem. You're talking about inventory, right? That's one side of it. In this particular issue, which is also a microcosm of the overarching issues in the space, there are fewer venues nowadays. I don't believe there are fewer opportunities, but there definitely are fewer venues for independent artists. I mean, especially in Boston, which is probably why Rockwood is dealing with such a demand. With Live Nation, AEG, Bowery, and the Walmartization of music venues, there are fewer spaces for independent artists to work.

And there's a reason for that too. This is something that I think is partially... God, this is such a long lesson. I feel like I'm teaching the class. I just went over this last week. What used to happen back in the day was you would have a regional or national touring act come through, right? You'd pair those touring acts with the best local support, right? And that would help the local support gain more fans. But that doesn't happen anymore because when you have Live Nation, AEG, Bowery's, and... look, there's nothing—I’m not even talking trash about Live Nation, AEG, Bowery. This is just the way it is, and I'm never personally going to hate on a multi-billion dollar enterprise, right? I mean, you know, they've done their job, right?

Michael: They're all lizard people.

Dan: Yeah, they're definitely the gymnasts out there. Because of this, what happens when you have these rooms, even like the moderate-sized rooms, like the 500-cap rooms, right? You need the artists who are going to sell those tickets for those rooms. Right? So those are all agency-represented acts. But the way that these agencies work, when you're booking these headliners, they tack on their agency-represented support and openers, right? Which, you know, seems like an obvious thing, but it deletes inventory for independent artists to be able to find gigs at those more reputable institutions.

I think New York is one of the better spots for independent music. You know, Boston is really lacking for stages. That's what it is—available stages, available inventory. So we're talking about the demand right there. There's that on that end. Now, I also know from my own research that that's not necessarily the case. There is inventory out there, but people need to think outside the box a little bit on how they start to stretch their legs and broaden their horizons with physical live music opportunities, right? So on-site opportunities. So there's, you know, if you're in the Northeast, there's plenty of stages in the Northeast, but you have to think like, "Oh, I'm not just going to go to the normal ticketed spots." There's restaurants, bars, breweries, distilleries. There's vacation spots. There's vacation locations.

I think it's a combination for these independent artists and how they should plan their year, also compared with the supply and demand of those spaces, right? So to really hone in on what I believe is an ideal way to plan your year, right? So if you, let's say, live in Boston or New York in the Northeast—because that's where I'm at. Actually, I'm in Connecticut right now, so I'm square in the middle—and I'm an independent artist, right? So, per quarter, you want to play your home base, right? I mean, the way of thinking about it was like a once-a-month thing. Don't do more than once a month because artists are playing every week. Playing every week is lunacy, lunacy, lunacy, unless you're like a cover artist or jazz artist, and you're providing a service of entertainment and getting paid to do that. But if you're an independent, original musician trying to grow your brand, right? You aren't going to get those paid opportunities as much, right?

So, what you want to do is focus on building your audience, creating content around building your audience, because we are in that technological age where you have the advantages of, I mean, even this cool thing I’m using right now—that’s a nice, cool little tool. There are thousands and thousands of technology tools out there to help artists start to build content around their own personal brands. And that is how you should fill that other time that back in the day, the playing once a week, right? Even asking your own fan base to come out once a month in that given market is a lot. It creates a supply and demand issue with your own personal fan base, right? You're cannibalizing your own fan base. Unless you're doing like an underplay residency, but even then, at that point, you've already kind of solved that issue of gaining your own fan base and building up that momentum.

But back to the planning of the year, you know, play your own market once a quarter and then, in the summers, you should be playing festivals, right? In the winters, go play ski towns. And then the other places in the summers—go play, you know, like Lake George or like Cape Cod, right? Try to find these opportunities that are going to put you in front of an audience that you wouldn't usually know of. And those opportunities do exist.

One of the issues too, on the festival side, is people think it's just like every artist wants to play Madison Square Garden, like every artist wants to play Bonnaroo or Coachella. It's just not realistic, but there are hundreds of independent festivals out there, right? Like, there are Main Street USA festivals that would love to have you around the country, not only just in the U.S., and you've got to go out there and find them and apply. I mean, luckily for Sonicbids, that's one of our strong points. We have one of the largest vetted directories of opportunities, and that's one of the things I've found, even through the pandemic—opportunities that I didn't even think existed because I had to get creative on where these opportunities are. And they exist and they're out there, and I would recommend, you know, Googling them or jumping on our platform and taking a look at them.

