Episode 110: Who Owns Your Music?

Episode Transcript

Note: a machine made this, so it’s not perfect, but if you’re hearing impaired and have any questions about what we said, please feel free to ask us in the comments or send us an email with the form below. 

11-24-2020

Andrew: [00:00:00] welcome to the, get off set podcast. My name is Andrew.

Emily: [00:00:17] My name is Emily

Andrew: [00:00:19] and a

Emily: [00:00:20] woo. I got a big old muddy coffee, beer mug.

Andrew: [00:00:25] I have probably something I shouldn’t be drinking, but I am anyways. And I’m scared to, you know, I should probably actually look and see how much caffeine is in this 

Emily: [00:00:35] I know this has lots of caffeine and this I’m wearing my drink and my Rainier beer mug of coffee.

Got my upper left USA shirt. My Hattie’s hat, hat. Hattie’s hat. That’s where we met for the first time.

Andrew: [00:00:49] That is, Oh, this is only 160 milligrams for candidates, like three cups of coffee. That’s not bad.

Emily: [00:00:58] Yeah.

Andrew: [00:00:59] That is like, it’s like the closest thing I’m ever going to get to cocaine. Uh, so I had to do my,

Emily: [00:01:06] just play more live shows and who knows what’s going to happen?

Andrew: [00:01:09] Oh, my power. Just flicking.

Emily: [00:01:12] Okay. That, wasn’t my,

Andrew: [00:01:14] that, wasn’t your imagination.

Emily: [00:01:17] It’s not even windy.

Andrew: [00:01:20] No, but we had the other night, uh, we were watching TV. And so it’s just like sitting on my couch and, uh, uh, notice that the window there was just like a cop car, just chilling in front of my house with some flares in front of it.

And I’m like, um, okay, uh, what happened? Why are there like, and I look close in the cross, the street, there’s also, uh, another cruiser with a couple of flares in front of it and it was burning. Uh, no, no, like farther down the street across the intersection that I live near and I’m like, okay, what’s going on?

And I just threw on my Birkenstocks and walked outside in the freezing cold and I in my pajamas. And, uh, yeah, I would just walk out there. I’m like looking like, I don’t understand why they’re here. I don’t get it. And so I was like, Hey officer, could you, uh, I’m just curious. What’s I live right here. Could you, do you guys know what’s going on?

Like, why are you guys here? I’m like, ah, the power’s out. And I looked literally across the street. Um, the other side of the street, the entire block, just black. I’m like, Oh, the, the, the, uh, street light, the intersection was all out. I’m like, okay, well, I’m going to go back to enjoying the fact that I have power and I’m going to keep watching my TV.

Emily: [00:02:41] Yeah.

Andrew: [00:02:44] Yep. It was a Mandalorian night.

Emily: [00:02:49] Oh, you would have been so sad.

Andrew: [00:02:52] I would have been devastated. Like, just like in the middle of the episode was like, boom,

Emily: [00:03:00] you could pull it up in your phone though.

Andrew: [00:03:02] Right? I mean it could, but that’s not the same cinematic experience. I wouldn’t have been able to notice the, uh, the stage hands that got slipped into the, in the, the frame. So

Emily: [00:03:14] some stagehands ended up in frame, uh,

Andrew: [00:03:17] one day did. Yeah, like, uh, one of the scenes that they’re like in a hallway, like corridor T intersection like this.

And so the characters are all standing right about here in cameras are here. And just on the other side of the T intersection, Uh, you could see, uh, like a polo shirt tucked in into some jeans and like a big watch of the do’s hand. Just like standing there.

Emily: [00:03:37] Was he wearing production black at least?

Andrew: [00:03:39] No.

Emily: [00:03:40] Ooh,

Andrew: [00:03:42] probably wasn’t it.

He probably wasn’t a hand. He was probably like a cam or something. Um, but yeah, the internet has blown up on that and I’m enjoying, I’m really enjoying that. Um, Anyways, I would have a, would have lost my mind if the power had gone out and now I’m suddenly freaked out. That’s going to happen on the side of the block this morning for no discernible reason, but that’s a cue

Emily: [00:04:08] for balance.

Yeah. And then we would, then I would just have to do the podcast on. Marianne. I’m good. I’m good. I, you know, have gotten back on that demo train. So I released the normal number of demos last week and releasing the normal number of demos this week, including this will come out tomorrow. Uh, this is the impres affects compressor Mark two in blue.

That’s

Andrew: [00:04:39] a nice orange Stripe. I feel compelled to point out.

Emily: [00:04:42] Oh, yeah. Yeah. It’s got a nice orange Stripe. It has three different compression ratios aside chain high pass filter. That’s uh, helps basis not get over compressed. Yep. Um, I’ve had a lot of fun with this. It’s definitely like a compressor is a make good or kind of pedal isn’t it?

Like? It just makes things not a little sweeter, a little more present. I think even.

Andrew: [00:05:10] It can, it definitely has that potential. This is the potential to just suck all the life out of your tone. Um,

Emily: [00:05:17] I mean, yes, if you really over compress it,

but

Andrew: [00:05:21] we’ll share, which can be fun sometimes I’m not going to lie.

Like it’s fun to like over compress and just get that kind of Spanky thing going on. Um, I’ve been using the chicken pigging, uh, which I’m terrible at. Um,

Emily: [00:05:35] well, you should get a book. That’s what I did.

Andrew: [00:05:37] Uh, yeah, I’ve got, uh, I’ve got a, uh, a chicken picking tutorial called finger stuff. It’s a neat little book.

Emily: [00:05:49] You’re saying that because I said finger stuff. I said, let’s start with some finger stuff. No,

Andrew: [00:05:55] you did. And I don’t think you’re ever going to live that down.

