Hotstar

Tyrone Wells

2009-11-20T08:01:00Z

Be careful what you wish for.

“Our problem was we were with too big of an agent,” Tyrone Wells told Pollstar. “Our agent seemed to have graduated and was not concerned with the logistics, the right room, the right deals.”

Without going into too much detail, Wells has done the reverse of many artists: shifted from a big agency (one of the biggest) to a small one. And, he said, it has made all the difference. Sometimes people of Wells’ level do not get the attention desired on a roster that includes artists doing multimillion-dollar tours. He’s since joined Blackbird Artists Agency and is on the road year-round.

Wells, a singer/songwriter known for his engaging live show, has spent nine years building up his career from his base of Los Angeles. He would play everything from coffeehouses to funerals. Sometimes he would sing to couples on their anniversaries.

But someone with such a silky, soulful voice as Wells, whose original music has drawn critical acclaim, wasn’t going to remain a gun-for-hire forever. Right now, he says he and his band draw more than 1,000 in L.A., 700 in Spokane, 400 in San Diego and he’s quietly doubling room size in markets coast-to-coast.

Meanwhile, his music has been played on TV shows like “One Tree Hill” and “Rescue Me” and in movies. The recent single “Sink or Swim” was used to promo the sixth season of “Grey’s Anatomy.” Wells, who had been producing his own music before signing with Universal Records a few years ago, credits manager Tyler Bacon for getting his music on the small and big screens.

Wells has gotten to this place by, at one point or another, having to do it all himself. When he was languishing on the big agency’s roster, he didn’t wait around for return phone calls. Instead, he bought a table at the National Association of Campus Activities and did a showcase. He wound up booking 150 college shows on his own, becoming NACA’s most-booked artist in 2006.

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Blackbird’s Brian Jonas said that’s exactly the kind of artist he likes on his roster.

“I like that they’ve booked their own shows because I think they appreciate what goes into the booking process a little more,” Jonas said. “Not just, ‘Here’s your whole tour’ – they’ve had some vested interest in booking their own shows so they appreciate what goes into putting them together.”

And Jonas noted that Wells recognizes his realistic draw and that’s what’s going to make him a career artist.

“Up until the summer of 2009 Tyrone had never had a larger tour support slot nor toured with any larger non-club act, so everything we have built to this point has been on a purely grassroots level,” Jonas said. “Just playing to 30, 40 people in a market one night and, three or four months later, playing to 60 people.”

But that’s not to say he doesn’t play to larger audiences. Jonas noted that Wells will play to “thousands of screaming 19-year-olds” at a college in addition to the intimate supper club filled with more mature listeners.

And Wells knows how to keep it in the budget.

“We’re still in a van,” Wells said. “I’ve decided I don’t want to graduate to a bus until it’s totally necessary. On the low end, it’s $1,000 to $1,500 daily for a bus. I’m trying to build a career here. And I want to take care of the band. I don’t want to jack up the expenses and come home with nothing.”

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There’s something else he has done from time to time because of his experience with a big agency.

“Sometimes we’d get a guarantee that was in no way covered by ticket sales,” he said. “That would just drive me crazy – these people just lost a ton of money working with us. And I’m not interested in that. I’m one of the few guys out there who has given money back to the clubs – often – if I felt the guarantee was ridiculous.”

He said promoters told him that, in 20 years in the business, it was the first time anyone has ever given them money back.

“If traveling musicians are reading this, I think there’s some wisdom there,” he said. “I don’t think anybody would hold me to that if on a night we needed the money we kept it. We’re to a point now where, almost across the board, we’re making money everywhere. But when we were first starting out, some of those deal structures were off.”

Jonas was understanding.

“That’s who Tyrone is,” he said. “And I love him for those reasons but, from an agent’s perspective, I can see how it can be frustrating. But he’s the kind of guy who feels if he hasn’t earned the money, he’s not going to keep it.

“For me, being a younger agency, I think that attitude has fostered relationships with venues and promoters. And that’s why we’re in this business: to create relationships.”

Straight No Chaser

2009-11-13T08:01:00Z

Among other things, college is a time of experimentation. It’s a chance to dabble in extra-curricular activities that, by necessity, get left behind when the world of mortgages, kids and 9 to 5 jobs intrudes, right? Not always. Just ask Dan Ponce and the other nine members of Straight No Chaser, who never dreamed an a cappella group they started for fun at Indiana University would reunite them a decade after graduation and turn into a full-time career.

Straight No Chaser was born in 1996 when Ponce, then a sophomore at the Bloomington school, hand-picked the original members from a show choir he was in. Although he began with simple goals, it wasn’t long before he knew he was on to something special.

“I just wanted it to be an a cappella group like other schools had,” Ponce told Pollstar. “In the Ivy League, at University of Michigan and University of Illinois, there are several a cappella groups. Indiana University didn’t even have one. But we soon discovered that we were a lot different than other groups.”

Randy Stine, another original member, explained Straight No Chaser viewed themselves as a pop band that just happened to use their voices for instruments.

That mindset, coupled with a wicked sense of humor and material drawn from a wide variety of genres, led to packed campus events, followed by sold-out headlining concerts, three albums and opening spots on tours with artists like Lou Rawls.

However, as everyone who’s been to college knows, the good times don’t last beyond senior year. So in 1999, the graduating members of the group chose their replacements and moved on, thinking their time in Straight No Chaser was finished.

But fate had different plans. In 2006, Indiana University decided to host a reunion concert featuring the original members. Stine dug up footage from a 1998 show and posted a clip of the group’s version of “The 12 Days of Christmas,” which features an interpolation of Toto’s “Africa,” on YouTube.

Within days, the video went viral and was viewed on monitors, including that of Atlantic Records Chairman/CEO Craig Kallman, more than 10 million times.

Kallman contacted Stine, who thought he was being punked, and invited the group to New York City where they worked out a deal and signed a contract.

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Straight No Chaser’s fall 2008 Atlantic debut, Holiday Spirits, was so well-received that an eight-city tour was booked to test the waters. Six of the shows sold out almost immediately, which came as a revelation.

“After the success of singing to sorority girls, we weren’t sure if it would translate beyond college,” Ponce explained. “We were surprised to learn that we had hundreds, if not thousands, of fans in cities where none of us has roots.

“A cappella is really a niche genre. It’s been humbling to see the public embrace it. I think the key to that happening is our show is a concert that everyone can enjoy – from kids to senior citizens.”

Manager David Britz of Stiletto Entertainment sees the group as a unique reminder of a different time.

“It’s not your everyday artist development story,” Britz told Pollstar. “I think in this era of pop and processed music, people are really interested in something that’s organic and vocal and real.

“It’s not only real music sung by people who can really sing, they’re also able to impart humor and entertainment into what they do. It’s almost a throwback to the Rat Pack where you had guys who could sing and had a natural camaraderie.”

The Agency Group’s Andrea Johnson and Larry Shields, who handle SNC’s day-to-day business, told Pollstar they weren’t shocked at the public’s response.

“I studied music at Miami of Ohio where they had a couple of these groups that would continually sell out enormous halls,” Johnson explained. “And you realize that every college in the country has one, so there’s a huge built-in audience for it.”

Shields added, “I was at William Morris for several years and worked closely with Clint Mitchell on vocal groups like Celtic Woman that did well in a similar setting. The performing arts center circuit totally embraced them, but they’re going to be much bigger than that.”

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Shields isn’t exaggerating. This year, to promote a new holiday album, Christmas Cheers, Straight No Chaser booked a 50-city tour from clubs to opera houses that’s selling just as well as their first outing. Add a PBS special, a well-received non-holiday EP released over the summer and a full-length non-holiday album planned for spring and you’ve got an a cappella juggernaut.

Both Ponce and Stine agree that keeping 10 people – who all live in different cities and have families – moving in the same direction is a challenge, especially on the road, but it’s one they’re up to.

“I’m very much the director of the group, so I make a majority of the decisions,” Ponce said. “But everyone has a say in everything. It’s a fine balance between making sure that everyone is happy and making sure that everyone’s strengths are brought out.”