Oh, but I'm sorry, and I'm monologuing, but part of what they said in that panel—going all the way back to the beginning of the story—is they said, "You know, approach the talent buyers and say, 'Look, I have, you know, 50 really good friends that are going to come out and support me.'" I had a chuckle to myself when they said that because I was like, I cannot believe it's 2024 and we're still doing this. Whether it's a phone call, a piece of snail mail, or an EPK from the past, we're still telling these promoters, "Oh, I'm good for 50 people." It's crazy to me.

It's silly, honestly. And there are ways to be better at that, I think.

Michael: Yeah, got it. So it sounds like the big opportunity that exists right now is that the market is shifting. Certain opportunities aren't as abundant as they used to be in terms of some of these local opportunities. There are companies that are coming in and have, you know, a foothold on these concerts. So, some of those aren't quite as abundant as they used to be. But, you know, from your experience, there are a lot of opportunities if you know where to find them and you're actually actively applying for them.

And yeah, I think there is something really powerful about the concept of opportunities and about the numbers game. When there is an opportunity, then that opportunity, you know, there's a percentage, there's like a conversion rate. There are a number of opportunities that will say yes to you applying for the opportunity. But if you don't apply, if you don't have any opportunities, if you don't apply to them, then it's 0%. You have zero opportunities.

Maybe you can share a little bit more about these opportunities. Let's use Sonicbids for an example, you know, where these opportunities exist on this platform. For an artist who's listening to this or watching this right now, how do they know which are the right opportunities for them or which ones to apply for? What does a general strategy look like for them? How do the artists who are getting the best results look at their overall strategy?

Dan: Yeah, it's a great question. And also, I mean, it goes off where we were talking about before: these problems haven't changed; they're still the same problems. Like, you know, artists— I think it's the same cliches, which is funny again, it makes me chuckle. Pre-pandemic, even 20 years ago, artists were saying, "I can't make a living from performing my art." And like, yeah, you can't. That's unfortunately the reality of it. You cannot make a living performing your art. That hasn't changed since the '70s. Sorry, I don't know if I can curse on here, but it hasn't changed because it's still the same answer to the same question, which is: You have to build your brand up as a small business, right?

To be creating the local economies that you can then bring to other locations and benefit from those economies. It's not a scenario where, "Oh, I want to go sing a bunch of songs about my ex, and why aren't people paying me for that?" Right? Like, there's great art out there. And unfortunately, even as a promoter, I saw incredible artists play in front of empty rooms, right? But that's the way it's going to be unless you look at yourself as a small business and an entertainment provider. It's completely separate, right? If you're playing covers and you're playing jazz or classical in an Italian restaurant, that's completely separate and outside of scope. And look, I wish it wasn't that way, I really do. I'm not the gatekeeper or one who made the world the way it is, but I think sometimes artists need to understand that this is the way the world is. And if everybody got paid for playing their original music, then everyone would just do that, right?

So it's Darwinistic out there. It's competitive. But there are ways around that, as much as there was back 30 years ago, as much as there is today. But, if anything, it's easier even more today. The opportunities exist even in the micro. In the realm of Sonicbids, like you're saying before, we have a very solid foothold of what I would call at least the tentpole venues in every major market in the U.S. We've pulled back; we were a worldwide entity. But in my strategy over the last few years, we pulled back massively outside of the U.S. and Canada. But you have these tentpole venues in every major city and every major market.

And obviously, if you're living in the suburbs of a major city, that is your home market— that major city, right? But you also have to own your own backyard, which is important. It's also something that we've been expanding on within our reach: a vetted opportunity. We have over 1,500 different opportunities that cycle through our site on a yearly basis. But I think what you can take from that is, yeah, you know, obviously great market myself, use our site, right? But if you don't find it there, you're going to have to find it somewhere on your own. And the opportunities are out there, even if you make them yourself. You know, go to the local bar. If you're really in the backwoods somewhere, maybe you're like three hours out of a major city, go to the local bar, buy a PA, and bring your fan base, right? If you don't have a fan base, then work on your fan base.

I think that's another part of it. Like, don't go play out until you're ready to go play out. What does "ready" mean? The data that I tracked when I was a promoter for 10 years in New York City, the average New York City independent artist at the venues we booked, which ranged from 75-cap all the way to a thousand-cap, sold seven tickets. And our goal year-over-year was to improve on that seven, right? And we did that. But seven is the real number. You had 50 artists selling 50 tickets and a ton of people selling zero, right? Who don't really understand what it is to do.