Emily: [00:05:58] I shouldn’t, I shouldn’t, I should have heard it. I’m I didn’t hear it. And then I was editing it and I see, I hear myself say, and let’s start, let’s start with some finger stuff.

Oh, that’s going to be great to navigate. Yeah. I already have guys leaving comments about the name.

Andrew: [00:06:21] Someone said

Emily: [00:06:22] someone comment. I said, um, I got a big old box and one demo because I was unboxing a guitar and someone commented. Emily’s got a big old box. I was like, Yeah, I should’ve thought about that one, but it makes me feel better knowing that like, people like Ryan dudes, like Ryan Berg get similar comments.

Andrew: [00:06:40] I mean, that’s true, but let’s be honest. Ryan Burke literally got shirtless on camera.

Emily: [00:06:46] Yeah. A couple of weeks ago

Andrew: [00:06:48] and yeah, I commend him for it in a strange way. Like I don’t judge him for it.

Emily: [00:06:55] Well, he was putting your shirt on, so

Andrew: [00:06:57] he was putting my shirt on. So I, I have, I have my own personal interests in mind and I being kind.

Uh, but yeah, no, he, he got shirtless and said, please don’t make a meme out of this, which really means just please make a meme out of this. And I’ve been okay. I don’t have the time to actually edit this myself because I’m terrible at editing. But part of me is like, I don’t know. Maybe I’ve just, I could grab that clip and just put it up on Fiverr and say, can someone make this a GIF and pixelate out his, his entire torso when he takes his shirt off?

Because that would make for, I think that make a great gift. He’s just like wearing whatever shirt he’s like woo pixelate. And then bring it back on and have this shirt.

Emily: [00:07:44] Wow. I can’t believe Ryan has such an obscene tattoo on his chest. Full chest.

Andrew: [00:07:51] Yeah. Wings are supposed to go on the back. Anyone tell him that,

Emily: [00:07:56] especially phallic wings like that.

Andrew: [00:08:00] Nope. Not going to ask that question

Emily: [00:08:02] instead of feathers. It’s a little penises. That’s what I was going with it. Okay.

Andrew: [00:08:06] Yeah. I mean, I could see that

Emily: [00:08:10] I might edit that out.

Andrew: [00:08:12] No, no, that’s, that’s the new work. Uh, that’s going to be the new merge ideas. I’m gonna design that, make that the back graphic and just on the front, like it’s gotta be a pocket.

They’ll just say finger stuff.

Emily: [00:08:24] No,

Andrew: [00:08:26] that’s, that’s a whole lie. That’s the whole shirt idea

Emily: [00:08:30] and just really proud of himself. I’m

Andrew: [00:08:32] $69 plus shipping and tax.

Emily: [00:08:35] You know what? Buy and sell it. I need money.

Andrew: [00:08:39] I don’t need money that bad.

Emily: [00:08:43] Wow. Throw me under the bus. Uh, there’s plenty

of,

Andrew: [00:08:50] plenty of people I’d like to throw under the bus today.

Emily: [00:08:52] You want to talk about some new stuff though?

Andrew: [00:08:55] Yeah. Let’s talk about new stuff. You have all of my new stuff.

Emily: [00:08:58] I have all of Andrew’s new stuff. They’re they’re back in the boxes, but I have my copies.

Andrew: [00:09:04] She’s got the box. There you go.

Emily: [00:09:10] Yeah. Uh, the time shadow and the chase bliss, bliss, family tree. And I filmed the fun little thing that was Andrew’s idea yesterday, which was that I, um, Took my math use effects Alchemist, which is a signal splitter among other things.

And I’ve split my guitar signal into left. And right. So one side was Andrew’s chase Andrew’s bliss factory, and Andrew’s time shadow. The other side was my plus factor in my time shadow. And then I put them into my strive and already have, and random and stereo. It was pretty fun.

Andrew: [00:09:56] I would enjoy the heck out of that.

Emily: [00:09:59] It was really great. But the one thing that did make obvious to me is, um, I really wished the Earthquaker side had, um, had a blend. Like I would love to be able to mix clean signal N because when I was running it and stereo like that, at one point I had, um, this, and then the other side was just. Dry the dry signal.

I was like, that’s really, really nice. And I liked that a lot more. So it did, it did leave me wanting with this pedal, which was a drag.

Andrew: [00:10:30] Yeah. Well, I don’t know. I like, I like it without the dry, um, on guitar doing some lead stuff. Um, like some, some chicken picking, not really chicken picking, but just some like kind of slow meandering, uh, ambient lead kind of work.

I was really enjoying the, uh, death by audio side algorithm on, on that. And I could just, I, it doesn’t necessarily have that full, like, I’m just like that bedroom tone kind of thing, where I’m just enjoying it and you can feel the full attack and response and all of that. It doesn’t necessarily have that, but contextually in a song I could totally see, like during like a break, like, um, like a break in between verses whatever, just like super foreboding.

Um, Moody kind of sound just floating around in the background. I could see that sitting really nicely in a mix. Oh,

Emily: [00:11:19] totally. I can imagine how I would use that in my band setting.

Andrew: [00:11:22] Yeah. It’s, it’s really solid. Um, I think the other thing that I want to try is, uh, uh, when I get that back for you, one of the first things I want to try is base on the Earthquaker side.

I could see that being, if I could get the, uh, if I could get the envelope filter dialed in just right. For base that could just be some like really sick auto swell, um,

kind of stuff.

Emily: [00:11:52] Sorry. Was that distracting?

Andrew: [00:11:54] Well, no, it will a little bit distracted. So it’s distracting because Melissa just started the coffee maker over here. I’m just off camera. And then I heard you pouring him. Like I’m hearing so much pouring going on right now. It’s it’s ridiculous. Um, Anyways

Emily: [00:12:11] pouring it’s rainy earring.

