Grab your copy of The Indie Artist's Compass: book.makeourmusic.com

In this episode, host Joe Fier sits down with seasoned musician, producer, and entrepreneur Mark Roberge. Together, they explore the intersection of creativity and business in the modern music industry, sharing actionable insights for artists, creators, and entrepreneurs alike. Mark delves into his journey from breaking ground with bands like Prospect Hill to pioneering fan engagement strategies, leveraging technology, and building collaborative communities. The conversation highlights the importance of authentic storytelling, data-driven marketing, and adapting to industry shifts—especially with the rise of AI and changing consumption habits.

Topics Discussed

1. The power of authentic storytelling in music and why AI can't replicate human experience
2. Mark’s evolution: from high school band success to launching Red 13 Studios and beyond
3. Treating music projects like startup businesses — using systems, strategy, and data
4. Building and nurturing fan bases: why you must own your audience, not rely solely on platforms
5. The "1,000 True Fans" concept and multi-channel fan capture strategies
6. Frameworks from Mark’s book, "The Indie Artist’s Compass," including the FAME framework
7. Leveraging ad automation and tech tools (FanFlowy, Make Our Music) for audience growth
8. Release strategy: why singles beat albums for growing audiences and maximizing Spotify algorithms
9. Collaboration and “piggybacking” with other artists to expand reach
10. The resurgence of live music, human connection, and why it matters more than ever
11. AI in music: Opportunities, tools (like Suno), and the real value of human creativity
12. Community building and platforms for collaboration, performance, and support

Resources Mentioned

1. The Indie Artist’s Compass: book.makeourmusic.com
2. Make Our Music Community: makeourmusic.com
3. Prospect Hill Band: prospecthillband.com
4. Lansdowne Band: lansdownemusic.com

Connect with Us

1. 🤖 Chat with Joe's AI Clone: https://hustleandflowchart.com/aijoe
2. 📰 Newsletter: https://hustleandflowchart.com/subscribe
3. 🎙️ Podcast: https://hustleandflowchart.com/
4. 🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joefier/
5. 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joefier/

If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe to Hustle & Flowchart! Stay inspired, get exclusive updates, and never miss an episode. Hit your favorite podcast platform, leave a review, or share this episode with an artist or entrepreneur who could use some fresh motivation.

you think about all the greatest artists that we've all, you know, come to, to

really love over the course of, you know, the human existence and they all

have like a real story in regards to how they grew up their life, their.

They're real experience and that's what actually relates to 'em.

No robot's gonna have that experience.

No AI is gonna have that.

Every human is gonna have like, and so those standouts, like we all know Eminem's

story with him and his mom and growing up in, you know, like, you understand

that, you know, you know Jimi Hendrix's story, you know, you understand like,

you know, Freddie Mercury's story.

Like there's all these greats and legends that we can all think of, and because of

that they had a real human experience.

And so.

That influenced them into how they made music and how they, you know,

were creative, but it's also their story that you gravitate towards.

And so no robot or AI is gonna actually have that because they're not a human.

, All right, Mark, we're here, we're doing this.

Uh, this is really cool because you coming from, I mean, you're a business partner

of a really dear friend of mine, Dan Ryan.

He always loves the shout outs on this podcast for the last 10 years or so.

So Dan, thank you.

What up, Dan?

But I feel like this is a long time coming, even though

this is the first time we met.

Um, yeah.

Just through Dan, you know, he's, he's done so much in influence, actually his

podcast a lot, but music, I mean, that's him and I have jammed, I record some stuff

at his studio, done a lot of other things.

But you're his partner on that whole side of side of things, you know, producing

music and helping promote artists and, and really guide them in a new way that.

I think can completely change how, um, not only artists and creators

think, but just entrepreneurs.

And I think that's where this chat can kind of go down.

Yeah, no, I mean, Dan's been very implement in regards to like

myself as a entrepreneur as well.

You know, um, it's funny because obviously, you know, we kind of

discussed off air, but it's the music industry in regards to having a band or

being a mus, a musician or an artist.

And when you start to actually start putting product out there, like recordings

and videos, you're ultimately a business.

You're a startup business, right?

And so it needs to be treated like that and.

You know, I've always taken that approach with my own projects, which has

led me to where I am now and how I've gotten my, obviously foot in the door

into the industry and understanding.

Um, but ultimately as a entrepreneur, Dan, you know, kind of helped augment even my

vision in regards to what I was seeing and what I wanted to do, which was great.

And he took it from a different angle, understanding, you know,

obviously business at the level he does, which was great kind of.

Railed me in, I would say, you know, 'cause I'm half creative, still

half business, and that creative sometimes wants to win over and,

and go look at shiny objects.

Right.

And I'm, and, and, but you gotta kind of just trust the systems and

say, okay, you know, it's gotta be strategic one thing after another.

And it's just, you know, it's, it's across the board with the music industry

and any other industry ultimately and order to gain success, you know.

For sure.

And I think that's a big, uh, thing because yeah, us

entrepreneurs, any entrepreneur or creator, like we are creative.

We have this vision, right?

But like just getting stuck in there and not dealing with, you know, following

systems, creating systems and trusting those along the way and getting a trap.

Right.

Yeah.

It's like, oh, you know, you know what would be nice?

You know, so anytime I say that, Dan, it's like, oh, really?

You know what would be nice?

Or, oh, I think this will work.

Oh, you think, you know, so it's like you gotta make sure that you're weighing

out everything on a, on a data level.

And that's really what he's helped me with and understanding it's, it's helped.

Obviously position ourselves as a company and myself as you know, uh, the owner of

a, of, of a band, you know, of a of my music project to kind of think differently

in regards to, you know, systematically approaching things and making sure

you, you utilize the data to tell you what's actually should be the move.