Now if the guys can just figure out how to live together on a tour bus.

“It is going to be an adjustment getting used to life on the road,” Ponce explained. “We’re counting on the fact that we’re really close friends and that we have great respect for one another to get us through the next three months without killing each other.”

Honor Society

2009-11-06T08:01:00Z

What’s in a name? Actually, not much. Let’s face it, the moniker attached to most bands doesn’t have a lot to do with who they are. But most bands aren’t Honor Society.

Just like those overachievers in high school who never took a study hall and enrolled in summer classes when they didn’t have to, these up-and-coming pop stars have worked overtime to make sure they secure their spot at the head of the class.

Last summer’s opening slot for the Jonas Brothers is a perfect example. While most acts would be happy just to land the gig and coast along in the passenger’s seat for a few months, Honor Society’s Michael Bruno, Jason Rosen, Andrew Lee and Alex Noyes decided they’d use their downtime to stage their own headlining tour.

So most nights, as soon as the quartet finished its opening set, they’d head for not one, but two meet-and-greets, take a short break until the brothers Jonas finished up, find a spot in the venue to do a signing, then climb into waiting cars and head to a nearby club or theatre and deliver a full show. On other stops, the band’s headlining shows were scheduled before the evening’s main event.

Frontman Bruno said the double tour definitely made for a busy summer but it was worth the effort, even if it did result in some unusual things happening.

“We had a couple of police escorts to make sure we got to places on time,” Bruno told Pollstar. “That’s definitely a first for us.”

The singer explained not making the extra effort wasn’t an option because it’s the band’s goal to “meet every person possible” and properly introduce them to Honor Society.

“This was really our first extensive touring experience,” Bruno said. “One thing we wanted to do was maximize what people got from us this summer.

“What we wanted to do is say to fans, ‘Hey, if you like what you heard [in our opening set], you should come see a full Honor Society show.’ Everyone from the Jonas Brothers to our management team loved the idea of us doing the arena shows and then doing more intimate gigs to give a fuller picture of our music.”

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The Jonas Group’s Ned Specktor, who manages the band, told Pollstar the strategy was a winner.

“We sold out House of Blues in L.A. We sold out the Blender Theatre in New York City,” Specktor explained. “It was awesome going into cities for the first time – Charlotte, Chicago – and seeing 500 to 1,000 kids show up to hear their music.

“You could feel it growing in each city. The guys really worked hard to gain each fan. They match the work ethic coming out of The Jonas Group. Anything that we put in front of them, they want to do.”

Creative Artist Agency’s Brian Manning agreed and said the band’s dedication blew him away.

“I’ve never worked with a group of individuals that put more blood, sweat and tears into selling shows than Honor Society did for the ‘Full Moon Crazy’ tour,” Manning told Pollstar. “The guys probably spent six or seven hours each day – before they’d do these second shows – literally going from mall parking lots to Pinkberry stores to find potential fans and sell tickets. They never stopped. It was unbelievable.”

The success of the tour is remarkable when you consider that the band didn’t even release its debut, Fashionably Late, until mid-September – after the Jonas Brothers gig was over.

Noyes, who drummed for the Jonas Brothers touring band before joining Honor Society, told Pollstar the group’s ‘Full Moon Crazy’ shows became a must-attend event, even for the other artists on the tour.

“Sometimes they were after-hours shows and sometimes they were matinee shows,” Noyes explained. “In either case, it ended up being the pre-party show or the after-party for the Jonas Brothers tour.

“It was really cool, with people from the tour showing up. The fans obviously liked it. Jordin [Sparks] came out and the [Jonas] boys came out and actually performed with us a couple of times.”

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It might appear Honor Society came out of nowhere at the beginning of the summer, but they’ve actually spent some time working to get to where they are now.

“The four of us are celebrating our two-year anniversary as a band,” Bruno said. “Alex was the last to join the band, and myself, Jason and Andrew were a band for a couple of years before that. We’ve also known each other since we were kids.”

Noyes said touring with the Jonas Brothers band was great, but being part of his own band opens up other doors.

“Honor Society has given me the opportunity to collaborate with Mike and Jason and Andy on a lot of writing,” the drummer explained. “There’s not a huge difference, because ultimately I just enjoy performing. It’s awesome to be able get up on stage and do my own thing with guys who are basically my best friends.”

While some bands might at least contemplate a break after such an arduous summer, Honor Society had no intention of slowing down and headed right into a full-blown headlining trek that runs through late November. Plans for next year include additional headlining dates in North America and beyond.

“We’re so proud of the album that we’ve made that we want to make sure we’re out there supporting it and bringing it to fans,” Bruno said.

“I think the best promotion for the album is the show. If you come see us live you’ll get what Honor Society is all about. I think that’s our best selling point – our live show.”

Phoenix

2009-10-30T07:01:00Z

Baseball isn’t exactly a French sport, but the phrase “hitting the sweet spot” certainly applies to Versailles-raised indie rockers Phoenix in 2009.

With the completion of its fourth album, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, the four-piece decided rather than make fans wait for it to officially drop, it would release the track “1901” as a free download in the meantime. The blogosphere picked up on it nearly immediately.

“With ‘1901,’ we wanted to present our new music but the record wasn’t out,” singer Thomas Mars told Pollstar by phone from France. “Everything worked so that we could present our music the way we wanted people to discover it.”

And discover it they did. Word spread quickly – and far beyond the band’s European fan base.

“It wasn’t really a strategy at the beginning,” Mars said. “When we gave it away, it was without expecting anything in return. We didn’t ask for your e-mail address; we didn’t ask for anything.

“We were confident enough that at some point people would get into it and listen. We were confident our songs were strong enough that we could give them away, and we were really happy to do that.”

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With the buzz already in place when Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix finally dropped, Phoenix embarked on an American tour and a fortuitous appearance on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” that sent the band on an unexpected trajectory.

Phoenix hit the ball out of the park with not only the SNL gig, but a sold-out tour of venues ranging from the 550-seat Bluebird Theatre in Denver to the 5,500-capacity Greek Theatre in Los Angeles. The band closed the tour in front of more than 10,000 with two shows Sept. 25-26 at New York City’s Summerstage in Central Park.

“It was a combination of SNL and us really enjoying being there that came through, I guess,” Mars said. “We got on SNL because people liked ‘1901.’ Some people would have said ‘You’re not big enough to be on there, don’t even try.’ It felt like the planets were aligned and everything became possible.”

Within just a couple of weeks, Mars said, the whole game changed.

“That was the best experience of our career. It’s kind of the ultimate way to present your music. We grew up discovering bands like this,” Mars said.

He and his bandmates grew up in Versailles, southeast of Paris and, as Mars put it, “next to Paris but far enough away that you’re isolated when you’re a kid.” Mars and bandmates Deck D'Arcy, Christian Mazzalai and Laurent Brancowitz all met in school.

“What’s nice when you have a group of friends that are making music is we don’t really think in terms of how long we’ve been doing this because the friendship and music are connected,” Mars said. “It’s not really a problem for us in terms of achievement or setting goals or things like that. What is nice is what happened recently in the United States with this last record, especially because it is something that we’ve always wanted.”

And even though it took nearly 10 years to have that breakout in the States, Phoenix looks at the long build as a tremendous advantage.

“The last thing you want is to be a greatest-hits band. You want to be a contemporary band and what happens when we play in the United States is that people want to hear the new songs the most,” Mars explained. “That’s why we like it there so much. It makes us feel contemporary and gives us a better future. It encourages you to be creative all the time and to make things differently.”

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Helping the band to do that is Creative Artists Agency’s Marlene Tsuchii, who has been with Phoenix “from the beginning,” according to Mars.

“She’s different from other people because she doesn’t want to just come to the nicest shows. If you’re playing in the middle of nowhere and there’s only 20 people showing up, she’ll be there to support you,” Mars said. “Now, she’s coming to the big prestigious shows and we can celebrate because we’re getting the big crowds, and it’s fact! After the Greek Theattre show in Los Angeles, she said, ‘I feel like a proud mom.’”