It’s pouring.

Andrew: [00:12:16] Isn’t that? What the Morton salt girl says,

Emily: [00:12:19] it’s rain airing. It’s pouring.

Andrew: [00:12:25] I need to get a new one of these.

Emily: [00:12:27] If you get that one off Amazon 15 bucks,

Andrew: [00:12:29] it was like 15 bucks, like several years ago. Hmm.

Emily: [00:12:33] There’s probably something you can tie it in. I see the little. I see a little part right there, Andrews. Um, this is riveting Andrew’s, um, microphone. Boom is loosey goosey. Fix that. I fixed it from afar.

Andrew: [00:12:51] You did. And there we go. That feels a lot better. Cause I feel like I’m trying to talk out, even though I know like the polar pattern was doing just fine, this just feels like. I’m staring at it.

Emily: [00:13:10] so, um, what’s new with you other than the things that I have,

Andrew: [00:13:13] uh, the things that you have are what’s new with me. They arrived on Monday and I was super excited about, I. In the middle of the conference call, ran up to the front door, grabbed it and brought it back in and unwrapped it on my desk was super excited.

And I got to experience like the, like the pedals are still like ice cold coming off the truck. He was very excited and I sat them right here. And then I had to get back to work. I figured, Oh, we’ll get to it later. You know? Yeah, I didn’t plug them until Thursday. I just had that kind of week.

Emily: [00:13:44] Yeah, no, I know that kind of week.

Like I have, I have things I got weeks ago that I still haven’t played cause I got them and then life took off. So, um, I’m really looking forward to not going anywhere else for Thanksgiving and black Friday. Cause I’m just gonna catch up on the things that I actually would like to do, which you know, I was talking about that video.

I’m going to release it on Friday where I run it. And, um, in hard panning stereo. And, um, what was I gonna say about that? Oh, yeah. Was the most fun I’ve had filming a video in a very long time. I think it really was kind of what I needed to, um, get past some sort of like burnout, fatigue and feeling like, ah, like, and also just like doing a couple of them.

And kind of low pressure, keep them a little bit shorter. Keep the editing time down. Um, made me feel a little like, like, Oh yeah, that’s probably, this is, this is fun. And this is not like a huge pain in the ass to do. Like I was, I think every time I like reset up or refigure my office, I get like those feelings of like, Oh, now I gotta like.

Refigure out my demo set up and ask them to be work. And then you just do the work and you’re like that wasn’t bad. Why was I being such a baby? Sure. Yeah.

Andrew: [00:15:14] So what are your thoughts on the bliss factor? Cause we just talked about the  personally, I’m in love with the earth, the time shadows, the Earthquaker death by audio, uh, collaboration.

I’m never getting rid of that.

Emily: [00:15:28] And I have like one of our patrons.

Andrew: [00:15:32] Pardon me? What’s the second one. Cause now I want one for bass. Am I electric board? I think it’s going to kick off my organizer for now my electric board.

Emily: [00:15:39] Well, uh, I’ll tell you who bought it and then you can. You can debate with them.

Andrew: [00:15:45] Oh, that reminds me before.

Oh, sorry. Sorry. I asked you a question. I know I’m going to delay here for a second, even though you’ve got an answer, uh, as far as the, the blend, uh, because my electric boards wired up for, uh, dry, wet. Yeah, yeah. What dry or a wet, dry, wet, um, the place in the chain that it would be stepping into. If I replaced the organizer on it is after the split.

And so I could still do a wet, dry. Very easily.

Emily: [00:16:12] Yeah.

Andrew: [00:16:15] So definitely thinking that could be fun to give, give a whirl.

Emily: [00:16:20] Yeah, totally. No, I agree. I think that would be a good way to use it. Um, I love it. I really liked the bliss factory. I didn’t play with it a lot and I don’t really know where in the music I make.

I would use it, but I do know I had a ton of fun playing it. So, um, yeah, I don’t know. It was very inspiring. I thought

Andrew: [00:16:48] I am feeling the full weight of having to eat my shirt, not this one. I, I, the other shirt that I already ate, um,

Emily: [00:16:57] because when you were like, Oh, it was just the fuzz factory, I’m

Andrew: [00:17:00] going to

Emily: [00:17:00] say.

Andrew: [00:17:01] And I, I feel so dumb for saying that, like, I really genuinely like. I plugged in. And part of me was like, maybe it’s not going to be fun. And that’s going to make me feel a little bit more redeemed for being kind of a punk, uh, in, you know, me being edgy. Cause that’s about as edgy as I get. And in saying that I didn’t think that that would be worthwhile and I it’s so good.

Emily: [00:17:29] I

Andrew: [00:17:29] plugged in, uh, it was on Thursday. Uh, the Hawks game was on a halftime and like, Maybe go plug in real quick. And I figured I’d just play with it for five minutes, five, 10 minutes, and then come back, um, to watch the third quarter with a fan. Isn’t that what we always

Emily: [00:17:45] say? It’s why I don’t want to it.

Andrew: [00:17:46] Okay.

I made it back like partway into the fourth quarter.

Emily: [00:17:49] Like,

Andrew: [00:17:50] Hey guys, I’m back. And they’re like, well, thank you for turning off the app. We’ve been trying to listen to those game.

Um, So they were, they were patient with me and I appreciated it. And, uh, I, I had you ever plugged in a guitar pedal and you start playing it, like you just started chuckling it, like how cool it is out of the blue.

Emily: [00:18:14] Have you watched my demos?

Andrew: [00:18:17] Yes, I guess, I guess that was, I knew, I know the answer to the question I’m asking.

Emily: [00:18:23] I guess it’s asking the listeners, aren’t you?