You know, ultimately, instead of going, oh, I feel this, it's like, okay, great,

you feel it, but what is the data saying?

The data's saying opposite.

You gotta go with the data,

Hmm.

Yeah, man.

Well, let's, let's get there.

I wanna, I wanna understand a little bit more about your, your background,

because like, I know you've, obviously, you've been, uh, evolving a lot over

your career, uh, but you've been in Yeah.

Bands.

You've, you've worked with a whole bunch of artists on the production side.

You have a whole crew that you work with too.

Um, tell me a little bit about, you know, like a brief of, of yourself,

what you're doing, and I kinda wanna hear about the transition point too.

Of, uh, Hey, you got to where you're at.

Yeah.

So I mean, I started my rock band outta high school, right?

And so we took that rock band and, and basically blew it up and, and, and broke

it nationally, and we utilized certain strategies, but at the time, MySpace was.

You know, popular.

And so we figured out ways to kind of real, really utilize MySpace in

order to gain audience so that we were driving people, you know, not only to

our community, but also into our shows and actually having people show up.

And from there we went from like 50 people at our shows to upwards

to like 1200 sellouts, you know.

Um, and then, you know, that gained the attention to the industry and

we were charting on billboard and then songs were getting picked up

by radio and it just snowballed.

Things start to snowball once word of mouth starts to really start to

pick up and there's real fan base there and it, it starts to move.

And so we went, you know, we went national and we signed a deal

and the deal didn't, uh, go well.

You know, it's typical VH one behind the music.

Right.

You know, money's guaranteed and then money disappears.

And, you know, we have a song at radio with no pro promo promotional

money or radio team at the time.

And you know, unfortunately our single that was, um, come alive at the

time my band's called Prospect Hill.

The song, song Come Alive was, you know, poised to be a top five, top 10 minimum.

Um, basically the setup that had, because there was already major

stations that committed to picking it up, and we had Sirius XM already

within full rotation on Octane.

And we needed the radio team, and you need a good budget.

There was $50,000 supposed to be backed behind the, at a minimum behind the, the,

the song and the, the day the song goes to radio, it's called the Impact Date.

Um, the radio team walked because they weren't getting paid from

the label and the money went missing and it was just a mess.

And so our single went up the charts without any radio

team or any budget behind it.

It, you know, it broke, uh, you know, 38 at mainstream.

So top 40 at mainstream rocket Billboard and 42 at Active Rock.

And that was without.

You know, no team, nothing behind it.

It just kind of organically went up just from all the word of mouth and

the work the band did on the road by, you know, basically going into

these radio stations before the shows, bringing coffee and donuts, bringing

pizzas, like really just making our ourself known to all these major radio

stations and creating relationships.

So that helped that, but unfortunately, that led to basically a, a, you know,

a. A, a stall with the band and it kind of, you know, it, it kind of killed the

motivation inside for the, for the band.

There's a lot of, you know, turmoil.

It's, we've been together since high school, you know, we're all best friends,

but we're, we're brothers, you know, we're strangling each other at the same

time, you know, and so, you know, that led me to kind of take the band off the

road for a bit and say, you know what?

Let me reassess what's going on.

And so my partner, Sean Lichtenstein, him and I started writing and producing

for, uh, a number of other bands and artists and developing them.

And Sean's in another touring band called Landsdown, and now

they're blowing up in Europe.

And so, you know, every, it, it, it, it's all coming full circle.

It's funny, but we started writing and producing, we had a few artists

that ended up, you know, signing major label deals that we were working with.

And we've worked with everybody from like Daughtry to God smack to, uh,

tap root's on there.

I used

taproot.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I just recently put out a song with those guys, with Prospect Hill actually

Yeah.

I think I heard that one.

That's

Yeah.

Yeah.

Nonpoint, I mean there's like, honestly there's from Queens Wrike to, from

Ashes to new to, I mean, there's.

There's really not an artist or a team that we haven't really worked with at this

level at some, you know, at some point or, or somebody, a member of their team.

Right.

And we built that company that's Rent 13 Studios and that was basically our

artist development agency, which then also started doing major music videos

and um, you know, documentaries and.

TV pilots and brand commercials so expanded from there.

And that's kind of like, you know, right around that time is when Dan

got involved, where he started helping with us because we had a model for

recording studios to franchise them.

So we wanted to create a member-based studio where you could just pick up

your project if you were Nashville, New York, and start working on it.

You have a membership, you'd have access to it, like a gym.

And so he was working with us on that and.

It really teaching us, like the Google SEM strategy to really blow

up and drive in new leads and just to follow up infrastructure on, on go

high level so that we can set up, um, you know, automations for, for, you

know, obviously lead nurturing and then post, post, uh, uh, service via

follow ups and surveys, all that stuff.

Right.

It was, it was, it was really cool.

It's like stuff that I didn't really fully understand and I still, you know,

had to like, kind of break it down.

It took years to really wrap my head around it all, but it was working.

Ultimately what Dan implemented for what we were doing on the ad strategy

from the Google Ads started driving, um, you know, tons of, of new, uh,

customers into the recording studio.

And it started blowing up.

It started working.

So then we started, you know, expanding that operation and the

goal was to bring in major VC to then expand that nationally.

Mm. Mm-hmm.

And so we had two facilities with about four recording

studios each with a full staff.

And so that was, you know, the test, can we have two locations?

Is this Franchisable?

Can we do this?

And it was working until COVID hit.

And so then COVID smashed us.

And you know, ultimately we, we jumped back on right as soon as things opened

back up and things were working.

But I saw a huge dip in the, in regards to the, I guess the mentality of the artists

and the people that were coming in from their, from, you know, prior to COVID.

Yeah.

They learned a lot during that time on their own, and they were forced to so that

they can learn how to record themselves.