Right? And look, you can also define the word "promoter" as well. And I think that is the worst word in the music industry—not because people have a negative connotation of it, but because it never really fully defined itself correctly. You know, the Bill Graham era in the '60s and '70s— we’re talking about that— yeah, you would find local acts, promote them, bring them to events, and get an audience out. But it's not the '60s anymore, right? In that way, because there's so much opportunity. The information is so readily available, and there are way more live opportunities out there. So there's a supply and demand issue on that side of things.

The word "promoter" today, you know, if you're going through a promoter— which are few and far between— you can take that as you want in every given market. I think that actually hurts the ecosystem of the local-wide music industry. I think promoters are good for certain things, but you can just go directly to the venues themselves. But now I'm rambling. I forgot where I was coming from, but the seven, right? So where are you ready?

I would hope if you are about to play your first live show, or if you've been playing live shows and you're not selling— you're not bringing out, you know, 20 people to your events, right? It's probably, you know, you should refocus on either your writing or your promotion and wait until you're ready to go out and actually, you know, have that consistent 20 tickets at your event.

I know some people don't want to hear that stuff either. I know that artists don't want to hear it. Artists are idealistic and they want to go, you know, "Where's my crowd? Where's my money? Here's my art!" But I just think it's an important thing to be realistic about how economies work, right?

The Rolling Stones won't play Madison Square Garden because the people booking Madison Square Garden really love the Rolling Stones. They're playing there because they're going to sell the effing tickets, right? That's why this whole thing exists. The ecosystem around live music is based on vendorship. It's based on food and beverage sales. Even on a smaller level, all the way up to the larger levels, tickets basically offset the talent costs, right? And that's kind of the way it is. And the only reason these venues are having this music is to sell more food and beverage. They're not doing it to sell tickets. They're not profiting off of tickets.

And I talked about things you were talking about earlier— things I can and can't speak to. I can say that the numbers behind even the largest promoting entities, the percentage of their profits that come from tickets, I think would blow people's minds. With all the things that are going on in Congress, like Ticketmaster and all these things, it's a minimal percentage of their focus because it's not really where they're turning the dollar. At the end of the day, it's a business. Even your venues are businesses, and the artists are businesses. And that's the way it is.

Michael: Super interesting. So, what I'm hearing you say is that one common myth or mistake— and it's easy to fall into because we're artists and we have music that means a lot to us— is that art is sacred, it is special. But as it relates to your brand, your business, your shows, the tickets, and the opportunities, it’s not just about the music. It's more importantly about the community, your fan base, and the people who are going to buy the tickets and come out to your shows. The only way the business makes sense is if you can actually sell tickets and bring people out.

But one interesting point you just brought up as well is that a lot of these organizations, the tickets are even just a small part of that. It’s really about the food and the beverages— that’s where the true revenue is generated.

So, for an artist who's listening to this right now, taking this in, and maybe they're relatively early on— maybe they've done the work of, let's imagine, their music is actually really good. Well, let's imagine they've co-written a bunch of songs, they have an EP they feel really proud of, and about four songs that were professionally produced. The music’s 10 out of 10, A-plus quality. And now they're looking to expand into some of these opportunities and build a live show business.

It sounds like, your recommendation is, "Hey, the way to do that is really to start by building your fan base, getting to about 20 people who are coming out to the shows— maybe even before you dive into some of these bigger opportunities." What would your recommendation be for artists who are at that place, and they're asking, "Yeah, how do I get those first 20 people to come out to the show, and then how do I start expanding from there?"

Dan: Well, I would say, one of the better things that I've experienced in my personal live music career is that the majority of the art I've been a part of has been good to great. I always like to look at music through the eyes of the general population, not from my own personal biases, although I have a very eclectic background in terms of what I listen to. But I would like to say that overall, everything's pretty solid. So, like, I get what you're getting at—what differentiates them, right?

What I always say to artists when they're starting out is, I ask them, "Why are you doing this? Are you doing it for fun? Are you doing it for money? Are you doing it for a career?" Those are three very different paths, and understanding all three of those paths, I think, is beneficial for people. Like, I’m a singer-songwriter, and I was in a band myself, right? I started out doing it with the goal of a career. I wanted to be a professional musician. But very quickly, within that time, I was like, "You know what? I think I’m just going to do this for fun." Because the other way wasn’t working out the way I thought it would, probably because I wasn’t really as good as I could have been artistically. It was pretty good, but not terrible, I would say.