Andrew: [00:18:27] Yes, we’ll go with that. Anyways, I, I had several of those moments just plugged in. I grabbed the Jazzmaster and plugged into the app is just jazz master a couple of pedals into the amp and just

was having several of those spontaneous unplanned chuckle moments. It was pretty great. Yeah. That’s my other that’s my other merchant idea is just a shirt that says spontaneous, unplanned chuckle moments. Um

Emily: [00:18:58] yep.

Sure.

Andrew: [00:19:05] It’s a little redundant, but I think that’s, that’s part of the beauty of the, the shirt. That’s my way of saying I I’m very open to merchant ideas right now. Uh, so if you have any ideas for new get-ups at merchandise, hit me up and, uh, would love to hear what your thoughts are. And I’m very, I’m like itching to get another shirt out.

Emily: [00:19:30] Maybe there’s something else we could do with the fo for, for FAS, for fuzz sake.

Andrew: [00:19:34] Probably I thought about giving that, that design to facelift

Emily: [00:19:39] probably needs it. I thought it was fun.

Andrew: [00:19:43] Oh, I agree. I love the shirt and I wear it all the time. Um, and it’s definitely, it’s definitely showing its its age. Uh, but yeah, no, I’m just thinking of their ideas and, uh, would want to continue having some fun on the merch side of things.

Nice. Maybe something borderline outrageous.

Emily: [00:20:05] Yeah. Just get Ryan Burke to wear it a billion of them,

Andrew: [00:20:09] right. Uh, Oh yeah. Speaking of selling a billion of them, um, No, I have not sold a billion of these shirts. However, I’ve sold significantly more than I expected. And I am, I have so many emotions about that.

I’m like, so torn between, like, this is so exciting. I’m like mad because I’m like, I

Emily: [00:20:31] don’t know. Well, listen, there’s that’s Andrew’s shirt. He has a volume pedal on it and it says this swell with my soul.

Andrew: [00:20:39] I like the shirt quite a bit. I’m a little biased. Uh, But it, it turns out a lot of other people like the shirt as well.

And I got to say, there’s something really, really humbling about seeing those orders come in and just see photos of people wearing my shirt, design, just floating around the internet. I’m like, that’s just, that’s super neat to see and really humbling. So I want to say a heartfelt, thank you for everyone.

Who’s ordered one. I really appreciate you. And you have made this. For the last couple of months, uh, particularly special for me. And I really appreciate that.

Emily: [00:21:12] Nice. That reminds me that, um, if you’re not already a member of our and get offset, um, Patrion it’s patrion.com/good offset. Um, I’m trying a new thing where every once in a while, everyone in our well, firstly, everyone in our $10 tiers are up that you automatically get merged.

I send you a merge. Um, but every one of the $5 up level, every once in a while, I will send you, I will send you something fun. If your address is in, in the Patrion,

Andrew: [00:21:49] um, where you live.

Emily: [00:21:52] I sent one of our patrons who, who just had a baby at one Z, and I hope you got

Andrew: [00:21:57] it.

Emily: [00:21:59] Again, I’ll set one day. I don’t know why I thought anybody would ever want to buy those.

We’ve sold zero of them.

Andrew: [00:22:04] Yep. But we’ve given away several and they’re very cute

stretching.

Emily: [00:22:12] Oh

Andrew: [00:22:12] my goodness.

Emily: [00:22:13] Because I feel like I need to stretch to talk about the next topic.

Andrew: [00:22:17] Well,

Emily: [00:22:19] let’s thank our sponsors. Or sponsored distro kid, distro kid makes it possible and easy to upload as much music of your own, as you want to the internet. That includes iTunes, Spotify, title, Apple music. Um, these are iHeart stuff.

And places, um, with tons of cool features to help you promote your music as well, including, um, there we’ll have playlists, um, there meme, generator, um, tons of really, really, really cool things. It’s only 19 at 99 year. Uh, and I think that plan comes with two artists names under which you can release. And if you use the link in the description, Of the video or the show notes for the podcast, you’ll save 7% on your first year and you’ll help support the podcast slash YouTube channel.

So please check that out. I moved to district kid from tune core earlier this year, it was easy. It was fast. I’m saving a ton of money and, uh, I’m actually a lot happier with everything from like their reporting to their feature set. To their customer support. Honestly,

that was the end. And also, I just want to shout, they’re not official sponsor, but I do want to shout out Ernie ball for sending us some strings and things. Andrew’s got some too.

Andrew: [00:23:54] I do have, I’ve got a,

uh, this is part of our next series, which is, um, string casing, ASMR.

Emily: [00:24:12] Awesome. Good topic. Um, so yes. Thank you to district kid.

Andrew: [00:24:16] Yeah. And one more word on sponsors that I’d like to quick throw in there is it’s been brought to my attention that I, so sometimes I do something silly. I want to have some fun and I say a sponsor instead of sponsor, it’s been brought to my attention that people thought I’ve been talking about dinosaurs this whole time.

And so I do want to clarify this district kid is not a dinosaur. Uh, they are in fact, a premium. Business that you should be involved in.

Emily: [00:24:41] Nobody thought that Andrew,

Andrew: [00:24:44] I just, I want to get that clarification out there, uh, because I could see how damaging that could be. And I deep heartfelt apology for any confusion that that has caused, if any,

Emily: [00:25:00] are we talking? Are we talking about, um, Taytay is that what we’re going to talk about? ZSI that one first.

Andrew: [00:25:07] I think that would be we’ll. We’ll let’s follow up with that. I do want to make a quick note here. All right. Um, and I think most people know this, but I also think there’s a number of people that don’t know this.