A more recent addition to the Phoenix organization is manager Simon White of Coalition Managament in London. He’s been officially on board for about 1-1/2 years now, but has been a fan of the band much longer, and twice turned down offers to manage while waiting for the timing to be right.

“They weren’t a huge band; they were a cult band,” White told Pollstar. “They were one of those groups that I personally felt had been ignored and could never understand why. All the records have been of a certain quality and I think on this album they made a definite piece of work.”

Phoenix is currently on home turf, with European gigs including a slew of German dates into December. American audiences who missed them the last time around can take heart: Dates and venues are yet to be confirmed but Phoenix plans a return leg in December and January, and again in spring. This time, get your tickets early.

“On this record as a band they’ve done their 10,000 hours and they are at the point where they defined themselves as both artful and commercial in equal parts,” White said. “There’s not many groups these days that can couple making great art with something that’s commercially viable. They’ve hit a really sweet spot without really trying.”

Trombone Shorty

2009-10-23T07:01:00Z

When booking Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue, don’t think smooth jazz. Don’t expect a quiet, sleepy crowd. Think raucous, sweaty, jamtastic celebrations.

“I saw him a few years ago at a club during Jazz Fest,” co-manager Mike Kappus told Pollstar. “He just took the stage and the energy level shot up. It never went down. It was just constant intensity and great playing.”

Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews is taking his first steps of a lifelong career. He is 23 years old but he has already played alongside U2 and Green Day at the Superdome, and traveled Europe both with Lenny Kravitz and with the New Birth Brass Band, led by his brother James.

He has an award-winning documentary based upon his music, been lauded by Wynton Marsalis, Lenny Kravitz and Allen Toussaint, and he’s played in front of audiences since the age of 4. (Andrews, who also plays trumpet, got his nickname around that time because the trombone was bigger than he was.)

Meanwhile, with the guidance from co-managers Dave Bartlett and Matt Cornell at 525 Worldwide, Andrews and his band are working on their first full-length before doing the late-night talk show circuit.

In other words, there’s plenty still ahead for Trombone Shorty. While he and his band hit the festivals, he is handling an unprecedented number of calls and playing bandleader for the first time.

“I don’t know where the calls are coming from, to tell you the truth,” Andrews told Pollstar. “I think we’re just getting the opportunity to do the best that we can and word is starting to spread.”

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Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue have crisscrossed North America as a support act, and returned to every market as a highly anticipated headliner. They’ve blown away festival crowds and are immediately re-booked.

“We don’t see him go in and not knock an audience out,” Kappus said. “We come in to work on Monday and get the reports from the festivals on the weekend and it’s pretty much the same: The blowout No. 1 response of the festival. It’s nice to have superlatives become the norm.”

Andrews knows how to run a show, but he was modest when it came to being a bandleader. Being on tour with Kravitz and his brother did not prepare him for the role.

“When I was out with those guys, all I had to do was wake up, learn a couple of songs, play the show and get paid,” he said. “Now? It changed my life. I actually have to be on the phone every day with the managers and the agents. I have to make sure the band is there. I’m in the driver’s seat and I get to see what it was like for my brother, or Lenny, or any other person I’ve traveled with over the last few years.”

And even after what can sometimes be a four-hour show, he doesn’t leave the building.

“I don’t even put up my horn. I just go right out there so I can meet everybody and just be involved with the fans,” he said. “I do all that meet-and-greet, sign things, interviews, whatever I have to do and I have fun with all of that.”

Although Shorty and his bandmates – all in the same age group and all graduates of the New Orleans Contemporary Arts Center – love their “superfunkrock,” that’s not to say they eschew traditional NOLA music.

“He has the jazz to fall back on at any time,” Kappus said. “He’s not going away; he has the ability to play on both sides.”

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Andrews said he was just trying to continue to develop musically when The Rosebud Agency came calling.

“I’m not sure how it happened, to be sure about it, but I’m thinking we had a guy who was working with us at the time who was familiar with Rosebud,” Andrews said. “They came and they liked the show and the next week we were signed to them.”

That doesn’t mean Andrews wasn’t already familiar with the agency. He is a big fan of fellow Rosebud client The Dirty Dozen Brass Band and in high school would visit Rosebud’s website.

“I’ve always seen how much they were working,” he said. “I talked to Dirty Dozen and they said [joining Rosebud] would be a great thing for me to do, and I trusted them. It happened, and we’re working as much as Dirty Dozen.”

Andrews and his bandmates have been home a little more than one month, total, over the past year as they continue to build their rep. Andrews said he spent the little time he’s had in NOLA catching up with his mom. That’s sweet, but maybe modesty kept him from speaking of his other good works.

“He took the initiative to visit Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu, to offer his services to help reach out to youth, especially at-risk youth, in New Orleans and Louisiana,” Kappus said.

Andrews and Landrieu’s office are collaborating on several projects, including school assemblies, to inspire at-risk youth to stay in school and possibly pursue careers through music programs. Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue are set to collaborate with students from the Roots of Music program at a forum on cultural economy Oct. 30.

LMFAO

2009-10-16T07:01:00Z

They may not be rose colored, but LMFAO’s fake, oversized glasses seem to be helping the electro-hip hop duo see nothing but funky-fresh good times.

“LMFAO is a lifestyle. It’s a way of looking at the world through party lenses,” Redfoo told Pollstar.

Partying is the name of the game for Redfoo and his nephew Sky Blu, which is evident in everything from the title of the group’s full-length debut album, Party Rock, to LMFAO’s live shows to the duo’s social network, PartyRockPeople.com. The party rock lifestyle also comes with a uniform, conveniently located for purchase through the band’s website. On stage LMFAO proudly sport their own merch, including the signature, lens-less plastic glasses, yellow zebra print spandex shorts and bright T-shirts.

Music has long been an important part of the guys’ lives as Motown Records founder Berry Gordy is the father of Redfoo (Stefan Kendall Gordy) and the grandfather of Sky Blu (Skyler Gordy).

“I feel like I was an expert at the business before I even got into the business just because I’d heard all the stories,” Redfoo said. “And now I draw from a lot of the stories that I’ve heard as far as building our business and moving forward as an artist and entrepreneur. So [my father] definitely inspired me.”

Redfoo and Sky Blu are pretty close in age but Redfoo won’t give up their exact age difference because he says they “like to keep it a mystery. But if you saw us naked, you’d definitely know that I was the uncle.”

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Although the guys obviously have a silly sense of humor, it’s really Sky Blu’s grandmother’s fault the duo is named after the Internet acronym for “Laughing My Fucking Ass Off.” During an iChat conversation, Sky Blu told his grandmother the guys were thinking of calling themselves “Sexe’ Dudes.” She replied, “LMFAO … r u serious?” – and LMFAO was born.

The guys started off as solo artists, occasionally rapping on each other’s songs. DJ AM hooked the duo up with their first DJ gig New Year’s Eve 2006 and not too long after that they threw in some wireless mics and started performing during their sets. Eventually Foo and Blu stopped DJing and started performing as LMFAO.

Each of the rappers generally writes his own rhymes and they both take turns coming up with beats while Redfoo takes charge mixing and mastering. On stage you’ll sometimes find Sky Blu on the keyboard with LMFAO’s touring DJ in the back.

As club DJs became fans of the duo’s music, a few DJs who also had radio shows started throwing LMFAO’s tunes on the air, often going out on a limb against the radio station’s wishes because the songs weren’t from a major label.

“We started taking other artists’ records and remixing them so we could develop more of a buzz,” LMFAO’s manager, Rene McLean, told Pollstar. “We did a Kanye West remix and that got a humongous reaction. It even got put into rotation on Z100 FM in New York City. We did a Lady Gaga remix, we did a Katy Perry remix. It got to the point where people were doing DJ sets of LMFAO records and remixes.”

Before the group was even signed, LMFAO’s singles on the radio included “I’m In Miami Bitch,” “I’m Not A Whore” and Fergie’s “The Girl Can’t Help It” remix.

Redfoo’s junior high buddy, will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas, urged the band to sign with Interscope. LMFAO agreed after the label “gave us an offer we couldn’t refuse.”

