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Lucas Keller
April 24, 2018
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Much like everything else in the music and radio business, the role of manager has changed as the industries have consolidated and evolved into a digital/online environment. After spending years at a sizable management firm, Lucas Keller decided to go on his own and run a mid-sized boutique company that offers more personal attention - with a wide array of services -- to his roster of songwriters, producers and international DJs. Here's his take on the challenges he faces to help his clients succeed.
What got you into the music biz?
I was born and raised in Milwaukee and started out as a guitar player in a band. When it got to a point where I realized I was tied to the wheel of the bassist and drummer's opinions, I decided to leave the band and become a promoter for Phenomenon Concerts, booking Freeport and bunch of other clubs in the Midwest. I started with rock shows, then did rap shows. I moved to Chicago and started managing bands for Keller Pacific and Uppercut.
I moved to Los Angeles in 2008 and ran into a friend who told me about The Collective, which was just launching. By the time I left The Collective at the end of 2012, they had 270 people on staff.
So what prompted you to go indie?
Being part of a really big company at The Collective was an amazing experience. I got to see what a super-management company can provide in terms of having a lot of resources. I started to realize management companies drive the music business forward. After a while, I got excited about fronting my own mid-sized boutique company where I could be myself and not just one of a couple hundred people. The most I wanted working in my company was about 30 people. Currently we have 13.
I also wanted to self-finance my company instead of using outside investment for capitol. I don't want a lot of music decisions made by a finance guy asking, "What are you doing that for?" I was able to get it off ground only having one client, but today we have 44 clients ranging from songwriter/producers like Oak, Sir Nolan and David Hodges to international touring DJs like Oliver Heldens, Hook N Sling and others.
How has the role of artist representation changed over the years?
It's important to be more than a manager who just calls a label about his artists. The amount of time I spend for my artists with labels is less than the time I spend with labels for my writers/producers. You can't be a cellphone manager in 2018. Managers used to do it on their own with a couple assistants. Today, you have to offer a wide array of services.
From my experience at The Collective, I realized that my company had to have specialists in the branding and digital departments. A modern management company -- even a boutique one -- has to have services such as sync rights, digital and branding. On top of that, I think one of our biggest selling points is A&R. We have all these resources because if the artist wants answers, we have to provide for them. We take their calls when things are not going right.
Do the long-held basic principles of marketing still apply for the music business in 2018?
Today, everybody in this business can come up with a good idea at one point or another. Everyone has them, not just the senior marketing guy. If I put all 13 people of my company in a room, odds are at least one of them will come up with a better idea than me. But another important part of great marketing is not just having the time to come up with good ideas, it's having the time to execute them. There's a major epidemic of management companies with so many artists that they simply don't have the time to implement all the marketing plans they need to have. The amount of rollup you have to do for artists is substantial nowadays. Since our client roster is comprised of 95% electronic artists and DJs, we need to have people doing global marketing for them.
Speaking of EDM, I've been hearing the train of thought that its bubble has burst in terms of popularity. Agree?
We went through a 15-year music recession until 18 months ago, when everyone started getting excited again. Some people believe that the last five years was the best time for music simply because there has been so much of it. Thanks to the new tech, people have been making hits in their bedrooms; they don't have to rent expensive studios anymore. The growth of DJs and electronic talent happened at the same time.
Today, however, there are a lot more DJs, but fewer are breaking big. There is too much critical mass. We're seven years removed from height of EDM, when it was underground and just becoming popular in the mainstream. The business has since stabilized in the last few years, but don't assume DJs are all flying around in Lear jets. While there are still guys making $80,000 to $100,000 a night, there are fewer in the middle making $8-10,000 a night. That big middle section of the business has fallen out.
Not every DJ can be a commercial DJ, but now it's more of a necessity to be unique and have hits. The people we work best with want to make hit songs, so the other side of Milk & Honey represents 25 hitmaking songwriters and producers to work together with them.
Your clients have enjoyed numerous radio hits. What's the key to having success on the radio these days?
We look at radio from the two different sides of our business. There's our producer side, where we have clients such as Oak Felder and Sir Nolan; guys like that are becoming mainstay pop producers who figured out a formula for hits. Much like producers such as Max Martin and Dr. Luke, these are guys who know, at any given moment, what people are looking for in pop culture. Often, what the artist thinks should be on the radio probably won't end up on the radio. The key is having a circle of mainstay songwriters and producers. It's not just the song's production; it's coming up with the song and a concept, and letting the producers take it from there. There's just something these guys know about having hits that they can do repeatedly. The other interesting thing is they often take a different path to get that hit. They always tell you that for each success, forget everything you know and start from scratch. I'm always intrigued by their ability to continue to have hits
On our artist/DJ side, you need patience to do a lot of work. A lot of DJs who aren't on the radio in America never prioritize the effort to get that airplay. They'd rather be doing a lot of EDM fests in Asia than meet the people at iHeart. When you're a radio programmer, you may have five slots in your playlist on any given week - and there are 50 artists vying for them. A DJ who is not showing up and not doing station events will have a harder time getting one of those slots.