And so just for a PSA, uh, for the sake of just sharing this out there, good gravy, um, Goodness that came out of nowhere. Uh, so guitar center filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy and I’ve been seeing all kinds of stuff about like, Oh, when’s the liquidation sale. The fact that you haven’t seen a liquidation sale is not.

Not nothing. It’s actually something. And I have to be the one to tell you it’s not happening. And here’s why is it chapter 11? Bankruptcy does not mean that they’re going out of business.

Emily: [00:25:57] It didn’t mean that for Gibson either.

Andrew: [00:26:00] And that forgives and Gibson is still doing all kinds of shenanigans. Uh, post chapter 11, um, which I guess that would make this chapter 12, which is, I think chapter 12 is where you’re obligated to Sue everyone and then just ignore the copyrights that other people hold, um, when you release new stuff, but

Emily: [00:26:19] trademarks, but not copyrights, but one

Andrew: [00:26:22] sure.

1. I just liked saying, I, I feel it’s just more fun for my inner F uh, fourth grader, AP and. Uh, it’s also just easier cause I’m terrible at mixing up the, uh, Ooh, I just got a message. Uh, anyways. Yeah.

Emily: [00:26:43] I’m about to just stop podcasting and just respond to that message. I saw it.

Andrew: [00:26:49] It’s like squirrel. And, uh, no, so they’re just restructuring their debt.

That’s all that means this isn’t. I don’t think this is the first time that this has happened for guitar center even, and this is relatively normal for larger businesses. Uh, apparently you can just be hundreds of millions of dollars in debt and just, we don’t want to pay it anymore. Sorry. Yes. In that so fine.

Uh, yeah, so that’s what they’re doing. It’s not a huge deal. It’s just corporate nonsense. And unfortunately that means they’re not going to be clearing out, uh, fenders for pennies on the dollar.

Emily: [00:27:30] Probably not,

Andrew: [00:27:31] not likely.

Emily: [00:27:33] Mm. Yeah, but, uh, on that note, there was some recent Taylor Swift. This is actually Andrew’s idea for the topic.

Recent news involving Taylor Swift, her music, um, had. Okay. So I don’t, I don’t know how you want to even, should I just kind of like give a refresher on what the hell is happen?

Andrew: [00:27:57] Yes. A refresher on what is going on and why this is why we’re even talking about this is important.

Emily: [00:28:04] Okay. So, um, when she was very young, Taylor Swift signed a very long record deal with a then new record label called big machine.

Um, it was followed. It was founded by a former Dreamworks executive Scott Borchetta and became a joint venture between Scott and Toby Keith. So they signed a young sweet baby angel Taylor Swift to their label. Oh, she was like 16. I assume she was young.

Andrew: [00:28:38] It was even 15.

Emily: [00:28:40] Yeah. Let me see.

Andrew: [00:28:45] I just want to make sure that, like, it was clear that she was clearly, like, when we say young, we don’t mean like 26.

We mean like teenager,

Emily: [00:28:52] Keith, but I mean, he’s a, God damn, what am I saying? Toby Keith, uh, dropped his affiliation with the label in 2006, but, um, Tim McGraw was the first single by. Taylor Swift. So, um, th th th th uh, basically she signed a very long record deal, which happens a lot with younger performers. I think, like, for example, um, Casha was locked into a six options.

Cycle. I don’t know how many options Taylor Swift had, but big machine took them on all of that. And when I say option, so you you’ve heard someone you’ve heard of like, Oh, I got a three album deal with like, so-and-so right. What you get really is. An almost guarantee that they’ll release one album and then you have two option periods typically.

So that means the label can decide they want to release if they want to take advantage of those two other options. And if they don’t, they drop you. That’s how that works. So if you have something that sounds like a six album deal, you think sweet, I get to really six albums wrong. It means they might release six albums, or they might just put you on the shelf and leave you there to a rotten die.

And in your career, uh, you don’t really know what’s going to happen and you don’t have a lot of leverage because the contract, so Taylor Swift, when she was very young, signed this deal, With big machine, which is now called the house that Taylor built because Taylor built that label, her success, um, drove that label.

And, um, uh, what happens when you sign a record deal, especially when you’re very young and desperate to make it is one of the things that the label takes is possession and ownership of your master. Recordings and people are getting this confused right now as they always do. Um, so the master recording is the released recording of a song or a collection of songs.

Um, and the song is something that Taylor, as far as I know, still maintains ownership of. So she gets all of the royalties. From, um, like people covering her song. She gets mechanical royalties. When people buy the music, she gets sync royalties. When the music with her songs are used in movies, even if it’s not that original master recording and Prince went through the same thing in the early nineties.

He wanted to regain his master recordings from Warner brothers because he realized, and this is something that a lot of artists have realized over the years that, um, there’s a lot of money in the master recordings and you should own them. It’s your work. It really is your work. Or there should be some sort of path to ownership, uh, to regain your master recordings.

So Taylor Swifts, um, was I think. Trying to buy her own master recordings for awhile. And then her longtime bully scooter Braun bought them. Scott Barr shadow worked with, with scooter. I guess he was probably mad at Taylor because Taylor was not going to be a part of his label anymore as my guests and sold them to this low some person and scooter recently.

And this is what the part is in the news. Um, wanted to sell his ownership and her masters Taylor wants to buy them, was willing to buy them, but he wanted her to sign a never talk smack about me ever again, NDA, which is heard of and very weird.

Andrew: [00:32:52] And that wasn’t, that was before they would talk numbers. She had to sign the NDA before any, just to come to the table

Emily: [00:32:59] with no guarantee that she wouldn’t be able to buy her masters.

And that was the weird part I should say. So, um, someone else bought them and Taylor was super like optimistic to be able to work with them. I think they were optimistic people to work with her as well, but scooter is maintaining some sort of, and I don’t remember exactly what it was. He’s still going to profit on her masters for the next several years.