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Moodswing 360’s Johnny Maroney told Pollstar that “because the nature of their music is DJ-friendly, club-friendly, high energy, we actually built them in soft-ticket nightclubs.

“We would handpick these soft-ticket venues that had the proper production to still do a good show. We really focused on breaking these guys market by market. While we were building the soft-ticket, we were systematically also building the hard-ticket venues … with a few strategic plays and festivals. Now we’re showing people that we can cross over very well.”

Redfoo said that LMFAO “brings the party to the live stage no matter where we’re at. We’re very energetic, we’re dancing, jumping around. There’s just no rules … We might crowd surf, we might do a whole song from the crowd. You never know what’s going to happen.”

Maroney explained that an LMFAO show is not your typical concert experience.

“It’s not [like when] a band goes up, then the curtain comes down and everyone’s sort of humming among themselves and they’re waiting and [finally] a band goes back on. This is nonstop energy,” he said.

“The music is going to be flowing from the time you set foot [in the venue]. The opening acts come on and perform and as soon as they’re done, the DJ goes back into the music. So there’s not a lull. There’s no downtime.

“At the end of the night we just turn into a party on stage. After LMFAO’s show, it’s not like it’s over. They kind of fade out and DJ Air [LMFAO’s touring DJ] starts playing some of their remixes. They bring fans up on stage and the party continues.”

After wrapping an Australian / New Zealand support slot for Black Eyed Peas, the Party Rock tour continues with a round of Canadian dates in October and then closes out the year with a U.S. tour.

In between shows, LMFAO will work on expanding their brand, which includes not only a social network and clothing line, but jewelry, makeup and a PR firm.

Owl City

2009-10-09T18:30:00Z

Let’s introduce Adam Young – aka Owl City – not through his backstory but through numbers.

First, music sales. As of Sept. 29, in all of Universal Music Group, Young was in second place in singles sales, behind Miley Cyrus. In third place were the Black Eyed Peas.

Then there’s the tour. All the 500- to 1,500-capacity venues on Owl City’s current jaunt are either sold out or about to be.

As for radio, Owl City’s “Fireflies” is No. 1 among requests on several formats.

Finally, digital sales. The single from the full-length Ocean Eyes sold 68,392 units online in one week, not including the 650,000 that iTunes gave away – making it the second-most popular “single of the week” in history.

Now let’s introduce Owl City through the business team.

Creative Artists Agency’s Brian Manning, Jeff Krones and Fall Out Boy / Panic At The Disco agent Andrew Simon are all over the project. So are Brian Loucks, Stephanie Langs, Christine Belden, Laura Hutfless, Maribeth Abels. CAA has thrown major sponsorship, marketing and television/film power behind this quiet, God-fearing 23-year-old Baptist.

“I got a call from Rob Light last week,” manager Steve Bursky told Pollstar. “I’ve never met Rob. He was just saying how excited, obviously, the agency is across the board. Basically said it’s fun having a young band and a young manager and seeing so many people rally around it.”

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Owl City even has a fan in music industry columnist Bob Lefsetz, who recently devoted an OTT love letter to “Fireflies.”

“Some things are immutable. You’ve got to show up for appointments on time,” Lefsetz wrote. “But I couldn’t get up from the computer, I needed to hear ‘Fireflies’ one more time. And then again. And again.”

All of this for an admittedly private young man from Owatonna, Minn., who only recently took his first airplane ride and recorded all of his music from his parents’ home and put it on MySpace. Young was basically loading trucks for FedEx and Coca-Cola, dabbling in community college and experimenting with musical ideas on his computer – not trying to be a rock star. He made an EP, Owl City, that was sent to iTunes and CD Baby. It drew enough attention to get noticed by Universal Republic.

Eventually Young met Bursky, and it was time for Owl City to perform live. That was going to be a chore.

“By the common definition, I am the ‘shyest’ person ever to walk the face of the Earth,” Young wrote Pollstar, feeling more comfortable with an e-mail interview.

“I had no friends in high school. I didn’t eat lunch with the other kids. I can remember going through entire weeks of school days without opening my mouth or saying a single word to anyone. People dismissed me as being shy or insecure or weird.”

Because Young likes to be by himself, he was “disgusted” that he would have to perform live – not that he wasn’t capable, just because he preferred things the way they were.

“I'll be the first to admit I’m a bit stubborn. I hated the idea of touring because I hated the idea of ‘acting’ or, in a sense, pretending to be anything other than who I really was.”

There was also the issue of converting lush, electronic music to a live format. But Young ended up getting booked for two shows in February at Minneapolis’ Varsity Theatre and at Chicago’s Schubas Tavern. They weren’t fantastic but something interesting happened.

“He texted me on his way back to Owatonna,” Bursky said. “He said, ‘This was amazing. I can’t wait to do more. I can’t wait to go back out.’”

Young has since traded his laptop for guitar and keys and has a band that includes a backup multi-instrumentalist, a drummer, a cellist and violinist.

“We put up a Salt Lake City date really late, after the whole tour had been announced,” Bursky said. “The promoter didn’t know who Owl City was, and was really hesitant to put us in the market. It was a Sunday [show] and he was really concerned given that Mormons don’t go out on Sundays. And in 10 days we sold through 800 tickets. He said he’s never seen anything like it and he moved us up to a 2,000-seater.”

According to Bursky – who is also known for managing the unique story that is Dispatch – there are similar anecdotes from coast to coast. And he’s made it clear to promoters to avoid spending money on radio and strip ads. This is strictly an online affair.

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“The ones who are listening to me and investing in Facebook social advertising are blowing out their dates,” he said. “These online campaigns are proving to be incredibly effective and saving them a ton of money.”

After wrapping his U.S. October dates, Young will travel to China and Japan, and maybe take a jaunt to Australia. He returns in 2010 for an even bigger tour with holds already secured for 2,000- to 3,500-capacity venues.

Is Young comfortable with all this touring? He didn’t mince words.

“I love it,” was the reply from Owl City.

Infected Mushroom

2009-10-02T07:01:00Z

If the foundation of a long music career is the ability to evolve, Infected Mushroom is a band that’s built to last.

Erez “I.Zen” Eisen and Amit “Duvdev” Duvdevani have transformed it from two guys playing instrumental psychedelic trance into a full-blown electro-metal juggernaut that consistently sells out shows and can count Perry Farrell and Korn’s Jonathan Davis among its fans.

The Israeli-born duo began studying piano while in grade school, with Eisen gravitating toward electronic music in his teens and Duvdevani turning toward metal and punk.

Before he was 18, Eisen co-founded a successful psychtrance band called Shidapu, but Duvdevani’s conversion to electronic music didn’t come until 1991 when he “went to a trance party and got addicted.” In 1996, he returned home after traveling in India for a few years and met Eisen.

Although both had lots of experience, things didn’t go so smoothly.

“We said, ‘Let’s try to make a track together’ and we did,” Eisen told Pollstar. “We thought it was a great track, but it was horrible. But we had good chemistry and had a lot of laughs in the studio.”

Eventually they worked out the kinks, becoming one of the biggest names in the Israeli music business and making a name for themselves on dance floors around the world.

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In 2004 they decided they were “stuck in Israel” and emigrated to the U.S to take advantage of the broad range of opportunities. It soon became clear their country of residence wasn’t the only change they needed to make.

“We’d played live for a long time, but it was only the two of us,” Eisen said. “Duvdev never sang or did any vocals; we just did keyboard stuff and that was it. We were watching some videos of ourselves and it was boring – two people standing behind machines.

“We called a guitar player in Israel, Erez Netz, who agreed to work with us. And then we slowly evolved, adding a drummer and another guitar player.”

Duvdev told Pollstar the additions gave Infected Mushroom a big boost.

“The guitar and drums really helped us in the American market because besides Daft Punk, who took their shows to another level, people do not understand two guys standing on a stage tweaking machines,” he said. “They just don’t understand it.

“When we added guitar and drums and vocals, a lot of people reacted differently to the live show. It’s still the same music, but with much more intense power so it connected with more people.”