So, if you’re doing it for money, let’s talk about that. The "for money" thing is like, "How am I getting paid tomorrow? How am I going to make rent? I'm low on bills. This is my skill set, and this is the only thing I can do." So, if you're going down the path for money, you're doing cover music. If you're a solid musician, learn to play all the top 40 hits.

Cities and go look where there's live music, and they'll pay you. And they'll pay you decent money to do that. If you're good, they'll pay you good money, and that's the way to do it. If you're doing it with a band, there are huge cover acts like 90s cover acts and modern cover acts for weddings. You can play at all these different events and make money, right? Then there's doing it for fun. If you want to do it for fun, you just do it for fun. You get a bunch of your friends together, and you play your music, or you play covers—whatever floats your boat, whatever makes you smile at the end of your long workweek.

Then, you take the opportunities that make sense for you, and you enjoy it. You have fun because you don't have expectations for money or career. It doesn’t start with money. It starts with the path of actually growing a small business, and that's why they say small businesses take five years to actually start turning a profit. Everything is a small business, and everything takes time to grow that career-type business. So, how are you going to start?

First, it starts with content. You mentioned this hypothetical artist who has some really good stuff and some well-recorded music, right? You gotta go out, get your music distributed. You know, go out to the many tools available. I saw some of your other podcasts where you've had some good guests who work for distribution companies. Get up on all the different DSPs, the streamers out there. Start there. Start building your brand. Start building your link tree. Start utilizing the tech that's out there. Make sure you have an EPK, or a website. Make sure your social presence is building. Make sure you're churning out content. Make sure you're not spending all of your time on the live show or all of your time off the stage, right?

There are really good tools out there, like Song Tools. Sonicbids is part of Song Tools now. They help get your music out there to different curators in the digital space. I think that is as important today as the live show. Also, again, we're talking about inventory and supply and demand here, right? Luckily, the world has become more digital. But the live thing is still such a necessary component of building your brand as a musician.

Spending your time equally between the digital space and in real life (IRL) is key. For example, maybe you're getting together for a rehearsal with your act, whatever your artist act may be, once a week. Maybe also once a week, you're putting two hours into content creation. However you manage it, the more hours you're able to put into this project, the more likely it is to succeed, and the go-to-market strategy for your personal project will be more successful.

Now, I think taking a look at your own personal network and where you are, and what that personal network will do to support you, is important as well. It’s tough for some musicians. Maybe they’re not Type A personalities, maybe they’re introverts, right? Maybe they don’t have a huge social network. It might be a little more difficult for them to get a bunch of friends and family out to support them live. So, what are you going to do? You’ve got to build that online fan base first. That’s where you have to lean in and leverage whatever you can.

And, like I said, unfortunately, it’s Darwinistic. If you’re not good enough to build an online presence, if you're not putting the hours in to build that online presence, and you don’t have that fan base, then it’s not going to work out for you. But if you’re a really solid musician and you’re creating great art and awesome content, and you put the hours in, you’ll gain that fan base online.

I think that even following social media marketing trends, like Googling social media marketing and going really deep into how brands and businesses approach different social media platforms, you should take those same lessons and apply them to your own brand as an artist.

Look, I think some of this stuff, sometimes people don’t want to hear it, right? They’re like, "I don’t want to change who I am for the almighty dollar," right? But then, cool, go do it for fun. That's your option. If you’re doing it for a career, though, there are also awesome success stories from artists who don’t do live shows at all. You don’t necessarily need to do live shows. I think eventually, you’re going to have to, but there have been artists who’ve made their way without much live performance.

I think Greta Van Fleet—one of their first live performances was on SNL because they built such a solid online presence before that. They still have a really solid fan base. But there are ways around it. Still, you're never going to get away from the hard work. You're never going to find a shortcut, essentially, because there are too many people trying to find that shortcut right now.

So, there are avenues. I don't know if that was a long-winded way or maybe too general in my answer, but there it is.

Michael: I think that totally makes sense. Yeah, it sounds like sharing that really, the number one fundamental is that you need to build the community. You need to build an audience, and people should take a look at how online businesses are building an audience right now—using social media, using digital marketing tools. Live events are one way to build, but they're not the only way. You can use online tools.