And so, and by then the technology was also advancing pretty quickly.

So the ability to like record in your bedroom was obviously scaling and it

was becoming more of a, instead of like a couple of our, you know, clients, it

was pretty much the majority of them now were doing some of their project at home.

And so I just didn't like that trend and I said, okay, you know, that's gonna.

You know, it's going to eat into the margin because most of them, you know,

instead of bringing a hundred, you know, 75 to a hundred percent of their

project into the studio, they're only gonna be bringing 20% of it in now to

just finish it up and tighten it up.

And so I didn't like that trend, and it was a lot of work.

It was, you know, uh, it wasn't really the, the juice wasn't

worth the squeeze, you know?

And

the whole, yeah.

The

It, it was just a lot of work, a lot of people, a lot of things.

And it was, you know, it was kind of chaotic and then it kind of took me

away from what I actually wanted to do, um, which is, I still wanna be creative

and I still wanna help artists, and I still, you know, I wanna be that, but

it was, it was, it was a lot of work.

So we, we kind of backed off that idea.

We did like the subscription element, and so we move towards more of the

model that we're currently at now, um, which is more of like, you know, it's

a, it's a, it's a consulting agency.

Where we, you know, handle the marketing and the nurturing of,

of fan bases and building of fan bases backed by our tech and all of

our tools with our full strategy.

And that's really where we focus now, utilizing, um, our team, our,

our tech tools, um, all of our ad strategies, all of our, you know, uh,

network, you know, everything that we have inside of our toolbox is now

accessible to all these other artists and independent artists as well as, you

know, even major label artists and major management companies that we work with.

And that's a, a fan flowy, right?

Is that kind of like the, the tool that's, that's in between all that?

Yeah, so Fan Flowy was the first iteration of it.

So Dan was really pushing us to create an educational backed like, um,

product where, you know, subscription based, based off of like here's,

you know, our teachings, right?

And so we, you know, and I know he was like really driving that home, but

I, what I started to do was like, I went off on my own and I started like.

Developing an automation system for a strategy that I use on Instagram.

And so I have artists that will, you know, will drive in new followers

through multiple different strategies, ad strategies, engagement strategies.

And when those new followers come in, I want all of my artists to then DM them and

message them and create it, you know, a personal relationship right off the rip.

And then from there there's a whole communication tree that I have them, like

an if this, then that communication tree.

So, and they were having, I was giving them as a guide on a manual level so that

they would go and manage this and then they can create a conversation with them.

And if they say this, say that.

Because ultimately we wanna get them to hit like four different call to actions.

And so I would have all of my artists do this.

And when they implemented it, they were like, holy shit.

Like this is insane.

It's working.

Right.

This is.

Unbelievable.

But, but the problem is this is too much work.

So they were like, I can't stand, I, I manually, I can't do this all day.

This is consuming my day to the point where they were getting hundred.

But it's funny because it was a ghost town for them.

No, no communication, no fans, no engagement on Instagram to now all

of a sudden they couldn't handle it.

And I said, okay, well that's a different, it's a different problem now,

you know, so I, it's a good problem.

So that's what led well, that's what led me to start developing

that, that tool, which was like the first iteration of fan flowy.

And then I was working the, the, you know, the automations and I would kick him over

to Dan and then Dan would go, all right, let me mess with this and I'll fix it.

He'd send it to me.

And so I started learning automation systems through just trying,

sending to him, him refining it.

Then I'd be, oh, that's how you do it.

So we went back and forth and there was like two months I just

didn't sleep and I just was like, building this, building this.

And then I was like, well, what if we had this feature, we had this

feature, and we just kept going.

And now that's where fan Flow started and that's where it is now.

And now it's, I mean, it's beyond that.

We've got develop developers in there with API, integrations and

all types of things going on now.

No, I've seen a little bit of it from Dan and, um, and obviously we're talking

a lot about Dan here and his ego is inflating currently, but, uh, but

You're welcome, Dan.

exactly.

But I mean, like, what you're, what you're pointing out Mark is it's

like a perfect blend of like, you've been hustling and grinding your way.

You know, you're, you're creating all these connections and, and

figuring out what's working, what's not, but doing it this manual way.

And you're not, you didn't jump to systems from day one, and you

probably were unaware of some of these things, but then you reached a point,

obviously a guide, someone like him, a partner that can really enhance that.

And then you mentioned something, um, 'cause like about the whole

Instagram thing, it's capturing them multiple calls to action.

I think it's something that you guys wrote about, but like this thousand fan rule

like this, this, uh, idea of basically capturing them in email and SMS something

that you can actually own instead of what?

Relying on all the algorithms and the platforms out there, which I'm

sure artists are, I mean, everybody, entrepreneurs have that problem

too, you know, uh, in general.

Well, yeah, and that, that comes from like, honestly, like my MySpace days,

because we had hundreds of thousands of followers as a band on there,

and then one day it was all gone.

Awesome.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, so I've always felt like, man, I, you gotta own that audience.

Like you can use these social platforms as aggregators to then

drive them into your own list or community that, that you own, right?

So if you have that list, you have their name, their phone number, their

email, their location, and, and for the musics out, I want their preferred,

uh, DSP digital streaming provider.

You know?

So like, I want all that information.

I wanna be able to contact them.

I wanna be able to give them a call if I need to, right?

I wanna be able to text them.

I wanna be able to email them.

I wanna be able to find them on other platforms, which you can usually do

with a phone number or an email, right?

So that is like the root of it all.

So if you have that, then you're not left, you know, in a situation with, which would

happen with MySpace, we had hundreds of thousands of fans that were, all of a

sudden we couldn't get to 'em anymore.

Right?

Um, and so that was a problem and I've always, you know, I kind

of have a little PTSD from that.