It also helped land JAM Inc.’s Jeff Jampol, who manages the legacy of The Doors and the estates of several late musicians and teaches music business at UCLA. Jampol told Pollstar that when a student in his class first brought Infected Mushroom to his attention in 2006, he wasn’t interested.

“She was like, ‘You must check out this band,’” he explained. “I said, ‘Why would I do that? First of all, it’s not my genre. Secondly, I don’t do living touring artists. Third, I hate the name and fourth – no.’ Finally, after about six months she told me ‘They’re Israeli, but they live in L.A. They’ll do a showcase for you.’ I said, ‘Fine. I’ll go see a showcase.’”

The next day, the student called Jampol and told him the showcase would be the following night at 10 p.m. When he asked why so late, he got a surprising answer. The band had arranged to play for him at House of Blues and put tickets on sale for the show, completely selling out the venue in one day.

“I said, ‘OK, I’ll be there.’ So I go with a couple of my staff members and the place is mobbed. There were like five or six hundred kids who couldn’t get in. And these guys come out and the entire audience starts bouncing up and down with them and yelling out their lyrics. I said, ‘Oh my God, I’m so in.’”

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Securing the services of Coast II Coast’s Ron Rivlin was a little easier. Rivlin’s cousin is the owner of Infected Mushroom’s Israeli label, so he signed them a couple of years before they moved to the States as a favor – at first.

“At the time, my agency repped a totally different genre,” Rivlin told Pollstar. “It was bad timing and I wasn’t really interested, but we ended up booking a couple of dates for them. So I went to see the band perform in Mexico and there were like 5,000 people there. They weren’t all there for Infected, but when they went on stage, they won over the crowd. The promoter offered more money to keep them on. It ended up making his career.”

Needless to say, Rivlin was impressed and had discovered he really enjoyed working with the band, so much so that he sponsored their move to the States.

With Jampol and Rivlin firmly behind them, Infected Mushroom has continued a steady climb from the underground club scene into the mainstream, racking up impressive box office numbers along the way and catching the eye of people who normally don’t notice electronic acts.

And with guest vocals from Farrell and Davis, as well as a dance-meets-symphonic-metal sound, the band’s latest release, Legend of the Black Shawarma, is likely to accelerate that move.

Infected Mushroom has a handful of U.S. dates on the books this fall and then they’ll head abroad to continue what they call their “neverending tour,” eventually returning to the States early next year to play larger venues.

While some artists might balk at being out on the road perpetually, Duvdev said it suits Infected Mushroom just fine.

“Our main goal is to deliver the music, especially trance music, to as many people as we can. So we’re especially happy in that respect.”

Kid Cudi

2009-09-25T07:01:00Z

There are some who might take offense to being called spacey, but Kid Cudi wouldn’t likely be one of them.

Whether it was a stroke of genius or simply art imitating life, the hip-hop hipster recently dropped his conceptual debut Man on the Moon: The End of Day just a few months after the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing.

While the Apollo mission may have looked to the moon and beyond, Cudi’s release, which debuted at No. 4 on the charts, blends equal parts intergalactic and introspection, featuring experimental beats and lyrical themes of alienation and paranoia.

Getting personal wasn’t a giant leap for Cudi, who also scored a chart topper earlier this year with the loner anthem “Day ‘n’ Nite” from his A Kid Named Cudi mix tape.

Cudi told Pollstar that after seeing the way his fans connected to that single, he found the confidence to push the envelope with Man on the Moon because he knew they were “ready to embrace something different.”

He explained the album gave him the chance to collaborate with Ratatat, an indie act that had heavily inspired him when he was working on creating his own sound.

“I wanted to accommodate the people that have an eclectic ear,” he said. “Working with Ratatat, it was just so easy to create those songs because it was like working with somebody that’s on the same frequency as far as creativity.

“I really wanted to take it to another level. The mix tape was me kind of holding back a lot of ideas,” he said. “I felt like I needed to step it up. I tell people this all the time – the mix tape was like a TV series and the album is the feature-length film.”

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The reference is apt coming from a guy who spent a year in film school at the University of Toledo in Ohio before moving to New York City to pursue a career in music.

A chance meeting at Def Jam introduced Cudi to his current manager, Patrick “Plain Pat” Reynolds, who was working in A&R at the time.

“There was just always something I’d liked even from the really rough demo stuff back then,” Reynolds told Pollstar. “At the time it wasn’t right. I couldn’t really do anything at Def Jam with it.”

They kept in touch and Reynolds, who left Def Jam soon after the initial meeting with Cudi, said their friendship eventually evolved into him assuming the role of manager.

Reynolds helped produce Cudi’s mix tape, which got the rapper recognized by Kanye West and led to a guest appearance and songwriting credits on West’s 808s & Heartbreak release last year.

That mix tape also earned Cudi recognition with William Morris Endeavor Entertainment’s Cara Lewis, whom Reynolds said “reached out to us and got on board really early.”

Lewis sent Cudi out with some other new kids on the hip-hop block for this summer’s Great Hangover tour that featured Asher Roth and Cudi, along with B.o.B., 88 Keys and Pac Div.

“I definitely grew a lot,” Cudi said. “It was dope that me and Asher got a chance to go out together, because, you know, we’re both up-and-coming artists and we were experiencing something new together. … Tours are the best when you’re with homies and that’s what it felt like – just like one crazy road trip. It was grueling at times, but with those shows, when you get onstage, you just forget about all that, man. It’s just so much fun.”

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The tour played festivals and clubs around the country, and Cudi said he liked the energy in the small venues.

“When you can reach out and touch the fans, I love shows like that,” he said. “They were really into it.”

The tour also gave the rapper, who performs solo, the opportunity to tap his background in film and present audiences with some cinematic visuals alongside his music.

“I wanted to mix it up,” he said. “So I brought in some stadium-status, next-level visuals to smaller venues.”

Another upcoming gig that will tap Cudi’s film background is a role he’ll play in Mark Wahlberg’s HBO comedy series “How to Make It in America,” which will focus on three guys trying to make it big in the Big Apple.

“I feel like I’m gonna connect with my character a lot,” he said. “These guys work nine to five, so when I’m talking about the grind, it’s taking it back.”

Along with shooting the series, Cudi will be busy promoting the album and the upcoming Activision “DJ Hero” video game release, which will feature one of his tracks.

While there might be time left for “spot dates here and there” in 2009, Cudi said he plans to hit the road hard beginning next year.

“I’m ready to step it up for the Man on the Moon tour,” he said. “I want to hit everybody up all at once.”

Imagination Movers

2009-09-18T07:01:00Z

When the Imagination Movers need to know whether they have a hit on their hands, the Disney Channel stars take their latest tunes to their team of 11 experts.

Scott “Smitty” Smith told Pollstar the Movers’ test audience is made up of his niece and nephew and his bandmates’ nine children, ranging in age from 1 to 10.

“You know right away if a kid doesn’t like a song. They’re not prone to fib or anything and say, ‘Oh yeah, it’s pretty cool, Uncle Scott.’ More like, ‘I don’t like that, Uncle Scott.’ Children don’t pull punches and they usually don’t lie about stuff they don’t like,” Smith said. “Your kids are not going to be yes-men.”

Smith on guitar, along with Dave Poche on bass, Scott Durbin on mandolin and melodica and Rich Collins on drums/guitar/bass, make up the blue jumpsuit-sporting Imagination Movers. The guys can be found in the mornings on the Disney Channel’s Playhouse Disney show of the same name. Since the show premiered last September, the Movers have sung, danced and bounced their way to a spot among TV’s top five programs targeting preschoolers age 2-5.

The guys’ music is popular with an older crowd too, having made its way onto a number of college radio charts.

“This is a testament to just how great their music is,” Monterey International’s Brian Swanson told Pollstar. “I think this will continue to happen as their popularity grows and more people are turned on to their music. And the fact that they are a real band doesn’t hurt. These guys all played in bands before and it shows. Most of their songs could easily be on college or contemporary radio were it not for the lyrics being more kid-oriented.”

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Smith explained that the New Orleans-based music group and TV show were dreamed up in Durbin’s back yard at his son’s birthday party back in 2002.

