10 Questions with ... Bob Reeves

BRIEF CAREER SYNOPSIS:

Bob Reeves has done it all in the business, having started in his teens as a clerk at a record store and making his way through radio and records. A lover of Punk Rock and Glam Rock, it wasn't until the 1980s that Reeves found himself thrust in to Country radio and falling in love with the format. A believer in the fact that the music matters, Reeves has built his career on the ability to build the brand of artists and maintain relationships in the industry while helping propel his roster to chart-topping success. Now serving as Reviver Entertainment Group SVP/Promotion, Reeves is continuing his tradition of success, having led LOCASH to the top of the charts, while navigating the ever-changing business landscape of the music industry. Reeves recently chatted with All Access Nashville about his unique career path and the trials and tribulations that led to many great accomplishments and interesting stories along the way.

1. Bob! Thank you so much for taking time to talk with us today. First of all, I have to ask how a kid born and raised in New York found a passion for music and discovered the music industry. Did you always know this is what you wanted to do?

I wasn't actually born a New Yorker. I was born in Framingham, Massachusetts, in the same hospital where Jo Dee Messina was born. My dad worked for General Electric, and when I was one, he got transferred to the big plant in Schenectady, New York, which is how I ended up a New Yorker by pseudo-birth. I consider Scotia, New York my hometown; it's all I really remember. I know I could drive you to the house my parents lived in when I was born, but I don't know what it looks like on the inside. I wholly discovered music on my own. I come from a family of talentless hacks, including myself. First, I discovered the music of my older siblings, but they liked music I didn't much care for. But, when I was 12, "The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars" by David Bowie came out, and when I heard that album through a friend, I was hooked. It was obvious that there was music for me, as far as I was concerned. I started to explore Rock music through there. Pretty much at that point, when I started to get records and read liner notes, I started torturing my parents with music. First, I made my father buy me a drumkit and drum lessons. I was no good at that, so I took on guitar. When I was no good at that, either, I took piano, but I was no good at that. I even went so far as to buy a harmonica and try to teach myself to play. I can still keep a beat on a full set of drums, I can still play "Chopsticks" on a piano, and I can still strum a couple of chords on a guitar, but I'm no good at any of it; it's all obviously not for me. I did read album covers, though, and particularly David Bowie album covers. Those were produced in England at Main Man Studios by a guy from Brooklyn that actually moved to London named Tony Visconti. So, I realized that there were people in the music business that were also talentless hacks, and I thought, "Well, hell! I could be a talentless hack in the music business!" That's where I started the quest, so to speak.

2. Okay, so you've decided you want to be a talentless hack in the music business. Where did you start? What was your first gig in the industry?

I got a job at a record store, because I didn't know what else to do. I got a job as a clerk at Record Town; their parent company, Trans World Music, was based in Albany, New York near where I grew up. It was a pretty big industry in Albany. Record Town was only 30 stores strong then, but they ended up being about 3,000 stores strong before brick-and-mortar went away. They do still own the FYE chain, but at the time, they had Record Town and Tape World stores. Some were freestanding, and some were mall stores. But, I opened their 33rd store on Wolf Road in Colony, New York. I made my way up to Assistant Manager there. Then, here's the funny part of this story. Around 1977 or 1978, a friend of mine from high school moved to Houston, Texas after graduation to work in the original oil boom in Houston. I went to visit him in 1978, and as I was driving around downtown Houston - near a mall called The Galleria - there was a freestanding record store called Sound Warehouse on the corner. It was a humongous store that had a separate Classical department and a video department - they rented out old VHS tapes back in those days, when you had a $100 deposit to take a tape out for the night, back before there was such a thing as Blockbuster. They sold Nintendo video games, and it was a full-service store. That was kind of my specialty at Record Town -- working at stores that had full-service and a copy of everything available. I fell in love with this Sound Warehouse store, and I just knew I had to work for them. So, I sought them out by mail and by long distance phone calls, and I found the owner of Bromo Distributors, which was the parent company of Sound Warehouse. I finally tracked him down - Mr. Dan Moran, rest his soul - and he hired me. I ended up in Houston working for Sound Warehouse by the time I was 19 years old. That was my entry to the business.