I don’t know if you knew this about me or my band before my musician days, Dan, but how we got our start—our music was not great. If someone looks up The Secret to Dropping Out by Paradise Fears, it’s probably going to hurt your ears a little bit, because we were just starting out as a garage band in high school.

But we were able to build our initial audience because we ran into the same problem: How do we get people to come out to our shows? We lived in Vermillion, South Dakota. We didn’t have access to a wide music market, but we noticed that our favorite bands, when they performed, had huge lines of fans—thousands of people waiting outside the venue on the sidewalk.

So we started walking up to people waiting in lines for shows, introducing ourselves, and sharing some clips of our songs. And that worked so well that we split up into groups of two. There were six of us in the band. We followed different tours around the country for about six and a half months.

That was kind of what led us to be able to book opening tours for bigger artists and build an audience. We call that "tour hacking" now, but it's just one example of building a community, building a relationship. Like you’re saying, that seems like the most important asset or the most important thing in music: a medium through which you can build community. But alone, there are a lot of people making really good music, so it’s hard to just rely on that without having those relationships or connections.

Dan: There's something that I got out of that story which I did not know. I think that's so perfect because I think what we're both kind of saying is that, look, it's hard work and self-awareness, right? Like, you guys were self-aware enough to know where your downsides were, where your pitfalls were as a project together, as a group.

And you used hard work to overcome those things. You got to a point of success—at least the kind you were pursuing—through self-awareness and hard work. And I think, you know, all the panels and all the podcasts and all the educational things that are out there, in every different kind of work and industry, it really comes down to: Are you going to stay up late? When you're tired, are you going to send that extra email? Are you going to push through?

Right. And I think a really important part of these things, though, is also understanding how the structure of these industries works. I think that's not readily available information. I teach a class at NYU, Concert Management, and I learn a lot from the kids I teach there—what they do and don’t know about the industry. Right?

And like, every kid I talk to when they start out in the music industry program is like, "I want to be an A&R." Everyone wants to be an A&R. And nowadays, more and more people want to be producers and DJs. But A&R continues to be the cliché, and there's just not a lot of A&R reps out there. There are metrics behind that—you could actually be a working actor or actress more likely than you could be an A&R rep, just based on the number of people who attempt to do that thing.

I think the reason for that is understanding the industry—understanding all the different facets, all the different kinds of things there are to know, from agencies to management to record labels to promoters. Like I was saying before, right? The benefits of finding a local promoter, if you have one, compared to going directly to a venue—it’s like a small lesson on the structure that I think is important.

And look, street teaming that you did—it’s mind-blowing. That’s like an OG, completely tried-and-true form of, you know, if you're going to hustle, if you're going to put the hours into something, something’s going to come out of it. You’re going to make something positive come out of the hours you put in. And that’s great.

I love that. There it is.

Michael: Absolutely. I don't know if you knew this when you just said "street team," but the street team is also the name of a digital software platform—the software-as-a-service that we've been building for artists. Right now, it's in private beta for our clients, but it's sort of like if Patreon, Discord, and Instagram had a baby, then it would be this street team community platform.

But it's built around that concept of, you know, what was a street team back in the day—a group of fans who loved an artist so much, they hit the streets to promote, spread the word about the band, and usually volunteered for free. But it wasn't really for free; they were kind of doing it in exchange for status, reputation, or access to the artist. They might get a backstage pass or something like that.

Dan: There's a group of people I know who work in the Relics Day Glow ecosystem, and they all worked for Guster. They used to be Guster reps and would do street teaming and all the stuff at their colleges in return for, you know, merch or tickets. That's one of the reasons that Guster still has such longevity, a solid fan base, and such a strong presence. It's a niche band in a lot of ways, but they just had such a great career because of how creative they've always been with their marketing, supporting their fan base, and connecting with them. I'd love to learn more about your street team, man.

Michael: Cool. Yeah, let's definitely connect on it.

One of the questions I had for you, and this is going to zoom out a little bit and kind of look at where things are going. Obviously, when you start looking at the future, it doesn't exist yet, so we're going to be theorizing around things. But right now is such an interesting time to be an artist or just to be alive, honestly, with AI and generative artwork.

Also, as it relates to live music, I know a week or two ago, at the time of recording this, Meta announced their Orion glasses, which are AR glasses that represent a big breakthrough because they're not a bulky headset. There's actually something that blends the lines between normal life and augmented reality.