“Scott had been scheming this idea about a live-action kids TV show because he had recently been lamenting the lack of it on TV – everything was animated or something like that.

“He kind of threw [the idea] out at us … and we just started brainstorming,” Smith said. “It was going to be four guys, working in an idea warehouse and we were going to solve problems. And the music came when we were writing our first script for the show. We were like, ‘Hey man, we need some music.’ … The first four songs we wrote were about eating healthy food like ‘My Favorite Snack’ and ‘Snacking ABCs.’”

The Movers cite Fred Rogers and Captain Kangaroo as role models and list ska, reggae, New Orleans’ funk, Elvis Costello, The Clash, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Beastie Boys and Bruce Springsteen as musical influences.

The guys made three independent CDs, an independent DVD and shopped their concept to local public TV and “just anyone who would listen with the idea of trying to get this made into a television show.”

While holding down full-time jobs, the Movers started playing birthday parties and local festivals, in additional to booking some gigs in the Northeast and Southeast.

“Somehow someone at Disney got a hold of [the Movers’ DVD] and they came to Jazz Fest 2005 in New Orleans,” Smith said. “We were playing in the kids tent and we play a pretty rockin’ concert. … And we just had that tent packed to the gills and everybody was just bouncing and dancing and loving it. And that’s really when our dalliance with Disney started.”

The show, which kicked off its second season in early September, centers on Smitty, Scott, Dave and Rich solving idea emergencies with the help of trusty tools such as Scott’s “wobble goggles” that enable him to see through walls, spot sound waves or see the trail a butterfly leaves in the air.

Each 30-minute episode features two new songs and three reoccurring tunes. The guys, who are executive producers on the show, write all the music and are also responsible for generating ideas for scripts.

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When Pollstar spoke with Smith, the Movers were working 12-14 hour days, filming season two while reading scripts and writing new songs. After wrapping filming Sept. 18, the guys began rehearsals for the “Live From The Idea Warehouse Tour,” which hits theatres across the U.S. from early October through mid-December.

“More than anything I would say [the live show] is a celebration of music and movement and a kid’s ability to think,” Swanson said. “The band gets the kids up and out of their seats and moving, but they also challenge the kids between songs to think and use their imagination to solve problems. It’s really about not only entertaining them, but empowering them and reinforcing the message that all ideas are worthy of consideration, no problem is too big and you can have fun while using your brain.”

Smith explained that the group recently started blending some narrative from the TV show into the live concert but that it’s really still about the music and putting on a show for kids and their parents.

“One of our themes from the get-go was that we were going to be entertainment for the whole family,” Smith said. “Our songs are upbeat and they have enough complexity that mom and dad are going to enjoy them too and that’s important because we feel like as a family, they should enjoy it together.”

“Imagination Movers” now airs in more than 55 countries / territories and in 12 languages. Sounds like a good opportunity for an international tour.
Swanson agrees.

“In 2010 I expect they will be hitting larger and larger theatres,” he said. “First the United States. Tomorrow the world!”

Will Hoge

2009-09-11T07:01:00Z

F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote that there are no second acts in American lives, but don’t tell that to Will Hoge.

Not only has he fashioned a new career on his own terms after asking to be released by Atlantic Records but, more importantly, he’s gotten a second shot at simply living.

A 15-passenger van struck Hoge on his scooter Aug. 20, 2008, as he returned home to his wife and child from a studio where he’d been working on his upcoming release, The Wreckage.

“The other guy said he didn’t see me until I came through his windshield,” Hoge said. He woke up in the intensive care unit of a local hospital three days later with 200 stitches in his head, crushed lungs, broken bones and “everything but my left knee on down pretty much messed up.”

One year and a day after the crash, he told Pollstar about his physical and psychological recovery. But mostly he wanted to talk about the future and his new album – parts of which were written before and after the accident.

“It put everything in perspective,” Hoge said. “We’ve made our living as a touring band for nearly a decade. People would say, ‘I bet you can’t wait to get back on the road and play again.’ And I realized the answer was that I couldn’t wait to get back to walking again. Playing was really put, for the first time in my life, on the back burner.

“It’s not anything that I necessarily doubted I would ever do again, but it really wasn’t the focus for the better part of a year. And it’s really the first time that’s ever been the case.”

Hoge prefers to be positive about the wreck’s aftermath. The time recuperating, including intensive physical therapy at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, enabled him to focus on writing and guitar playing.

The luxury of time gave the rocker a chance to fine-tune the record he and his band were recording at the time of the crash.

Some songs no longer fit. New ones were written and recorded. With a new, supportive team at Rykodisc, The Agency Group’s Jordan Burger and manager Doug Buttleman of Artist In Mind, he believes his time has come.

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“Before his accident, people used to say, ‘Will Hoge’s been around a while; he’s already had his shot. Is it really going to get anywhere?’ My argument is that the greatest of legends were built over dozens of albums,” Burger told Pollstar.

“Will’s been doing this for a decade and made four amazing albums. But I think this fifth album is his best one yet and that he has another 30 years ahead of him.”

In an industry nervously looking for talent that will be able to fill arenas for the long haul, Burger is an absolute believer in Hoge becoming a future Springsteen or Petty, artists to whom Hoge is often compared.

“It’s hard for me to talk about Will without being a super-emotionally attached fan,” Burger joked, but he is absolutely committed to his client. He had already become a fan as an independent agent in Atlanta before convincing Hoge to come aboard.

Buttleman came on after Hoge did a showcase at West Hollywood’s Troubadour. “A friend of a friend recommended Doug, who had a small management company and a few artists I’d heard of. He came to my hotel in L.A. and we sat on the patio like two normal human beings,” Hoge said.

“The first thing he said was, ‘I really think you’re onto something great with what you’re doing musically,’ which I appreciated,” Hoge said. “Next thing he said was, ‘If we work together, you need to know it’s going to be a lot of hard work and I’m not even sure that Atlantic is the right place for you.’ He hit on all these points I agreed with within the first three minutes of conversation.”

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Buttleman knew he’d found a diamond in the rough.

“The Troubadour show was one of those experiences where I like to sneak in the back door and sit unnoticed,” Buttleman told Pollstar. “It was very clear that this was a major talent performing. I didn’t necessarily feel like the band was right. I didn’t necessarily feel the material was there. But what Will, as an artist, was showing me was talent so undeniable that I signed on immediately.”

So Burger and Buttleman teamed with Hoge to get back on track. Atlantic and Hoge had amicably parted ways, and Hoge independently released a couple of records before starting work on what would become The Wreckage with Rykodisc.

And then came that van out of nowhere in a Nashville intersection. Eight months later, Hoge was able to return for his first full rock shows back at Nashville’s 12th & Porter, where he’d gotten his start.

“It’s the most fun I’ve had playing in years,” Hoge said. “And for that to be the first shows back after the accident, or the first shows back as a precursor to this new record, I think it breathed a lot of new life into the band again. It was a real joyous thing to be a part of. I think it set the bar at a different place for where we have to be at night in and night out, even when we’re on the road. We’re definitely feeling the excitement.”

Hoge and his team look toward not just promoting a record, but re-energizing and expanding his fan base with selected headlining dates, some appropriate co-bills and opening slots for established legends he hopes to rival in this second shot at stardom.

St. Vincent

2009-09-04T07:01:00Z

Trying to catch Annie Clark, who performs under the name St. Vincent, in one place is difficult these days. In fact, the multi-instrumentalist was at JFK International Airport awaiting a flight to Europe when Pollstar talked to her about her growing popularity and the path she’s taken to earn it.

The Texas-raised performer isn’t new to juggling hectic tour schedules by any means. She’s had first-hand experience of being on the road and all its rigors through her aunt and uncle, jazz duo Tuck & Patti, since her early teens.

“I started what would be a long string of summer tours with them when I was 16. The things that really motivated me about it and really opened my eyes was seeing these true examples of very hard-working musicians who were responsible and making a living making music,” Clark told Pollstar. “I saw that being a professional musician was not only a viable career option but also saw the ins and outs of the road. It’s not really what people think in terms of glitz and glamour.