So I think that's what has led me to ensure that that's like one of my main,

you know, focal points with any of the artists or projects I work with, is like,

make sure we capture that audience's information so that we can reach out.

yeah, I mean, I, I'm just thinking of, you know, Spotify, there's

probably a lot of artists still that are relying on places like that.

I know YouTube for creators, people pushing videos out.

It's all about in their mind, you know, the numbers over there, but.

Uh, you know, like, at least on YouTube, I know subscriber value, it's

a vanity metric more than anything.

Now it's not really driving the actual, uh, views so much, or even conversions,

you know, there needs to be some thought and it's like, what's the path?

Where are you gonna take 'em to something you own

It's similar with Spotify, right?

So if you're just like driving conversion ads to Spotify, then they're

just going to Spotify and you have no way of actually like, you know,

communicating with them after that, right?

You don't know what happens to them.

You don't know where they go.

My whole thing is capturing them first, understand how they even stream, and then

get them to take those actions, right?

Because now you have the ability to communicate directly with them and

if they, if you nurture them into a super fan, they'll do anything you ask.

Really.

They're wi they wanna help you, you know?

Yeah.

So what's, uh, like, I know you have a bunch of frameworks in your book and, and

we'll shout out like your book is, um.

Lemme see.

It is the artist, uh, the Indie artist Compass.

And, uh, yeah, go at least the ULI got, I'll just shout it out,

is book dot make our music.com.

I don't know if there's a better one, mark,

Yeah, you can get it right off the make our music.com site as well.

There's a, there's a access point from there, but yeah, that, that'll bring

you directly to the, the book offer.

I like it because, you know, and, and I, I blasted through the book

and it's, it's just like, it's got a bunch of frameworks and it's.

It's interesting because I like reading books that like I, I do.

I played music for a long time, had bands, but never have pursued

it for as like a, you know, it's like, that's my thing, maybe later.

But I love to read books like this and talk with folks like, like you,

that aren't exactly what I'm doing.

But it mashes up.

It has these flavors that you can kind of just take and be like, oh,

okay, that's a cool, almost analogy.

And, um, yeah, like you have a, I think it's a fame framework

that, that maybe is in line with this whole thousand fans concept.

Uh.

I dunno if you could break that down or maybe talk about how, like when

you're communicating with fans out there and growing an audience, like

what does that process look like?

Like how do you walk people through it?

it all stems from obviously even understanding your brand, right?

So like, who are you, right?

And then who is the, who is the audience that you ultimately wanna speak to, right?

So you gotta first dial that in.

I mean, I tell everybody it starts with product first and foremost, right?

You need a good product, you need a good music.

Um, you need a good competitive recording so that it can compete

at the highest levels because.

Ultimately, in order to create a major label sounding recording,

it doesn't take much anymore.

So like the, the, the, the level of like recording, um, the bar has been

set at such a high level now that if you're not even competing at that

level, then you're kind of already, you're not even in the game yet.

Right?

And so it really starts there.

That's the, the, the beginning of it all.

And then from there it's like understanding, you know, how to, how

to get that audience through, you know?

Where, where are they?

Where, where is that on?

Are they on on Instagram, Facebook?

Are they on TikTok?

Are they on YouTube?

But ultimately, then there needs to be a system that can, can be

continuously repeated, right?

It has to be momentum based.

It has to be consistent.

It has to be a daily exercise where there's, you know, outreach, it's

targeting audience with a, a, a great piece of content that is now proven.

Through data, right?

You put out some pieces of content, you see which one reacts, um, organically.

Then you say, okay, this is the one.

And then you use that as an ad infrastructure to then drive those fans

in through a call to action system.

We use a very specific, um, uh.

You know, um, ad strategy where it's, it's basically like a lead ad is,

you know, we're using in the music industry, which is funny 'cause a lot

of people are like, what does that mean?

So ultimately what we're doing is we're, you know, we're keeping people on

platform, on meta, you know, and we're, we're running a, a piece of content.

Maybe it's the band live, the artist live, or maybe it's them rehearsing or it's a

piece of their music video, whatever's converting and grabbing the attention.

And we're, you know, we're, we're.

Trying to find those fans of a similar artist, right?

And maybe location based, based off where the artist wants a tour

or where, you know, they wanna build their fan base based off of

whatever other strategies we have.

And then from there, it's like getting them to, you know, feel like they're,

they're finding out about this artist before anybody else and they're part of

this community and they want to join it.

And so we get them to join the fan list and we get their name, phone number, email

location, preferred streaming platform.

And then from there, the automation start to begin to then basically nurture them

and turn them into a super fan by getting them to take multiple different actions

through email and text message and dm.

And so it starts there, and then from there, those communications are now

structured and continue to go out.

So you have this machine and it's running all day, every day, all day, every day.

So no matter what, you know, you could be posting content all day,

every day across all the socials.

And the way I look at that is you should be, you should be absolutely

putting out content and figuring out what works and what doesn't work.

But those are like lottery tickets, right?

Some of those will work and some of them will hit an audience and you'll

get a good influx of followers.

Some of them will go on deaf ears and it won't do anything.

And then maybe by luck you'll have something that goes viral, right?

So you should be playing the lottery ticket, but the more

real audience you, you have the.

The more opportunity that lottery ticket will have because now

you have real engagement pushing it above into the algorithm.

So if you have this system in place, A, you have more of a chance of hitting

that, that lottery, you know, win.

And B, even if that doesn't say, you're not even posting or doing

any of that stuff, or you're still gaining an audience every day.

Real fans that want to communicate.

So at the very least, I, you know, we have a lot of, you know, some,

some like weekend warrior bands that like don't understand social

media and don't want to touch it.

They don't even wanna be on it.

But we turn this on and they're still getting fans regardless,

you know, which is nice.

Yeah.