So we start by working with them on songs to come up with a hit, one that's authentic to their brand. Then we figure out a 24-month release plan in the U.S. and then the rest of the world. People don't understand how long it takes to create a radio hit. For some songs, you almost have to stop paying attention to them for a couple months until they're on the Mediabase charts. It can take seven to nine months to get to the top 10, let alone #1. This just doesn't happen overnight,
Does the old cliché, "You're only as good as your latest hit," still ring true?
That might actually be the whole ethos of my company. I was hanging around with someone around the Grammys and he pointed out what I've been thinking for the past two years. He said we're going to have a lot of one-hit wonders like we had in the '80s -- just less embarrassing. Streaming services have reinvented the music industry, breathing life and money back into the business. But they support songs and not artists. We're now in a playlist culture where you can have one radio hit, never have one again, and still have a career. That's why we think A&R is important, and why we represent all these prominent hitmakers in writers and producers. We can put out songs that are so strong that they float on their own, getting millions of streams on Spotify without becoming radio hits.
Which brings up the overall impact of the streaming on Milk & Honey's clients....
There are two sides to the impact of streaming. On one hand, it has created a leveled playing field so new artists can now have a hit without radio, and established artists can have two songs that aren't radio hits and not necessarily be in trouble. One great thing about Spotify is when you look at the top 10 songs on New Music Friday, there are 50-70 songs ... and not all are from major label artists. You can push indie things on Spotify.
Still, even if Spotify is in business with the major labels, they still massively support indie artists. It's an effective platform to release new music. The fact that we can gain audience by just getting on playlists is amazing. Now that's hard for me to say that as someone who represents songwriters, because streaming doesn't pay for them, but as a manager of artists and producers, artists can survive and succeed without having another radio hit. Of course, we hope they have hits, and some of these songs been the biggest radio hits -- James Arthur's "Say You Won't Let Go" and Demi Lovato's "Sorry Not Sorry" are huge global hits. Our vested interest is in one song at one point in time, but as an artist manager I'm in it for the long haul. We have to figure out the next one and the next one after that. It can be real hard to be an artist manager, especially a big pop manager repping an artist whose last two singles were total bricks. Where do you go next?
It's complicated to be a manager who reps songwriters in 2018. Songwriters don't make much, even on 500 million streams, if the song never goes to terrestrial. We have to get that leveled out by changing a lot of deals with labels. Songwriters want participation in masters and things because they need to be incentivized for hits. We're starting to see positive changes in that regard; the Music Modernization Act passed through committee. We're trying to be patient as this world changes. At least everybody now agrees that a growing streaming subscriber base is best for everyone.
We've been through vinyl, cassettes, eight-tracks, CD and digital downloads and now streaming. Have you thought much about the possibility of the next music distribution platform?
We're not thinking about what comes after streaming. I'd like to think those things are above my pay grade. There are lawyers and progressive people like the next Daniel Ek to figure that out. We're just focused on how to keep our clients in the game. With each different medium, things always need to be sorted out to work. My job in the creative field is to make hits for the available medium and support artists in whatever ecosystem exists. Me, I'm pleasantly surprised at the amazing spike in vinyl sales and even as a huge songwriter advocate, the revenue growth is a really good thing see. While I can't say what the next technology will be, I'm more concerned on how to better monetize the current system.
And what of the future of Milk & Honey ... How big a management company do you want to be?
I think about that every day and it often keeps me up at night. In fact, we've been offered two acquisitions in last four weeks, and we've got to decide what we want. For the last couple of years, the really firm answer was that I wanted to be best mid-sized management company there is. I've met too many people who I tried to sign that when I asked them why they left other companies, I'd get the same answer. It's never because they didn't deliver a brand deal or a Super Bowl spot, or they didn't get paid enough on tour. It's always, "When I called the management company, I couldn't get anyone on the phone." So I decided that Milk & Honey would stop growing when it reached a certain point where I would not be able to work with everyone. We're going to continue to be doers and grow, but we have to know when to stop. For me, that's growing our company to have 30 people in the near future.
Artist-wise, every management company wants to have a hotlist of the best clients in the world. Unfortunately, it's never that easy to develop a ton of talent. We started representing young clients, many who are now successful. We've signed clients who were in a bit of a valley and taken them back to the peak. We're fortunate to have achieved a high level of success with several of our clients.
There are management companies that have 300 people, but the artists there work with only one guy. We want to have just a certain number of artists that we can all put our resources into, building teams around each one. In our full-service company, every employee can be involved in the artist's business. Our artists love hearing from all the different people here, and seeing the different things they bring to the table. That creates a special bond, which we want to maintain.
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