“It didn’t deter me whatsoever from wanting to do it. It made me want to do it more.”

Clark said the training she got from seeing Tuck & Patti in action was priceless.

“They’ve been a massive influence on me personally and musically. As a guitar player, there’s no better study than watching my Uncle Tuck play night after night after night. He’s one of those guitar players that you see and you can’t imagine how he’s doing what he’s doing,” she explained. “And it’s the same watching my aunt sing every night. There’s no better internship for musicality.”

Clark’s own instrumental versatility and performance style, which varies from sounding intimate and almost fragile to intense and aggressive, eventually landed her an unexpected opportunity.

“I had just moved back to Dallas after trying to live in New York City. My friend was playing theremin for Polyphonic Spree and told me they were looking for a guitar player,” she said. “I showed up at the tryout and then the next day, they said they wanted to take me with them to Europe. It was pretty amazing.

“It was three weeks and I’ll never forget that up until that point, the biggest date I had done was a club with maybe 500 people. The first show we played was the Primavera Festival for 30,000 people. It was surreal.”

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That connection led to a tour with Sufjan Stevens’ band around 2006. Opening slots with bands including Death Cab For Cutie, The National and Arcade Fire helped to build St. Vincent’s fan base and catch the attention of the industry.

The Billions Corporation’s Dave Viecelli said he first heard about St. Vincent from Brian Teasley, drummer for Man or Astro-Man?, who worked with Clark on recording her 2007 debut, Marry Me. Viecelli said Clark’s uniqueness grabbed his attention.

“Two people had mentioned [St.Vincent] to me and because one of them was Brian, whom I know and trust, I started listening to some of the MySpace tracks for Marry Me,” Viecelli told Pollstar. “I decided right away that it was something pretty special, so I started up a conversation with Annie.

“She’s a quick wit, she’s very smart, unassuming. She has expectations and she’s willing to work hard and be organized. She’s the whole package.”

Viecelli also alerted Alex Kadvan of Lever and Beam, with whom he co-manages acts such as Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings, to another opportunity that Clark’s talent presented – a flagship artist to launch a long-discussed partnership.

“David and I had been talking for some time about working together and starting a management company. One of the things we were trying to do was find an artist we can work on together … that will become the one we can build a company around,” Kadvan told Pollstar. “The first time I saw [Clark] was at South By Southwest in 2007 and [Viecelli] had been talking about her for some time.

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“Her show is powerful even though in speaking with her, or in her talking to the audience, there’s this very fragile element to it. The music is powerful and her playing is strong.”

Both men agree that Clark’s versatility, whether playing solo or with a full band, keeps evolving and drawing a varied fan base.

“She did a promotional tour before [current release Actor] and it was a solo tour. She played piano, she was looping effects with a drum stick, doing stuff with a foot pedal and even looping vocals,” Kadvan explained. “And still … she was not in any way being overpowered by this effects stuff.

“In the end, the purity of her voice and performance [would] really connect.”

Viecelli agreed, but added that bringing in a full band has given Clark the ability to elevate her performances even more.

“I think the people who really fall in love with [St.Vincent] appreciate the duality, the inventiveness, the lack of predictability,” he said. “[Clark and the band members] really are built to do this, they really are enjoying themselves and what’s coming back from the audience.

“That’s the holy grail of live performance.”

Tour slots with Andrew Bird and Grizzly Bear will keep Clark and St.Vincent on the road through late November. Plans for another headlining tour are also in the works.

Pitbull

2009-08-28T07:01:00Z

Spend a few minutes talking to Latin-American hip-hop artist Pitbull and his team and two words quickly come to mind – class and dedication.

Pitbull, born Armando Christian Pérez, grew up immersed in Miami’s rich mix of cultures and musical genres.

“Growing up Cuban-American, music is a big part of the culture,” Pitbull told Pollstar. “You wake up to it. You go to sleep to it. And Miami is like a musical melting pot. You’ve got salsa, merengue, freestyle, booty shaking music. All those things combined are what makes up Pitbull.”

Once the singer knew the music business was what he wanted to do, he took every break he could get.

“I’ve always looked for people that were willing to work with me,” he explained. “That’s why I’ve worked with everybody across the board. It was anybody who would let me get into the studio. It’s been a grind and a hustle, but it made me look to take advantage of opportunities, even if they were on a smaller scale.

“It was great training for the situation I’m in now – to be able to see opportunities that other artists might pass up, not seeing how to maximize them.”

The situation Pitbull is in now is ownership of a monster summer jam called “I Know You Want Me (Calle Ocho),” a reworking of Nicola Fasano’s and Pat Rich’s “75, Brazil Street,” which borrows a sample from Chicago’s “Street Player.”

The track melds reggaeton and Euro-style dance music and has been a crossover juggernaut. In the U.S alone, the song landed on the Latin, pop, R&B, rap and CHR charts. And it’s done just as well overseas, climbing singles charts and giving the singer his first Top 10 hit in the U.K.

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But don’t think Pitbull’s success is built solely on his recorded output. Unlike a lot of hip-hop artists, who mostly play one-offs and tour sporadically, the singer and his team have worked hard over the past couple of years to establish his reputation as a live performer.

Latium Entertainment’s Charles Chavez first encountered Pitbull while working for MCA and got his chance to manage him two years ago.

Chavez told Pollstar he quickly decided that for Pitbull to move beyond a limited audience, he’d have to make some changes.

“He’s not afraid to work,” Chavez explained. “If it’s the right thing to do, he wants to do it. So he was always working, but he was never a touring act. He was just doing shows – spot dates, fly dates – every weekend, whether he had an album or not.

“I came in and said, ‘You are a touring act. You’ve developed your own fan base, so we have to make it bigger.’ Our goal was international.”

Soon after Chavez came into the picture, he brought in William Morris Endeavor’s Cara Lewis, who told Pollstar the success of “I Know You Want Me” isn’t just luck.

“He’s got this major hit – it’s an anthem,” Lewis said. “I think it’s because it’s about him and he’s built this incredible touring base.

“He’s totally focused and he’s so charismatic. He understands the business. It’s very, very refreshing to get an artist who understands so much of the business.”

Under Chavez’s watch, Pitbull selected a band – another thing that sets him apart from a lot of hip-hop acts – and hit the road with Baby Bash. It soon became apparent he was ready to fly solo.

“An hour of seeing Pitbull in action is energy, energy, energy,” Chavez said. “The fans are exhausted, but they leave happy and want to come back again. Word of mouth is the best promotion, so he sells out.”

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Pitbull agrees with Chavez about word of mouth, but believes the Internet has made that easier.

“Back when I started grinding it out, the only people you would get to shows were locals,” he explained. “When people would come in for Memorial Day, you would have to hope to get them to come and then go back and spread it to others in their cities.”

Another thing Pitbull clearly gets is what’s fueling the trend for hip-hop heavyweights like 50 Cent, who collaborated with reggaeton stars Wisin & Yandel on the track “Mujeres In the Club,” to turn an eye toward the Latin community.

“I think what’s going on is that the Latin community as a whole worldwide is growing at such a rapid pace that there’s a void that needs to get fed,” the singer explained. “I’m the one who’s feeding it. Other artists are seeing that once they tap into that demo, they’re loyal consumers and loyal fans.”

Pitbull has been out on the road this summer doing promotional dates for his upcoming album, Rebelution. He and his band are gearing up for his third tour in two years this fall, which will take him across the U.S. and then to South America, Europe and Japan.

Chavez and Lewis agree that when he returns to the States early next year, it’ll be to much larger venues and inventive pairings with other acts.

“He’s multicultural and multi-genre, so it’s all about doing interesting packages for long-term growth,” Lewis said. “He’s all about long term.”

And for those who would categorize Pitbull as merely an ethnic artist, he has a message.

“People always try to pin me into different genres and I always surprise them. I make them say, ‘Well, maybe this guy isn’t a reggaeton artist. Maybe he isn’t a crunk artist. Maybe he’s just a good artist who makes great music.”

Ingrid Michaelson

2009-08-21T07:01:00Z

The secret behind Ingrid Michaelson’s success is Grandmaster Flash. Or rather, “The Grandmaster Flash Plan Plan.”