Andrew: [00:33:24] Yep. Just part of the sales agreement. I worked that in there, which is really unfortunate. Yeah. Yeah.

Emily: [00:33:31] So what Taylor’s doing is something that Prince said he was going to do and then never ultimately did, um, rerecord all of her old music rerelease it so she can maintain control of those masters of her songs.

Andrew: [00:33:47] Which I think is admittedly, that’s a baller move, not going to lie, um,

Emily: [00:33:53] of all our move, but it’s an expensive move. It’s a move that might not work. Like when Prince re-recorded 1999, he called the new masters and it’s just like famously bad. Nobody like, like his, his, his biggest fans don’t really like this free recording of this master.

And he kind of abandoned the project because like, he was not really an artist who looked back anyway. Um, I’m interested to see how it plays out with Taylor.

Andrew: [00:34:18] Yeah. I’m also interested to see how it plays out for, uh, I mean, there’s so much nostalgia with the original recordings. There’s just no getting around that.

I think we both grew up when she was becoming popular and. I mean

Emily: [00:34:35] she’s my age.

Andrew: [00:34:35] Yeah. Yeah. And she started when she was 15 or 16 and no, I think there’s definitely a lot going on there. I’m very excited to see how it turns out. I personally and rooting for her. But this episode isn’t that this episode, isn’t a platform for me to stand for Taylor Swift.

Uh, I can’t believe I just said that, uh, uh, I think this is really important to talk about in the sense of like music, business and predatory. Contracts and just how nasty things can get up at the top. And it’s not all, not all a bit dazzled, sparkles and champagne.

Emily: [00:35:20] Well, you know, having those predatory contracts is pretty par for the course in the music industry, especially the country music industry, Leann Rimes was famously signed to.

Uh, similarly bogus kind of record deal. And, uh, yeah, those options when you’re young, like they sound cool, but like, don’t do it. Cause it’s not a guarantee for you. You don’t get any extra leverage. Um, all you will get is screwed later. Leann Rimes had to release albums and songs that she hated because she needed to fulfill a contractual obligation.

There’s there’s there’s talks about like, Justin Timberlake released a new record recently, probably because he was contractually obligated to do so. Um, this happens a lot, like Kesha was not allowed for a while to work with other producers, even though she alleges that dr. Luke sexually assaulted her and certainly was abusive to her.

And, uh, she was like, they say, I can’t record with anybody, but him, this will end my career. Right. She’s not wrong. It would’ve ended her career if they hadn’t allowed her to work with other producers. Yep. But, um, if you, I can’t say this enough by this book by all, you need to know about the music business, read this book.

If you want to, um, learn about how to not get screwed over for record contracts. Yes. It is very normal for record companies to take. Control of their massive recordings, but see if you can negotiate transfer of ownership in several years, Prince was in talks with Warner brothers to regain ownership, um, through just negotiations.

But when he died, like this is not unheard of and just. What else?

Andrew: [00:37:16] I mean, it it’s super important. I think one of the other lessons learned from this story is that this is an issue. This is not an issue that Taylor Swift had. Once she got to the top, this was from the very beginning that that first record deal is what set it up.

And so if you’re thinking, if you’re already in the music business, you’ve got a band you’re looking at trying to snag a record deal. This is a cautionary tale. That’s very relevant to you. This is something that you gotta pay attention to or. Uh, that could, and if you learn the right lessons from it and use this as a chance to negotiate, well, this could be a chance to set yourself up for success in a way that you wouldn’t be able to otherwise.

And I think that’s, that’s a big part of the metric messaging here.

Emily: [00:38:01] So the question we’re always going to say things like, Oh, well, what was Taylor? But again, like you said, like this could happen to anybody. Like, yes, she is wildly rich, but does that mean she shouldn’t also. Be able to own her

Andrew: [00:38:15] work. Sure.

There’s definitely an intrinsic value to just the idea of being able to own your own art. I think that’s really important. Um, that said, I mean, sure. She’s an entirely rich and I don’t necessarily feel like bad. Like I, I kind of do like I empathize, but that sorta falls into the category first world problems for me, because she’s got to where she’s got.

Emily: [00:38:43] But she’s using her position of influence to create these broader conversations. Things like not refusing to put her music on Spotify or Apple music until like Apple music wanted to just not pay musicians and songwriters for using their work for the, like, for like the trial period. Cause they’re like, they, they were like, we’re not getting paid for that either.

And she was like, no. And Apple. Both. They were like, okay. Yeah, sure. Whatever, whatever we, whatever we can do to get Taylor Swift on our platform. So she has her position of power and influence, which is what everybody should do. Use your position of power and influence to help people to whom it matters more like would it, would it have mattered a lot if Taylor Swift, like she was, she’s still been extremely wealthy and famous.

If she hadn’t gotten paid. For three months of streams. Yeah, absolutely. It doesn’t make it right. And that doesn’t mean that other people can similarly afford the same luxury.

Andrew: [00:39:44] Exactly. And that’s just stealing the words right out of my mouth. That’s where I was going with that.

Emily: [00:39:49] I mean, Tom petty did similar things.

Prince did similar things. Like there’ve been other musicians, but it’s been a while. I feel like it’s been a while since other musicians of her caliber have really stood up to the big machine. And, and, um, just try to make things more equitable for, you know, these, these power struggles that musicians often find themselves in with, with the label, you know?

Andrew: [00:40:22] Right. And, and that’s, that’s where to add a little bit more of where he’s going with that is. The idea of it being just like a hashtag first world problem and some criticism that she’s received for like, look, y’all already got rich, you got your paycheck. What’s your what’s your problem is like this isn’t an isolated case.