I mean, it makes sense 'cause you're getting in front of the right people.

I mean, you guys as a, as a group ha, have a lot more data.

I'm sure that you can help your, your clients and the partners you got.

So it kind of, you know, speeds people up too.

If there are that week of warrior, what are some other, um, I'm just

thinking of like even content creation.

'cause I'm seeing a lot of artists I follow on, uh, follow someone with

Spotify where I see 'em drop a, you know, a, a track, a new track off,

you know, pretty often, like every two weeks, let's call it, or even every week.

But it seems like, you know, that's like a consistent flow rather than like,

here's a whole, you know, um, a fricking um, an album all at one time, you know?

So it seems like, and I think that's one of your strategies too, is almost,

I call it batching, you know, with the content is like, you always have some

stuff that's baking, things that are out there that you're marketing, but you're

never kind of ending That, um, that new flow of material getting out there,

is that kind of an approach that you.

You tell artists to do the same and um,

Yeah.

So, you know, ultimately it's like the way people consume music is different now.

All, you know, and especially like if you are still in the infancy of your

project and you don't have a a, a massive audience, you have to build the demand

for that amount of product, right?

So it's like, you know, and then every single piece of product

is very valuable in regards to then getting you up the ladder.

Of success is the way I see it in the ladder of audience.

So for you to just dump out 10 songs without having a proper system in,

in order to ensure that you know there, if you have a hundred fans on

Spotify and you dump out 10 songs.

You only got a hundred fans that are actually gonna consume those 10.

Or you can put a, you know, a hundred fans, put out one song gain, uh, maybe

a, a 50 to a hundred fans between that next release and then the second release.

Now you have 200, maybe, you know, 150 depending.

And then from there, double that.

And then from that, so you can utilize each one of those songs as

a ladder to build more audience so that each one of 'em starts to grow

and then it starts to snowball.

So that's the better way to approach it.

In regards to obviously having, you know, a limited audience.

I mean, if you're Drake, you know, people wouldn't be very

upset that he put out one song.

What do you mean?

To just put out one song?

We've been waiting three years for an album.

Like it's different, you know, it's a different element because of, he

has a, he already has the audience.

When you're building the audience, every single one of those songs

is an asset towards your growth.

If you'd to just dump him out, there's a waste, you know, and, and

the algorithm on Spotify is actually set up to, to reward you for that.

So.

When you put out a song, it goes into the release radar

pool on the algorithm, right?

And that's for anyone that's been following you or engaging with your,

your Spotify to give them almost, it's like a notification internally inside

of a playlist that they have access to.

It's the release radar playlist, and so it'll automatically

get added to it, right?

And so when you release a single or any type of, you know, uh, uh, release a

song, it's gonna be inside of that release radar, um, playlist for four weeks.

Oh,

And then after, and then week, week after the end of week

four, it, it's out, falls out.

So if you have a continuous release cycle, you can ensure that you're

juicing that, and then that algorithm's gonna continuously push you.

And then once you get the backend score of your song to a certain level.

Um, on the engagement level, you know, in regards to how many people listen

to it, how many people listen past 30 seconds, how many people saved it, how

many people added it to their place.

It's like the algorithm's looking for these things, right?

It's looking to see what the score is in regards to the ratio of people

listening to actual positive action taken.

and so once you reach a certain percentage, right around 20%, you

get added to the radio playlist.

So now they're gonna broadcast it into the, uh, radio playlist for

other people to start hearing.

So now.

Spotify is now promoting your music.

And then from there, if it gets to a 30% is usually where I see it is now.

You get into the Discover Weekly playlist, which is a bigger pool, and then that

will start to build, and over time, both of those will grow audience wise.

If the song is doing its job and it's doing well, it's a good song.

Interesting.

I didn't know that.

Okay.

Is there, like, do you guys focus on YouTube as well?

Because I heard you, you know, you do some video production and all that?

Or is it primarily Spotify for everything?

Um, I mean, we've done a ton of work on YouTube.

Um, we do, we do a lot of ad work on YouTube as well.

However, best paying for your buck on the music industry, it's not

really, you know, ultimately it's like YouTube is not the way I look at.

It's like someone, when someone sees an ad on YouTube, right?

They're more annoyed than anything.

eh, right.

You're well, yeah.

You're shoving something in front of 'em, you know,

I'm here to watch something.

I'm here to watch something and you're in my way.

Get outta my way.

Right.

So the the, the chances of somebody actually going, oh wow, this is amazing.

I really wanna stop what I'm doing.

I'm gonna go down the rabbit hole of this band.

Is very few and far between.

Like it does the it, does it happen?

Yes.

But the, the cost per that result just doesn't make sense financially,

especially on a limited budget.

So it's all about saying, okay, what's the full budget an artist has and what's

the most value that we're gonna be able to get out of that dollar to then acquire

a real fan that we can communicate with, that we can always get to YouTube

after we can get them to subscribe.

Right?

So it's like I, yes, we can find people on YouTube, but if you have a

limited budget, it's not ultimately the best place to find them and.

You could also, you know, look at it two ways too.

There's, you know, that way, but then there's the other way where go, people

go, oh, well we need the numbers, right?

We need to see bigger view numbers for a promoter to get us, or whatever.

It's like, okay, understood.

So now we're just spending on optics marketing, right?

It's not really, it's an empty box.

I tell everybody.

Yep.

It's bullshit, you know, it's like a bullshit number.

Cool.

I have a hundred thousand, you know, views on my music video.

It's like, cool.

You bring two people to your show, you know?

So like, cool, you'll get the gig, but then you'll bring two people to the show

and you'll never get that gig again.

So it's like, if you want, if you're trying to do both and you're trying

to get attention, it's like you want to have the real fans first.