“After we’d decided officially that we were going to work together, we put together a plan of attack for the year,” Michaelson’s manager, Lynn Grossman of Secret Road, told Pollstar. “It started out as ‘The Plan,’ and then ‘The Grand Plan’ and then ‘The Grand Master Plan.’ And it eventually became ‘The Grandmaster Flash Plan Plan.’

“It was a list of about 40 things that we wanted to accomplish in the year 2007 and it included getting a song in a commercial, getting her MySpace followers up to a specific number, how much money we wanted to make, the number of radio stations that would play her – it was really specific. The great thing about it was I feel like we attained 95 percent of the goals that we wrote down the year before.”

Grossman’s licensing company discovered the indie pop/folk singer/songwriter’s music on MySpace in 2006. Grossman had retired from management, but she was so impressed by Michaelson’s music she agreed to get back in the business.

“A bunch of other management companies were contacting me. I think she got kind of protective and was like, ‘Forget it, I’m doing this,’” Michaelson told Pollstar. “She didn’t want me to be taken over by the vultures of the business so we started working together. She was really sweet because she didn’t want to manage anyone anymore and now she has quite a handful with me.”

Michaelson grew up in New York, taking piano and voice lessons from a young age. After graduating from college with a degree in musical theatre she started writing songs and playing local shows.

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Early on, Michaelson ticked off a major goal – landing a song on ABC’s hit show “Grey’s Anatomy.” The song, the first of many of her tunes featured on “Grey’s,” aired during a November 2006 episode.

A year later, Michaelson’s “The Way I Am” was featured on Old Navy’s fall 2007 ad campaign.

“That was the thing that pushed my music to a different level because everyone started buying that track after they heard it on TV,” Michaelson said. “Radio started to play it and the press was interested in the fact that I was getting airplay and all this attention and I had no label. And it all sort of became this big snowball.”

Two years later, Michaelson still isn’t signed to a record label.

She explained that she received a lot of offers from labels “but it just didn’t make sense because we were doing all the work ourselves. Why would we hand over everything to a label when we were doing it all ourselves just fine?

“And now I have distribution through [Original Signal and] Universal Motown so I kind of have a hybrid – it’s my own label [Cabin 24 Records] but I get the muscle of a major radio staff and marketing … It’s the best of both worlds.”

Prior to joining forces with her creative team, Michaelson kept up a presence in the NYC local scene by playing two to three shows a month on the side while teaching children’s theatre. Once she started working with Grossman and her agent, Paradigm’s Steve Ferguson, her team landed her support slots for artists like Dave Matthews Band and Jason Mraz, then her own headlining tours.

“She chooses the bands that support her. That’s entirely Ingrid’s choice,” Ferguson told Pollstar. “As far as the venues, we look at it on a market-by-market basis. She does have a lot of say in where she likes to play. She will tell us things she doesn’t like or things she does like. There’s a constant rapport between myself, her manager and [Ingrid].”

The gigs, which feature a backup band of two guitarists, a drummer and a bassist, are “very interactive and enthusiastic,” Grossman said.

“She’s just as much standup comedian as she is musician/performer. People say they can’t wait for her to sing her next song and they can’t wait for her next in-between song banter. … Sometimes she says things that I can’t believe she’s saying onstage. … She cracks me up.”

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Michaelson and her team are looking forward to the release of her fourth album and upcoming tour, then tackling what they now refer to as “The Grandmaster Flash Plan Plan Plan Plan 2010.”

“It’s kind of fuller and more heavy sounding,” Michaelson said of Everybody, which is set for release Aug. 25. “There’s just more going on, more production. It’s an autobiographical record so it’s sort of darker and a little more acerbic, a little more grownup. But I don’t claim to be grownup – I just think it’s more grownup than my previous work.”

Michaelson’s North America headlining tour kicks off Aug. 31 with dates through early November. She then has plans to tour Europe.

“I don’t plan on taking a break. I just had a lot of time off to [record] my record so I’m ready to go back out and work,” Michaelson said.

Chuck Wicks

2009-08-14T07:01:00Z

It’s been said that all you need to make it in the music business is talent and ambition. And even though good looks and a great voice can come in handy, country singer/songwriter Chuck Wicks can tell you it takes a lot more than that.

Wicks grew up on his family’s potato farm in Smyrna, Del., listening to everything from traditional country to R&B, but never considered music as a career.

Then, while attending Florida Central College in Lakeland where he was studying education and entertaining dreams of becoming a professional baseball player, a passion for country music “just kind of took over.”

“I started writing songs, but I didn’t really know too much about how to get into the music industry until somebody said to me, ‘Man, you gotta go to Nashville,’” Wicks told Pollstar.

After hitching rides with friends for a few exploratory trips, the singer got a development deal at RCA Records and his mind was made up.

“I quit college two classes short of graduation,” he said. “The reason I moved was because I had a development deal in place, so I had something to stand on.

“But a week after moving to town, I got dropped. I just said, ‘You know what? I’m not going to go anywhere else. I’m not going to try to get another record deal somewhere. I’m going to do nothing but write songs.’ Through writing songs, I found out who I was as an artist.”

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Fortunately for Wicks, the connections he’d already made on Music Row would eventually be his ticket to success.

“My record label ended up hooking me up with a bunch of writers. I’d write with two or three people but, through one relationship, I’d make five. And through five relationships I’d make 10. It just kept growing. I would be writing with some of the greatest songwriters in the world.

“I would do songwriter nights, but I didn’t really start performing until I got my second record deal. I just wanted to focus on nothing but the song.”

After four years practicing his craft alongside people like Monty Powell, George Teren, Rivers Rutherford and Neil Thrasher during the day and parking their cars at Fleming’s Steak House at night, Wicks went back to RCA and got another record deal.

While recording his first album for the label, the singer landed a spot on the short-lived Fox reality show “Nashville.” Although the series lasted only two episodes, he said the experience was worth it.

“I always looked at the show as a bonus. I was always going to work hard and run the gauntlet. I was going to write songs and make records and ‘Nashville’ was a great tool to get it out there in a different light. Unfortunately, two weeks of that wasn’t enough.”

Honing his craft for so long was a smart choice. Wicks scored a hit with “Stealing Cinderella,” the first single off his debut album Starting Now, which earned him a spot on the road with Brad Paisley last year.

And last fall the singer began dating former “Dancing with the Stars” pro dancer and now full-time country singer Julianne Hough. The pair competed together on the show’s eighth season, which Wicks says scored him valuable exposure despite keeping him off the road for a while.

“I recently did a show in Oregon and 11,000 people showed up,” he explained. “I was like, ‘Where did all these people come from?’ It blew my mind. I’ve seen my shows grow a ton, especially after being on ‘Dancing with the Stars.’ It’s so much fun to see new fans come out.

“The show took about four months out of my touring schedule. But we’re still going to do over 100 shows this year. I love it. Every week, we’re doing two or three shows – or more.”

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Shortly after he landed his first deal with RCA and moved to Nashville, Wicks secured the services of William Morris Endeavor’s Tinti Moffat, whom he met through his A&R rep.

“I kind of developed a team early on,” Wicks explained. “Tinti was one of the people that was on that team.

“She’s done a great job. The thing about her is that she cares about the project. She’s not just trying to go get a gig, she actually cares about the project. I think that’s what you need.”

Moffat told Pollstar working with Wicks is a breeze because he’s a pro when it comes to doing whatever it takes to build his career.

“He’s a very focused, hardworking guy,” she said.

One part of Wicks’ team that’s missing at the moment is a manager. Although the singer’s day-to-day affairs are being handled by his accountant Chris Wyater, he says that’s not likely to become a permanent arrangement.

Wicks’ upcoming projects include work on a second album, which he’s discovered his busy touring schedule is helping rather than hindering.

“You watch what people are responding to,” he explained. “I’ll go back and write a new song and say ‘Well, they probably want to hear this rather than this.’

“I learn something new every day. That’s the best way to learn, just go out there and do it. People can teach you things, but you don’t really find your niche until you just go out and do it.”