This isn’t just about her stirring up drama and whatnot. There’s so much more going on here. Um, and maybe it’s not intentional. I don’t know. Taylor be fun to be friends. Maybe. I don’t know, but. I

Emily: [00:40:56] will never be friends with Taylor Swift, even though I would love to be, I’m just going to be realistic about that

Andrew: [00:41:03] stranger things have happened. Uh, Taylor, if you’re listening, be friends with Emily. She’s cool. And, uh,

Emily: [00:41:14] she’s not listening.

Andrew: [00:41:15] No.

Emily: [00:41:15] I want to talk about guitars with Taylor Swift really badly,

Andrew: [00:41:19] but there’s um, no, and it was the, the impacts of. Having these conversations in this, this feels like almost like a modern take on like let’s crush, the big record label machine.

So the question I’ve got for you is moving forward. Like, so she, she signed this really bad record deal and she was 15. And she’s paying for it now. And we, we know that that’s not an isolated case. There several well-known musicians that are in similar boats, there’s several lesser known musicians that were all in the same boat, ended up just not getting a whole lot of money for their art when all is said and done.

But, um, when they burned out of the industry, what? Yes, reading the book is a really great start. But what do you think are the odds that the culture on this changes where predatory contracts are. Less than norm is.

Emily: [00:42:11] I think

Andrew: [00:42:12] it’s not a matter of education. This is like educating the proletariat kind of a thing or

Emily: [00:42:18] the thing it’s the same way that like, okay, so how can I put this?

This is going to sound really political, but it’s the same way that minimum wage works. If, if the minimum wage is $5 and 25 cents an hour, like it was when I was 16. Um, yeah, some businesses are going to pay more than that. But you can’t just like expect people to not take the jobs when they need the jobs.

Like it’s like you can’t expect musicians to not sign predatory record deals because w we, we don’t unionize. I mean, there are musicians, unions, and please join them. If you really want to be a musician like, uh, Joey, uh, from  we have on the podcast, he is part of the new musicians need of musicians. And collective bargaining is important because it sets boundaries.

Because you have to say if, if anybody crosses this picket line, if anybody starts to sign is okay with signing these predatory deals, then the labels know that, okay, so this person’s not signing with me. There’s 10 people lined up behind you. And so it’s a it’s about who has. The, the negotiating or bargaining power, an unsigned ban is probably not going to have that kind of bargaining power, especially with like a major label or somebody that’s distributed by a major label, like, like big machine.

They probably have more bargaining power with like, Doughnut sounds like my record label, which is, you know, I, we ha we keep our masters and we keep our publisher. Well, we like, that’s a different, that’s a very different kind of record deal. But like, if he, if, if jr has said, I’m going to own your masters in perpetuity, even though you brought this finished record to me, we could have bounced and it wouldn’t have mattered.

We would find sound’s found someone else. And, but, um, basically, unless. Bigger artists are throwing their weight around in ways that Taylor Swift is trying to do, trying to UN or unless then gets like legislated that this is theft, like, or that like, this is not okay to do. It’s not like you, like, there can be a law written that says you can’t own someone’s masters in perpetuity in the basis of a record deal.

Unless, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Unless there’s like some sort of path to regaining. Like that’s never, I don’t think that’s,

Andrew: [00:44:56] I don’t see that being the top of mind for any legislator to be like, I’m going to go into office and that’s the first thing I’m going to do.

Emily: [00:45:03] Why not? They tackled steroid use in baseball.

Andrew: [00:45:09] Yeah. I mean,

Emily: [00:45:10] I mean, Joe Biden has. Like, I’m pretty sure a plant, like, or like there have been positions on this kind of thing before.

Andrew: [00:45:20] Sure. So,

I

Andrew: [00:45:23] mean, I could see legislation being a part of it. Um, I don’t think it will be, I think unionization is helpful to a degree.

Emily: [00:45:31] Um, I don’t think that’s going to happen because I think there are enough musicians who are just generally anti-union or desperate to.

Andrew: [00:45:39] It’s like, there’s a lot of baggage that comes with that name. I don’t necessarily blame them either. Um, there is, I’m not saying I agree with that. I’m just saying that there for a lot of people that carries a lot of baggage and there’s people who are

Emily: [00:45:56] people that don’t like 40 hour work weeks because they think it’s not enough

Andrew: [00:45:59] working time.

Sure, but there’s also union examples of where unionization is not positive. There’s no getting around that

Emily: [00:46:08] either. There’s, there’s, there’s some Grifters and there’s some bad things about some unions,

Andrew: [00:46:12] rafters, uh, and then

Emily: [00:46:15] mixed feelings about teachers unions and police unions.

Andrew: [00:46:18] Yup. For good reasons. And so

Emily: [00:46:21] pro teacher union,

Andrew: [00:46:24] by point in saying that is, I understand that there is some baggage and it’s difficult to.

Get everyone on the same page of like, okay, here’s what it is. Here’s what it’s doing. Here’s what it’s not doing. That’s a very big ask in terms of education. I mean, we see we in terms of like mass education on issues like that. I mean, looking at, uh, the, the new Georgia project that Stacey Abrams has been leading that’s a couple of years now and has made a huge change there, but the amount of just in one state, the amount of.

Uh, effort put into voter education is. Immense. And that’s not a, that’s not an easy, easy task. Um, the Fox guy, Roseman donating all, uh, all profits from the black lives matter coppers to the King County NAACP. And one of the things that they focus on is voter education. I’ve dug into kind of what they do and what their programs look like just to, because I wanted to make sure that if I was going to be donating any money that, that.

We go to the right place and voter education is one of the things that they really focus on. I’m looking at. Like that’s just a huge ask. And so in the same sense that trying to get all musicians on the same page in terms of, in terms of a agreement on unions are a good thing for what we have as a, as an industry and as a profession, this is what needs to happen.