And if you wanna do some optics marketing, then to enhance the sell of

the band to as, as long as you could fill that box, 75%, I'm in for it.

Oh, let's go.

But ultimately, if you are not there yet, then we hold off on that and that budget

needs to go into real fan acquisition.

That makes sense.

How about on the, um, so like paid stuff on Spotify and we're talking,

you know, obviously, uh, artists right now, you know, and for other

businesses, you guys listening, it might be elsewhere, not Spotify.

Totally cool.

Um, how about, uh, like on the organic side?

I, I, I think of partnerships like I, I, I think of all these things that,

um, I mean I feel like it started in the hip hop industry, right?

Where they started collaborating and then like one lifts up.

One of their buddies or whatever deal they got going on.

Is there some strategies you guys use for for that?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So we, you know, we, we call it like the piggybacking method, so we utilize.

You know, fighting an artist that's obviously aligned musically

that makes sense and has a similar audience to that artist.

Um, or, or an audience that we want to actually expand into.

And then you find an artist that's at the same level or bigger, and you

put together those collaborations because then from there.

You know, their audience is now gonna be getting the notification of that

release radar, that song's in there, they're obviously gonna be paying

attention to who this artist is.

So it's funny 'cause Sean and I have our own musical project that we put

together as like, you know, writers, producers called Oh No Octopus.

And so we, that's all we do with this project's, a collaboration only project.

And we bring in bigger artists and we, we write and produce the songs

and we have them, you know, sing a rap on them and then they, you know,

they contribute and write as well.

And in a silo, we tested it out without doing really any, too

much any other marketing on it.

Right?

So it's just like, this is what it is.

And the songs crush, like the catalog does really well.

There's millions of streams across all the songs because these, the, the artists

that we chose were bigger artists that had at least like a hundred thousand

to almost 400,000 monthly listeners.

So when we released these songs, that's amount of the audience

that we're seeing in regards to, you know, um, the initial push.

And so.

It works really, really well.

And obviously an artist has to get to a certain level where they have

some leverage there in order to get to like the next, you know, tier

of artists that have that audience.

But even starting small, like if you only got like 2000, you know, monthly

listeners, then find another artist that's got 2000 monthly listeners

and collaborate and then build like a little collaboration, um,

content scheme around that as well.

So their fans know your fans and now you're borrowing fans, you

know.

dig it that, uh, yeah.

I remember when I started, way back in the day before I knew anybody in,

in, you know, I was in this digital marketing space, it was called ad swap.

So we both had email lists, let's call it a thousand people, a thousand people.

And yeah, you just swap and talk about each other's stuff and, um,

it was a way to grow the list.

And, and yeah, like you said, you just level up with people that are kind of

around the same level that you're at.

And you might get what?

An introduction to someone who's bigger that can just open the door and be

like, yeah, I'll give this guy a try.

Mark's, you know, he sounds awesome.

Store him on a track.

it opens up other doors other than just access to their, to their audience.

'cause like you're saying, somebody else that might have an eye on that artist

goes, oh, I kind of like who that is.

That's cool too, man.

Let you know.

So there's a lot to that, you know, and, and we, we push that big time.

That's one of the things we try to do with our community that we have, which is

make our music, which is basically like.

You know, like a chat room for all of these artists that have different

opportunities and ways to communicate and, and find ways to collaborate,

whether it's for song recording, you know, uh, recordings of songs or

collaborations on, on shows, right?

Get them to swap shows.

Hey, I'm from Philly.

I need a, a band from New York.

Hey, I'm from New York.

I need a band from Philly.

Cool swap.

You know, and so stuff like that too helps out as well.

Not just on the recording of music, but actually bringing each other into each

other's audiences in your hometown.

I so wish that, I mean, like, I, I think about this often 'cause a few

of the, uh, the guys I still am in business with and buddies, like, we

were all doing band stuff back in high school and, and after high school.

That was like my first taste of entrepreneurship.

It felt like, it's like what we were talking about.

It's all so similar.

It's so similar.

I wish I knew all this stuff back then because it's like the marketing,

the, I mean, it's never too late.

That's, uh,

It's never too late.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's a different world now.

You could put out music and, and find your audience, you know, and, and still

do pretty well, and, and have a six figure project that's at, at a minimum.

You

absolutely.

Yeah.

And it could just be a side project and for me, with my daughter, possibly,

you know, like she's into it too.

Yeah, we have a lot of, you know, people that come to us that are, that,

you know, upwards from like, you know, 50, 50 years old plus that are saying,

Hey, we wanna take a shot at this now.

And we're like, cool.

We can set it up and build the infrastructure.

We'll find your fan base regardless.

It's a different world.

You don't need to be, you know, an 18-year-old artist that to,

to, you know, obviously major labels, they want longevity, but

you could build a career outside of the, the major labels, you know.

Yeah, so shout out to your community just so it's like super clear.

If someone is in the music industry, you just want to

explore, go to make our music.com.

It's free.

You can check it out.

Find the book over there too.

Just wanna shout that out,

Yeah, we got a bunch of artists over there, rock bands, producers, engineers.

There's, you know, and I, I don't even know what the number is,

but it's like grows every day.

It's really great and there's a lot of communication going inside

there in regards to collaborations and people showing off their work

and just talking to each other.

It's, it's awesome.

So, wait, that's, I mean, just that alone, having a community need that.

Um, what, uh, you mentioned like back to making music so easily now, like,

'cause I, I have recording gear at home, you know, like I can record stuff.

I mean, obviously really cheap iPhone, you could do stuff, but then like,

then there's AI and all this stuff.

I know it's kind of an opening.

But like, I'm in the world of ai.

I know you guys, I think, are collaborating with a

little bit of stuff too.

Uh, with Dan, I guess, what's your take on AI music and people

kind of starting out by recording?