I'm curious to hear your perspective as someone who works a lot with live music. Clearly, there's something about the sweat, you know, coming off of other people when you're at a live show and the connection, and like being together with people. But also, there's something to be said about the rise of digital and the trend towards more and more things in a digital environment.

So, I'm curious to hear your perspective on where things are headed.

Dan: I love that. I love that. Okay, so I'll start with my worst-case scenario. My nightmare is I say that I look— I said this to someone this week— my nightmare is that my kids one day go, "Dad, this is my favorite artist," and it's an AI program DJ. That's my nightmare. Now, I don't think that's going to happen. I really, really don't.

I think one of the best things you can look at... Big tech, private equity, and VC can throw as much money as they want at something. You can come up with an idea and force it down people's throats as much as you want. But at the end of the day, the longevity of things comes down to logic. I think, and this is again my own personal opinion, you look at the pandemic, and the dozens, if not hundreds, of startups that came about with streaming concerts during the pandemic... I don't even know how many are left. They all went off of, "Oh, One Direction did this concert and got millions of views." Of course, they did. Of course, they did. But that doesn't mean that everyone’s going to do that. There were all these startups that came on and... we’re almost hoping the pandemic lasted longer.

My opinion on this streaming thing is, it's a microcosm of the future of consuming music, whether it be VR, AR, or streaming. Those techs could replace Spotify, could replace CDs, right? Like cassettes, CDs, streaming, or, you know, MP3 players. Uh, what was it? God, I remember Napster, and then, you know, Spotify. And then maybe the next thing is AR/VR, right? But I do not think that until we replace who we are biologically, the live experience will ever be replaced.

They just tried it, and it didn’t work. I actually talk about this with groups of people, and I'm like, "Get a show of hands. How many people saw a streaming concert?" Right? And day after day, that answer becomes lower and lower. Then I’ll say, "Keep your hands up if you saw two." Most of them go down. I watched one of my favorite artists do a live show, and it just depressed me during the pandemic that I wasn’t able to go out. I think of the technological breakthroughs and directions in that way. They were almost hoping for another pandemic. And I’m like, listen, if we have another pandemic, we’re not going to be worried about how we’re consuming media at that point. We’re going to be worried about how we’re getting food and clean water. Music is going to take a back seat to everything else.

I think the overarching direction of music tech and the music industry is going to continue to go toward a more logical standpoint. Right now, it’s very much the Wild West post-pandemic. You know, like I said, there were people who lost millions and millions of VC dollars between 2019 and 2021 in some of these ventures. But other than the AR/VR thing, unless I'm completely wrong, and Gen Alpha doesn't want to go out anymore, right? And we’re all living in a Ready Player One future... If that’s the case, it’s going to suck anyway.

But I do think there are plenty of different ways we are moving forward as an industry. We are moving forward as a media consumption outlet. On the industry side, there’s AI, and I think AI does have some really good applications within this space. Such as like suggestions. I know we’re working on a tool right now that’s going to be able to suggest to our artists where they should be playing, so they don’t try to play Coachella based on a lot of different data metrics we’re collecting. There are also AI mastering tools. Maybe you don’t want to drop a ton of cash mastering your album, right? Maybe you’re not ready yet. There’s AI for that. I think that’s cool. Mixing and mastering AI—that’s fine.

There is something to be said for the nuance of working with a real producer, right? But they’re expensive, and maybe you don’t have the money for that early on. I think it’s important to look at AI as a tool and not as a replacement. As we move forward with that technological output, I think overall in the ecosystem, there’s a focus on curation in the space. Like I said, making sure your digital footprint matches your IRL footprint. And I think that you're taking some of your energy away from the IRL and the live side, but you're just matching that digitally. And I think that's where we’re going to continue to naturally progress as an industry as a whole.

I do not think—or actually, I know—that the technology is not where it can be for the music industry compared to other industries. There are plenty of advancements that we can use and utilize from other industries. Whether it be FinTech, or even like industrial tech or energy technology, we can utilize those technologies because they’re a larger industry. That’s why they have tech that’s further ahead, but we can use those lessons. We can use those tools to integrate into our ecosystem as the music industry. And I wouldn’t say necessarily change or disrupt, but improve the flow of everything. Because the more you can do, the more time you can put into things, the more successful you're going to be across the board.

I think, at the end of the day, the same struggles are going to continue to be there. They always will be for artists, no matter the medium. But there are some really cool technological advances that I think are taking place, and will take place over the next couple of years, that will assist those artists that really should be out there, right? That are struggling in some way to start being seen more. And I think that’s an important thing as well.