3. At 19, you're in Houston working in a record store, but sometime thereafter, you landed in radio. Can you tell us about how that transition came about?

So, I worked for Sound Warehouse through the boom in Houston. When the oil boom ended, and the bottom fell out of the economy there, I decided that I couldn't stay in Houston anymore, even though I had a good job. I was young, and I'd had a relationship go sour, and I just thought, "I'm going to move home." So, I packed what I could fit in my car, and I headed back towards upstate New York. I called a friend of mine and said, "I need a place to live and a job - I'm coming home!" He said, "Well, I'm selling time at this radio station. You should come and apply. I think they are looking for a Production Director." I told him that I didn't know what a Production Director did at a radio station, and he told me to lie. "Lie, and I'll vouch for you," he said. I went to WFLY and WPTR and applied for the Production Director job by saying that I was all about Production; I was the king of Production and knew all about all of the Production. They hired me at the bequest of my friend, who was their top sale guy, and I proceeded to lock myself in a production room and teach myself how to splice tape and dub commercials on to carts. I became pretty good at it, to be honest. I taught myself how to use most of that equipment. My friend who worked there did help a bit; he was a sales guy, but he did come out of college radio, so he knew a little bit about the equipment and procedures. I was an Assistant Production Director under someone who is probably one of the more famous voices from Albany, New York - a guy named Pete Clark. That was my first gig in radio, and it was an AM/FM combo owned by a gentleman who also owned a bunch of car dealerships in the area. He now owns Albany Broadcasting and Pamal Broadcasting; he owns a lot more radio stations and a lot fewer car dealerships now. Anyway, from there, I worked my way in to an air shift, which I never thought I would ever even think to do! Eventually, I landed a job in programming on the AM Country station.

4. So, you've taught yourself radio and stumbled in to programming at a Country station in your home state. But, you mentioned earlier - and I know just from knowing you - that Country was not your first love, correct? What made you fall in love with the format? What lead you to Nashville?

Country was not my preferred format by any means. I was a Punk Rock and Glam Rock guy! My favorite band to this very day is still the Ramones; the most influential acts for me were David Bowie and Todd Rundgren. In fact, when I was invited to work on the Country side, the first words out of my mouth were, "Oh, I don't see myself playing Conway Twitty records!" It turns out, Conway Twitty came to be my favorite singer in the format shortly thereafter. But, that was one of the few Country names I knew. I got into Country at a good time, though. It was the mid-80s, and the New Traditionalist movement hadn't really started yet. It was still very much a niche format, actually, as it was still nowhere near mainstream at that point. But, I did get to see Keith Whitley's first release and see the format start to change in to what it has become. In 1987, they decided that music on the AM dial in Albany was going to end forever, and their only competition on the AM dial was a General Electric-owned News-Talk station. They thought they'd go after it with this new-fangled satellite news thing from a company in Atlanta called CNN! So, they switched our AM to a CNN satellite news and invited me to stay on as a board op. I just couldn't see myself doing that, though, so I packed everything I could fit in my car - again - and moved to Nashville.

5. Now you're finally in Nashville! I feel like you've already lived a lifetime of interesting employment opportunities at this point in your journey. But, you've landed here in Music City, and it's the mid-80s, correct? What year is it now, Bob? And how did you find a job once you arrived?