Maybe they're not like super into the full, like they don't have a

band, they're kind of just curious.

Where would you lead people to kind of start flexing the creative muscle?

And is AI part of it?

Well, yeah, I mean, so it, it's, it's funny 'cause I've been, I was

just on another podcast and it was pretty much solely this topic, right?

Because it's a, it's a hot topic right now, you know, everybody's discussing

this and it's ultimately like, you know, what is, what is real music?

What is true?

What is, what is what is authentic, you know, and it's, it's gonna get

blurry and it already really is because I get hundreds of submissions, you

know, pretty much weekly if not more.

of artists that are submitting music for us to review, then to jump on phone calls.

And so, you know, I am constantly now asking the question, is this real?

It's, I'm already here now, and so I have to like, kinda like really

dig in and look and so, and, and, and there's a lot that aren't right.

And so this isn't, and, and I mean real is like, is this the artist?

Is this person really singing on the track, right?

No, this is, this is, this is an AI voice.

All right, now, okay, what's the next layer?

Did they write any of these lyrics?

Uh, they say they did, and you never know.

Maybe they did, but through chat, GBT, so now they're AI lyrics, you

know, so it's like, okay, cool.

Then now the music was created on Suno, which is.

A very cool platform where you can create music and you could give it prompts.

And there's ways to utilize it as a tool.

If you are a creative, if you, and you want to, you know, not completely

sell out to ai, there's still ways to utilize it to like help you get some

other ideas from your original works, which I like that point of it all.

Um, but then ultimately, like, you know.

This is where I think it is gonna happen.

You, if someone is exploring and they think they wanna start creating

music and, and writing music, right?

Yeah.

Suno will get you there and then you can start, you know, playing around

with that and say, okay, this is kind of how I hear it in my head and

this is what I want to hear and see.

And it's gonna make like the, the picking up the guitar and actually playing.

You know, almost like obsolete at some level, at some point, right?

However, people still enjoy watching that guy play guitar and they wanna

see that live and they wanna see the passion and the talent behind that.

So you putting prompts in isn't really a talent, it just is.

You're just kind of, you know, whatever's inside of your brain,

you're able to get it out.

And that's pretty cool.

But then ultimately.

There's, that's gonna be, it's gonna bring the, the, the level of like

musician production and musical production to a, I guess one, you know, median

level because everybody can do it with Suno or any other app that comes out.

But then the, it's gonna allow the real talent to rise is what I, I'm hopeful of.

Right.

It's gonna allow the, the, the, the, the, the cream of the crop to rise, right?

So you're gonna start seeing like, you know, the, the real artists

with the real stories that have the real talent and it's like.

That's what people are gonna gravitate towards.

And we're already seeing like a big shift in regards to live music.

You're seeing all these festivals that are sold out, people really enjoying live

music again, and I'm seeing a difference in regards to ads that we're putting out.

This is funny, but we would put out a lot of like, you know, music videos

as the content to hook somebody or somebody playing live, but then

put the recorded music over it.

And then get that it took, and that worked forever and the

conversion rate was super high.

And now I'm starting to see that the raw audio from that live performance, even if

it's crap, is hooking people more because I think they're going, oh, this is real.

Okay.

It's less polished, but it, I know what's real.

So they're not, you know, there's no question.

And they're like, oh, this is interesting.

Oh, this, even though it sounds like crap.

'cause it's done from a, maybe like a, a Droid phone and a and a haul,

you know, and like, but it, but for some reason, you know, they don't

care about the Polish audio anymore in regards to the conversions on the,

on the, on the ad side, you know.

Interesting.

Yeah, because you kinda went exactly the direction I was gonna

ask you about is I feel like the in-person music experience and just.

In general, I think even Elon Musk said something like this, like

the, the biggest, the most valuable experience you can have now is

in person, like these gatherings.

It's not anything you're really even creating online or, or this stuff.

It's like getting around people and sharing that experience and music.

Like there's nothing better to feel the music, see the music,

and then be with people who are all in it together, you know?

That's why the prices of these things are even going up.

You know, like tickets of these, and like you said, they're selling out festivals

and I think it's fricking awesome, man.

It, it, it is great.

And, and there's a resurgence in live, and I think everybody kind of like, pri prior

to COVID we're taking it for granted.

I think that was a big thing.

And then they were like, wait a minute, I love concerts.

We can't go to those.

All right, let's start going to all of them and, and let's empty

out our savings accounts to go.

You know?

So like that's what you're seeing.

And ultimately it's like.

You know, as this progresses as the ai, you know, revolution began, it, I, you

know, continues to move, which is, you know, I honestly, you know, then, then we

get into conversations like, okay, well then there's gonna be AI robots, and then

they're gonna be able to play guitar.

So you'll be what, like, I know we could go as far as we want with it,

but at the, at the moment it's like.

You still want to, you know, the real human experience, I think

ultimately is always gonna win, right?

Because like you think about all the greatest artists that we've all, you know,

come to, to really love over the course of, you know, the human existence and

they all have like a real story in regards to how they grew up their life, their.

They're real experience and that's what actually relates to 'em.

No robot's gonna have that experience.

No AI is gonna have that.

Every human is gonna have like, and so those standouts, like we all know Eminem's

story with him and his mom and growing up in, you know, like, you understand

that, you know, you know Jimi Hendrix's story, you know, you understand like,

you know, Freddie Mercury's story.

Like there's all these greats and legends that we can all think of, and because of

that they had a real human experience.

And so.

That influenced them into how they made music and how they, you know,

were creative, but it's also their story that you gravitate towards.

And so no robot or AI is gonna actually have that because they're not a human.

No.

No matter what, at the end of the day, it's the one thing we have on them.

So they, we we're not gonna be able to relate to the robot.