Michael: Love this stuff. And it sounds like one of the main takeaways that you recommend for artists looking at the future is to see AI as a tool that can extend creativity, but not as a replacement. Through the combination of humans using AI, it can help reduce time and speed up processes. But ultimately, that creative spark, when connected with a human, is what creates better quality content than either a human alone or AI alone. And I think we're both knocking on wood that we don't have that day where your kids are listening to an AI DJ as their main artist.

Dan: I mean, it's just like a dystopian future, right? If that's where... Yeah. Yeah. Right? Which, you know, you said we're living in interesting times. I agree. Sometimes "terrifying" could be the word for it as well, depending on what you're looking at. But I feel like the future of this industry will coincide with the brightness of our general future, and the future is bright. I think.

Michael: I think so too. Yeah, I think there's a bias towards... But yeah, I mean, it's also interesting you mentioned, as it relates to digital concerts versus live concerts, how we've experienced what happened with the pandemic when everything went virtual. It just wasn't the same. It didn't have the same level of depth. There's a point you made specifically, or the wording was around, you know, at least until humans can augment their biological networks or something like that.

It reminded me, we interviewed Nolan Arbaugh on our podcast about a month and a half ago, and the episode is about to come out. He's the first human to have a Neuralink installed. He created the first song ever telepathically. So he used his Neuralink and Udeo.com, an AI platform, to make music with his thoughts. It was absolutely remarkable. So, he has the funny little seed to plant there. It's like, yeah, maybe someday in the future, if we're able to literally have some sort of Matrix-type situation, maybe at that...

Dan: Yeah, maybe. I don't know about you, but I don't even like getting a flu shot, so I'm not getting something put in my brain.

Michael: I mean, to be fair though, it's Elon Musk who created Neuralink. So, you probably trust him, right? I know, depending on who you ask, Elon is such a controversial figure.

Dan: Yeah, he really is. I think. I mean, yeah.

Michael: The idea of, like, hey, someone can have access to your thoughts, and it could potentially go two ways—talking about a potential dystopia. But also, I mean, the flip side of that is, we could potentially communicate telepathically with each other, and literally, like, in the same way we have language. But language is sort of flawed, and it's easy to misinterpret. It is slow. It's really slow compared to how fast we think. So, there are remarkable benefits, especially in the case of people who are quadriplegic or have lost their sight, to regain those abilities.

Dan: That's just awesome. I love that. Obviously.

Michael: Yeah, and I think that's kind of the main angle they're taking right now. But also, in the future, it opens up some interesting territory. So, we'll explore that together as well.

Dan: Yeah.

Michael: Approach that…

Dan: Like I said, my kids, right? My kids don't even like going to the dentist, so I don't think they're getting a Neuralink anytime soon.

Michael: I think most people, when asked, "Hey, do you want to get brain surgery?" would say, "Eh, that's going to be a tough cookie to crack." I mean, look, maybe if they get to a point, like sci-fi wise, where we just put something here, like, beep, right? And then it just works and it's activated, by all means, maybe people will go in that direction. But yeah.

Ray Kurzweil is one of my favorite authors, and he's talking about nanotechnology. He thinks that will be the way we have neural interfaces, but it's an interesting world. It's an interesting world.

Well, Dan, thank you so much again for taking the time to hop on here and share some perspective on artists starting out, with down-to-earth, grounded, realistic advice on how they can build a music business. Hopefully, people watching this feel inspired. And for anyone listening who wants to explore Sonicbids more or dive deeper, what would be the best place for them to go to connect?

Dan: Yeah, so you can go to sonicbids.com. You can always reach out to me on LinkedIn. I'm happy to chat, especially with up-and-coming musicians, in any way I can help. I always like to meet musicians. If you're in the New York area, especially, reach out.

And we're about to—like I said—we've partnered with Songtools officially. We're about to announce some other really cool partnerships. Our tech is going to have a complete, amazing facelift over the next couple of months. Our new MVP is going to launch in the next four to six weeks. We're really excited to show the world what we've been working on for the last 10 years, and I know it's going to help everybody. So that's going to be kind of cool to say.

Michael: Super cool. All right, well, I'll put the links in the show notes for easy access. Dan, thanks again for taking the time to be here today.

Dan: Hey, thanks for having me, Michael. Great chatting, man. I really enjoyed it.

Michael: YEAAAH!