I just, I don’t see that happening in mass.

Emily: [00:47:50] No, it’s not it’s and it’s not going to happen in mass. Ultimately, I think it’s just, it’s, it’s gotta be a matter of big artists saying this is not an acceptable thing to include in your contracts with all to major labels, uh, or any label, because not only is music business, a business, it’s a passion for the musicians.

Like this is something that you love. It’s like, it’s, it’s, it’s why it’s so hard to find a job, even in the music business, because like, I knew that if I left my job in Nashville, where I was certainly guilty, like, like they were certainly guilty of wage theft among other things and overworking and like, not like aggressively abusing employees, but like, I, I just recently realized that like, they should have been giving me time and a half or flex time for some of the things I did for them.

And, um, they didn’t, and that was part of the music business. Or the entertainment industry, because if I quit my job, they would have where I was getting paid $33,000 a year. They would’ve turned around and found someone who was willing to take $28,000 a year because they wanted to be in the industry so badly.

And, and until you have like, Wage loss or outlaw like unpaid internships. Like that’s never going to change because there’s always going to be somebody willing to do it for nothing, because they think that’s what you have to do.

Andrew: [00:49:16] Right. So, Unpaid internships is something else that just gets me completely tilted, but maybe not.

Emily: [00:49:26] Yeah. I mean,

Andrew: [00:49:27] that’s a question for you

Emily: [00:49:28] is to be a musician.

Andrew: [00:49:30] Something, I see that a lot of musicians have done something at Taylor Swift has done something. This is not uncommon for established musicians at some point to move on from the record label and create their own. Right. And a lot of examples I’ve seen that happened, especially like in the Christian music industry.

I think a couple of one I can think of off the top of my head, I want to say is jars of clay, uh, is a band that did that. And it’s frequently like it’s their own record label for themselves. And they just kind of basically like the band is big enough where they can afford to just do all the things. The record label does just independently for themselves for their own band.

What about larger artists doing creating record label and just saying know. We’re actually going to be the good guys here. We’ve got the funding, we’ve got the clout in the industry. We can make this happen to you think that’s something that could,

Emily: [00:50:25] it does happen. Prince did that.

Andrew: [00:50:28] Okay.

Emily: [00:50:29] Yeah, Prince had his, um, Prince actually had an imprint on Warner brothers from the beginning of his career, almost.

That was part of the stipulation of his contract as he wanted to have his Paisley park and print, so he could sign whoever he wanted. Um, he was also a hard and tough business person. And you can say similar things about people like buck Owens, who dip their toe into the industry. Um, Ani DiFranco has always had her own record label.

Um, Righteous babe. Um, Madonna had her own record label. That was part of, um, an imprint. I think that was called Maverick records. I forget who that was on. Um, and even smaller, smaller artists. I think Sadie Duke, we has an imprint. Um, she definitely has her own like poetry publishing. Um, a lot of artists do this and it’s just, it is a lot of work and you have to hire people.

I can imagine Taylor Swift doing something like that. I think even Lydia Loveless is doing her own record label. Um,

Andrew: [00:51:28] but the, I guess, so I’m hearing all these names.

Emily: [00:51:31] You can’t compete with the majors because they have billion dollars in funding.

Andrew: [00:51:35] Right. And that’s where I’m like, I would love to see more of that, but I just, I don’t know if I could see like some of the larger labels getting toppled down, just

Emily: [00:51:45] given the hard thing,

Andrew: [00:51:46] honestly, how much money is involved?

Um, I guess another thought I had is one of the musicians turned business people. Um, uh, that I thought about was a Jay Z, Beyonce with title is being part of that world of like, Hey, we don’t have to put up with what the other companies are doing, where we want to do this. Right. Or at least more right. In a way that honors the work of musicians

Emily: [00:52:11] and they do, they do pay.

At least twice as much as Spotify does for their streams. And it’s just going through, you can pay twice as much and still be successful enough. I don’t, I don’t know if title makes money to be honest and

Andrew: [00:52:26] they might not,

Emily: [00:52:28] and they definitely do have done some strong arms stuff to get like exclusives. And that’s kind of been in question or.

Like they had, they, I think they sued the print. I didn’t know if you’re talking about the print stuff. I think they might’ve sued the princess state or the princess state sued them because title was the only place you could stream Prince’s music. And I think that title got upset when it got moved to Spotify and other places as well, because I think that they might’ve had some sort of handshake exclusivity deal with Prince himself.

Um, But I don’t know

Andrew: [00:53:03] anyways, that’s what I’ve got for the episode. Um, I think those are really great discussion, uh, in the title up nice and nice night. A nice, neat bow, uh, by the book, get smart and business. If you were in the music industry, if you’re in a band, if you’re looking at signing a label, there is so much more behind the curtain and it’s not necessarily fun stuff.

Get educated

Emily: [00:53:25] contracts. Just if you get a contract, talk to a lawyer. Sure have them explain to you exactly what each thing means. Don’t sell your publishing. And I just want to say this one more time. This is not about Taylor Swift’s publishing. That’s a whole other can of worms that we can talk about. I think she retains control of at least the artist share of her publishing, which is important.

Sure. Different publishing masters record of the year. Is where the masters falls, it’s a recording song of the year is the writing. That’s the song writing publishing a song of the year, record of the year is mastering.

Andrew: [00:54:05] Yep. So anyhow, all that said, thank you for watching.

Emily: [00:54:12] Thanks for listening.

Andrew: [00:54:13] My name is Andrew.

My name is Andrew.

Emily: [00:54:17] His name is Andrew. My name is Emily. My name is Emily, goodbye!