It was July 1, 1987. I knew I wanted to work in the record business past the radio business, and I knew that the only way for me to do that would be to head to LA, New York, or Nashville. At the time, I just couldn't see myself living in New York, and I hate the West Coast. So, I picked Nashville. I had been to CRS a few times, and I had stopped over on trips between Houston and New York. I liked the vibe of Nashville, so I packed up and moved - again - without a job - again. When I got here, it was 105 degrees. I had been down before to scout a little bit, and I had talked with a woman named Sharon Allen who worked for Stan Byrd's Chart Attack, which was an independent promotion company. She was very friendly, and she gave me a place to stay until I could find an apartment. When I found something, it was in South Nashville, and I moved to a third-floor walk-up in 105 degrees. It was so hot, I couldn't even imagine that it could get any worse...and then I ordered a pizza and found out how much worse it could get! I sat on the bottom of that flight of stairs in the apartment, put my head in my hands, and I cried. "You've made the biggest mistake," I told myself. "The food here is horrible! It's hot at Hades! You have made a huge mistake!" I couldn't get anyone to promise me a gig, so I moved here with nothing and was going to run out of money fast. Stan Byrd owned a bunch of property around Music Row, and most were former residences that had to be rehabbed into office spaces. I hung sheetrock and painted and did what I had to do to get enough money to pay rent. Shortly thereafter, I met JD Haas, who was probably one of the first two or three people I met when I got to town. Oddly, being a Radio & Records reporter at the time, I knew a few people here, but I wasn't chased after by promotions people, really. But, I met JD Haas and Pam Lewis both right around the same time just after I moved here, and Pam introduced me to an artist she was managing at the time who was a kid from Oklahoma that had already gone home once. That kid came back, though, with a vengeance, and when Pam introduced us, he was pretty sure he was willing to do whatever it took to make it. I think he's done pretty well for himself, that Garth kid! But, those were three of the first five or six people I ever met in this town!

6. You've hung drywall and hung out with Garth Brooks, but you still have no career in the music industry, right? What was the launching pad for you to get in to record promotion?

JD Haas was in an office across the hall from a guy named Mike Borchetta. I had been helping JD a bunch, and I had met Mike, who was the landlord of the place. The burgeoning Curb Records was moving to town, and after speaking to me quite a bit Mike really believed in me and thought I could probably be a promotion guy with some help and direction, so he hired me! It was basically for Borchetta Promotions, but with the belief that I would become a regional for Curb when they moved to town. Simultaneously, I had met a guy who had put together a limited partnership and found a building down on Second Avenue here in Nashville and wanted to open a nightclub. Because of my radio background and never being able to make enough money in radio, I had always tended bar and stuff at night and got to be pretty good in the bar scene. This guy came and asked me to help him open a place called The Ace Of Clubs down on Second Avenue, which is arguably Nashville's first downtown super-successful live music and dance venue. I left the music business behind to go run a club, and we opened the club in Nashville, and then we expanded to Knoxville and St. Louis. I did that for the next five years or so. Oddly, I got out of the bar business because of the difficulties of living with access to free drugs and alcohol and illicit women. I left the bar without another job.

7. You've once again found yourself without a job, and you're in Nashville. At this point, did you head back to radio? Did you finally nab a job in promotion? What was your next step?

Lightning 100 had turned on by then here in Nashville, and I was actually their charter advertiser - I was the first guy to buy an ad on Lightning 100 for the club. Ned Horton, who was the President of TuneIn Broadcasting at the time, called me and said he had a second signal he was planning to turn on. He told me he knew that my real musical interests were more Alternative and Punk, and he said, "I have a signal at 94.1 FM that I've been simulcasting Lightning 100 on, but I'd love to turn it in to Nashville's first Alternative radio station. Would you like to come and turn on a radio station?" And I said, "Shit, yeah! Who wouldn't?!" So, on September 4, 1994 at 9:40a, we turned on Thunder 94, Lightning 100's sister station. I worked there for about a week before the gobsmack of what it's like to work in radio came rushing back to me, and I realized why I got out of that in the first place! I couldn't make any money and had to get a second job, and all of that mess. So, after about a year, I left radio - again - and went to work for a Rock label here in Nashville that was short-lived. It went out of business, and I remember sitting down with Vicki - who was my fiancé, but not my wife yet at that point - and saying, "Man, I came to this town damn near ten years ago with plans to get in to the Country record business, and I've done everything but that! It's time for me to focus on getting back in to the business."

8. And, just like that, it's time to become a promotions guy, right? So, who do you call to get your foot in the door at a label? How did you land that first major label record gig?