We're not gonna be able to relate to the ai, but we can always relate

to a human that's had real human experiences that are similar to yours,

or at least parts of similar to yours.

Yeah, man.

And that's where I think you mentioned, uh, documentaries early on.

I love going into, I mean, you see like.

I mean, Taylor Swift is like, it seems like she's got this fricking mastered,

you know, in terms of however, but like, you see shows and episodes and

it's like, it's all behind the scenes.

And like when you, obviously you reach a point and you have enough people

that wanna see that kind of stuff.

But I feel like even at the early phases, documenting the behind the

scenes stuff and publishing it somewhere, if it's even just YouTube publicly

and, um, using it in your marketing, I, I just feel like that's one of the

coolest things that a band can do for marketing and showing they're human and

And, and it allows the audience into the process to make them

feel like they're part of it.

You know, they're, they're, they're in inside.

They, it's like, almost like I, I'm, I'm inside the club, you know?

And it's, it's, it, I tell everybody, it's get, it's, you know, everybody

loves cooking shows, right?

So let let into the kitchen,

There you go.

I like that.

you know.

Yeah.

Put 'em in the studio with you maybe, maybe after it's a little bit polished up.

More than just,

Yeah, like I, I just announced a, uh, so my band's going out on tour with Lan Zone

Prospect Hill Lan Zone in Europe in April.

Um, April to May.

And so we just announced that, uh, earlier this week and now we're starting

to document everything leading up to it.

So after I get off this call, it's actually my band's gonna be walking

into the studio and we're gonna be documenting the process of us getting

all the new promo material together.

We're gonna be talking about it.

So we're gonna open this up, and now this is gonna be part

of a docuseries that will.

You know, ultimately sponsored by Make our Music fan flowy, right?

So now it's, and now you get to see, you know, how we're utilizing make

our music and fan flowy to then now market and build the tour up outside

and, and drive audience in and nurture those fans and get them into the club.

And then from there, beyond that, you know, ultimately.

Heck yeah.

Where do we, I wanna follow along with you, but I'm sure others now, where,

where can we go find you on that?

So where, you know, you can, you can follow ins, um, follow

us on Instagram and on YouTube.

Um, prospect Hill is, you know, the, the, our band and then their bands lands down.

And so we have, uh.

Lanza music.com and prospect hill band.com, which will take you

to wherever you need to find.

And then it will basically be putting out a YouTube series on all of this.

That'll be a collaborative series.

That'll be on their YouTube.

Our YouTube, and make our musics as well.

sec. Okay, cool.

So jump on that.

We'll link everything and make it easy for

Yeah, a lot of links.

Yeah.

We got a lot of them.

It's all good.

It's, it's fun.

I like to get it all.

And I selfishly, I just want to follow along too 'cause

I'm like, this sounds awesome.

Um, mark, just to wrap it up, you might have already kind of answered

this, but like, I'm always curious, like, what are you most excited about?

I mean, you got a lot of excited things, uh, you know, the tour and all that, but

is there something that stands out for like artists that you see in the next like

year or so that you're working towards?

You have some big idea that you're just like, yeah, this is gonna be cool.

Or a prediction maybe.

Yeah.

So I mean, I think some of the stuff we're working on is gonna be game changing,

and some of it already is, but there's a next level to what, where we're headed.

And you know, I believe that there's gonna be an, you know,

uh, basically a, I would say.

A crossroads from what we're doing to currently what like Spotify's

doing where, you know, there's gonna be a new way of consuming music and

consuming your favorite artists that I think, you know, as what we are

doing progresses, it's gonna start, it's gonna start melding into that.

And so there's gonna be more opportunity to then put more

value behind what music is.

But it's gonna allow the, the fan to almost like, dictate that and then

it's gonna allow the, the artist.

To then, you know, see the reward from that.

And so there's a level of what we're building in regards to like a community

side, which will build more meld into almost like a, you know, it's like

a digital street team for your super fans, which will eventually then have

certain access that no one else will.

Right.

And so then that's gonna.

Start to meld into what this new streaming and music consumption phase

will be, because there is a sentiment out there amongst so many artists and

so many, you know, uh, you know, music fans that Spotify is just not great.

Right.

And, you know, I have my arguments on both sides, but I see both

because I, I do think they saved us from being completely free.

Right.

We went from Napster to Spotify, so there needed to be a lifeboat, right?

And they were the lifeboat, but now let's get back to the main ship and

figure out a new, new situation here.

So I'll never short Spotify on that because otherwise it, it

would've been bad, real bad.

Um, so, but we reconditioned the, the music consumer to then

see some value in music and now.

Gotta get them to see even more value.

But then I think it also needs to be experiential, kinda like what

you're saying on every level.

And then that's what we're gonna meld towards.

So I'm excited for the, there's a vision I have in my head.

It's a, it's a, you know, what'll be really cool, so Dan's keeping me

at bay right now, but once we get to the, you know, Fent flowy 3.0

and the next level of this, that's what I'm really, really excited for.

Yeah, man, I, I know Dan wants that too, so let the data prove it out.

But I think the data's showing more interactiveness to a, people want to get

involved, you know, with the music and, and the people they love and they follow.

So,

thank you so much for having me.

I really appreciate it.

Absolutely, man.

I'm gonna follow along again.

We'll link everything.

Um, and, and just a quick shout out, make our music.com.

It's probably like the hub to, to go to if you're ready to jump in.

And, um, yeah man, have a blast on the tour.

I'm stoked to see, see what you guys do.

awesome.

If we come out your way, I'll, you know, hit me up.

Let me know.

I'll put you on the list.

in San Diego, so Dan

All right.

All right.

We'll be out there.

Rock and roll Marathon.

Let's go.

I'm in.

See you brother.

Thank

All right, Joe.

Take care.

Have a good one.

You too.