Well, I relied on my old standbys in town, Nick Hunter and Bart Allmand, to see if I could seek out a gig. Bart had been hired as the National at a new Sony spinoff label. He called me and said he thought I had always been happy working in the independent world and never really doing the major label thing. But, he said, "Look, we've got this new act. They're really talented, but they kind of have a stupid name. It's three chicks, and one of them plays a banjo, which is about as popular as having a tuba in your band these days. But, if you want to, you can come work with me at this place called Monument Records." That band was the Dixie Chicks. And, it was off to the races. I had been at a couple of independent places here and there before that, but for like seven or eight months at a time before they each went out of business. At Monument, I remember interviewing with Larry Pareigis and Bart, and then I had to interview with Alan Butler. The first thing Alan said to me was, "What are you sure of in life?" And I said, "Well, I'm certain I can't put this place out of business!" I worked there for seven years and was the only Monument guy to transition to an Epic guy when they closed Monument. We launched the Gretchen Wilson project and Miranda Lambert, and I had a really good run at Sony. But, of course, there are regime changes that force people out and on to the street or in to retirement. At that point, it was time for me to move on, so I left.

9. You've now had a taste of the major label life, and at that point, there was no turning back, right? If I recall, you headed over to Warner from there and were a part of the run that included the beginning of Blake Shelton's string of chart-toppers. How did that all unfold, and what were some of the highlights from your time at Warner?

I had a couple of independent gigs after Sony, but nothing that amounted to anything. Gator Michaels and I - Gator was the SVP/Promotion at Warner - were at the Ohio Broadcasters Hall Of Fame inductions together in Cleveland one night, and we were all walking in to the main room for the presentations. Gator pulled me aside and to the back and said, "Do you have a contract where you are?" I said, "I don't." And he said, "I would like for you to meet Bill Bennett." We talked the following week, I met Bill, and a few weeks of back-and-forth led to me becoming the National at Warner right at the end of the "Fireflies" record from Faith Hill and leading into the first single from the second Big & Rich record. My first record with Blake Shelton died in the teens, as did the next one. But, we were in Phoenix one night, and Blake wanted to warm up before a radio show we were doing. He went in to the locker room and was warming up by himself with his guitar, and his tour manager called me over to the door. "Hey, have you ever heard Blake do this?" he asked me, and he pushed me over there. I put my ear up against the door, and it was Blake warming up with a cover of a Michael Buble song he was thinking about cutting, and it was "Home." That was when we were off to the races. After that, Peter Strickland had the idea of releasing the six-song EPs that we were calling "Six Packs" for Blake, and we had a new single from a new record every four to five months. That's when the string of #1 records really started. In that string of 20 #1 records, I think I was there for the first eight to ten of those. It was great. But, again, regime changes happen. When John Esposito came in, he fired Gator and made me the VP, but then hired Chris Stacey above me. Three years later, I was fired ten days before Christmas in 2012 - and, my dream job was suddenly gone. All I ever wanted to be was the President of a record label, and I had fought for it my whole life. I made it to VP of one, but it is what it is, and it's the business we all signed up for. And, I'm not saying I wouldn't take another regional gig and start over again - I was a damn good regional! I enjoyed that lifestyle, and I sometimes wish my aspirations hadn't brought me in to management, because I would probably still have that first regional position I got if I hadn't been so dumb as to aspire to be more than that. People stay regionals all the time in this town and make a great living and have a whole hell of a lot of fun doing it!

10. After Warner, you focused more on independent promotion and smaller labels, correct? I know you and Gator briefly reunited at Blaster before it shuttered its promotion team. Clearly the two of you have a great working relationship, as you're now together at Reviver. How did that partnership come to be, and - aside from working with Gator again - what was the appeal of Reviver and its business model for you?

Look, the appeal at first was that I needed a gig! That's my constant appeal, really. I'll tell you how it happened, though. Christmas the year after I got blown out at Warner - almost a full year later - Gator and I had remained friends. We had a little bit of success at Blaster while we were there with sales for Aaron Lewis and Chuck Wicks and Montgomery Gentry. But, Blaster folded, and Gator and I were both on the street - again. Fast forward, and Gator and I decided to have lunch one day, and he said they were experiencing enough interest through Reviver in their label services that they were going to offer some promotion services. I was here explaining to him that, with all the people who had been recently put on the street at that time, I could start a really elite independent promotion team and maybe hang my own shingle and control my own destiny a little bit more. Gator looked at me and said, "Well, why don't you do that, but just do it inside of Reviver as part of the label services?" We launched the 1608 Label Services at that time with the Josh Abbott Band project, but I worked from an office at home, and I didn't have business cards or anything like that. We just worked the record, and we gave Josh his only Top 40 record in his history, which was a great accomplishment. In the meantime, Gator and I would talk constantly about the chart and how they were working records at Reviver and pushing LOCASH. While we were talking, Gator said, "Why don't you just come all the way on board and run both teams?" So, here we are, and we are working together completely, and I'm running the Reviver team and the label services team over at 1608. Now, we are literally working side-by-side again, and we've given LOCASH their first #1 record. But, look, promotion guys are only working the records; we aren't making them. We get handed something, and we're told to take it out there. If it's a stiff, it's our fault, and if it's a smash, it's all because of someone else -- I'll say that as a promotion guy. But, LOCASH made a great record full of great songs. But, even still, that accomplishment was a huge feather in the cap, because there's a bit of a stigma surrounding smaller or independent record labels. So much has changed, though, that the ideas that an independent label isn't as well-equipped or staffed or backed is just not true anymore. We aren't doing anything the same way we did 20 years ago. Brick-and-mortar, where I got my start, isn't a thing anymore, really. Nothing is the same, and independent labels are not what they used to be. Every label of every size is out there now, trying to figure out how to get it done in this new environment. Having the success we've had at Reviver and with 1608 has really been a testament to that. Listeners and consumers don't go out to the store, pick up a Blake Shelton record, flip it over, and say, "Oh, it's on Warner? Too bad. If this were from Columbia, I'd buy it." The music being made matters more and more now as we work in this new world. Labels like us and Black River are proving that it can work.

1. Bob, you've done a bit of everything in the industry, really. Retail, radio, and records, as well as serving on the CRS Agenda Committee, going through Leadership Music, and working with many other industry boards and committees. As you have watched the industry grow and shift, what do you see as having been the biggest change in the way this business operates and the way it networks?

In an attempt not to sound like an old guy yelling at people to get off his lawn, there was not a time in the last 20 or so years that I didn't know regionals from virtually every other label. Now, I look at the rosters at other labels and realize that I've never even met half of the other regionals. I think it's different now, and I think the networking thing is more difficult now. There was a time when you interacted with everybody. Even at CRS now, there can be so many people - even in the smaller location now - that there are people you literally never see all week long! You'll come home and get on the phone with someone and realize you were both at CRS and had no idea! I'm sad for that. But, on the other hand, I'm glad our jobs still exist and the industry seems to be growing - at least in number of people. If I had stayed in the retail side at the record store, I'd be working at Starbucks right now. People are consuming music more than ever now. I understand that it's harder for people to get paid with some things, but those are the drawbacks to the type of shift we're experiencing. We just have to find new ways to make the money add up, because the listeners and the passion for the music is still there. We will figure this out. The promotion world may not last forever, but it still has been fun so far.

2. You're a man of many talents, not the least of which is the courage to pack up what you can fit in the car and embark on a new adventure yet unknown. If a 21-year-old were to approach you today and ask how you made it work and what the key was to success for you, what would you tell them? What career advice would you offer?

The thing that allowed me to have success in this business is that I don't ever take no for an answer, but I also remember that you don't have to be rude or pushy about it. I know there are people that will read this and say, "Wait a minute. You think you're not rude or pushy?!" But, as a younger person, in particular, I think I was willing to eat a lot of shit to get what I wanted, somehow and some way. I still believe that if you have decorum and can get past some quirks from certain people and side of the business, and if you just don't ever give up, you'll make it. It's funny to recite what I went through to get in to the business, from being a teenager in Scotia, New York to now. And, it's funny to think about the fact that there are people I work with now who went to Belmont and took a class called "Recording Industry Management" then got an internship and a job. They think, "Well, this isn't too hard!" The shit I went through, and now you can just take some classes, get an internship, and start getting paid. Some of these kids don't realize how lucky they are sometimes! I fell up a couple of times like you wouldn't believe. Sometimes it happens that way. But, hard work, decorum, and luck will all add up to success.