Gary Spivack

Multi-artist concert festivals aren't the exception when it comes to touring anymore; with DWP (Danny Wimmer Presents), it's become the rule. The promoters of Rock On The Range are kicking off 2017 with the World's Loudest Month. Eight separate festivals - two in Florida and one in North Carolina, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Missouri, Ohio and Texas -- and are being held over a span of six weekends from April to June. After radio promotion jobs at five labels, EVP/Curation & Talent Gary Spivack decided to apply his talents into creating the most successful and entertaining concert festivals in the country. Here's how he does it:

After starting in a rock band, you segued into the business at Elektra. How did the label experience change your view of the music and what it takes to be a success?

When I got into the record label business, I was fortunate enough get hired by Elektra in 1990. I thought I would be surrounded by complete music heads who knew Revolver front to back and every Pink Floyd album; I was quickly surprised to discover how few of my peers did. Most of them really weren't music fans but salesmen, just kinda happy to be get a paycheck. I saw that as a lane for me, as a rock and roll fan, to use that to as my angle to talk shop with the people who were the real music people.

The other thing I learned at the labels was the art of patience and the fact that every band that broke cared more about doing so than the label or anyone else. It soon became apparent that if the label cared about the band's success more than the band, that band was going to fail.

Did you sense a growing disconnect between the music you thought deserved airplay and the music Rock radio felt like playing?

Yeah. These days, I deal a lot in worldwide communication with overseas promoters. I talk to them about how they curate music, and I found out it's not so formatted there. Fallout Boy and Slayer can coexist at the same festival, but not here in U.S. A lot of that has to do with how music radio is formatted - always square pegs for square holes. Despite the fact that historically, the best bands were round pegs for square holes. Pink Floyd and Radiohead didn't automatically fit a radio format, but they're great bands. And it's true: A programmer is apt or trained to automatically play the fourth single from a comfortable record than to take a chance on the first single from an unknown band. That always frustrated me ... and it does now more than ever. But with digital platforms, it's almost like the old MTV days when Janet Jackson was followed by Metallica. I thought and still think that's a good thing. Being an "iPod nation" is more refreshing to me.

How did the digital revolution, from digital music files to today's streaming, impact the labels in terms of breaking rock music, and Rock radio in terms of playing it?

It has really hurt the artistic album. I'm so old; I was raised on rock and roll at a time when I would get Rush's 2112 album and put it on the floor while I listened to the whole record. It wasn't all about the single; the digital revolution has really hurt the value of the album.

The impact of that, if anything, is on the growth of bands. They used to go into the studio with an album mentality; they weren't raised to go into a studio to cut just one song. To me, when a band goes into a studio blank; it's like painting on a canvas. You want to paint the whole thing, not just a couple of strokes, but a complete painting. How that hurts bands' growth is that now that things are so much more song-driven, when they do concerts, there's the fear of fans sitting on their hands until the hit song comes up. They don't care about the other songs on the album.

When did you decide to go full-bore into concert promotion - and why did you decide to leave the labels to do it?

For me, being a drummer and a kid who grew up going to the Fabulous Forum and the Hollywood Palladium, it was always about the live experience. So when I became a promo guy, I was a big proponent and advocate of radio festivals. I thought - and still think - they're a great vehicle for bands to play in front of 20-50,000 at once, such as the HFS festival and the Weenie Roast, instead of the 1,500-seat Wiltern. I was always fighting for my bands to be on radio shows.

After 16 years in record promotion, I decided to look for the next thing I wanted to do. I did want to stay energized and do my best to remain vital. And what drives me, gets my juices flowing and puts the hair on my arms up? The live concert experience. So I left the label world and started a boutique festival company with Danny Wimmer and Del Williams. Danny expanded DWP, put my own company Right Arm Entertainment under the DWP umbrella, and went full throttle with DWP.

Your foray into concert promotion, starting with Rock On The Range, has always been on the festival side. Why did you choose that part of the concert business?

When I jumped into this deal with Danny and Del, I knew radio shows and record promotion. I dealt with companies that specialize in building radio stations' best brands. And we immediately saw a huge hole in the concert market. A huge percentage of music fans were underserved - the rock fans. When we started this, there was Coachella, Bonnarro and Lollapalooza, and they were all in one lane - Alternative, with a little hip-hop or techno dance thrown in. There was no big rock fest with a capitol "R." Ozzfest was a metal fest and WARP was punk, but there was no straightahead rock festival. We were arrogant or naïve enough to try it, which is when we started Rock On The Range, partnering with Joe Litvak. We decided to hold it in Columbus, Ohio because it was a big feeder market that's just a two to three-hour drive from Cincinnati, Cleveland, Dayton, Akron, Toledo, Detroit and Grand Rapids, which were great rock towns that were underserved. We gave them a festival to call their own.

Are the keys to a successful rock festival the same today as it was when you started?

Yes and no. Yes in that we're big fans of bulk and tonnage, in giving fans an extraordinary amount of bands at the right ticket price -- as opposed to one or two monster headliners and a bunch of flotsam underneath. This year, we happened to get the biggest rock band on earth in Metallica. This was a decade in the making. Five to six years ago, they would never entertained ROTR, but now we're ready for them as the best rock fest in America. They're the best band with a fantastic new album. The stars were aligned for this.

No, in that over the last couple years, we became huge fans of secondary entertainment. The days of stale beer and corndogs are over. Today, we give them quality food, a great liquor village, and a lot of expanded entertainment in the sponsor village. Of course, it's all about the music first, but if you want repeat business, you want them to have a great time - and that has to include good food, good parking and good bathrooms.

Will the growing number of music festivals, are you concerned about reaching or surpassing a saturation point where too many events are fighting for the consumer dollar?

We're not worried, but we're very aware of it. This goes back to what I just said: You just can't have great bands on concrete with bad beer and corn dogs. But you're absolutely right; America has gone festival-crazy. The question now becomes how to separate yourself from the pack - with the best music possible and not by over-gouging consumers with bad ticket prices. That, to us, is the key.

This year, you launched the "World's Loudest Month" -- six consecutive weekends of DWP festivals, with many of the events featuring a number of the same bands. On the face of it, it's like a Rock Jingle Ball tour ... true?

If you look it, yes, several of the same bands will be performing at several of the shows. This helps them set up their own tours; they use "The Loudest Month" festivals as anchor dates for their between-festival shows. But even if several of the festivals have several similar bands, each festival offers different secondary entertainment. The Carolina Rebellion will exclusively have a Pig-out Village that offers Carolina barbecue that you can't get at any other festival. The others also have their own unique offerings in food and ambience.

When you're booking Soundgarden, Def Leppard and A Perfect Circle on the same bill, which seems to suggest that DWP feels that the Rock and Alternative formats are becoming less exclusive and more inclusive. True?

It's our part of putting square pegs into round holes. If we help mix that up, fine, but at the same time we don't want to jump the shark ... we are rock festivals at our core. And Def Leppard, Soundgarden and A Perfect Circle can all exist in a festival that's all about energy, electricity and a great time

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When it comes to getting artists and setting up a lineup, how much of your job is dealing with artist egos over things like set times and lineup?

This job requires you to be their psychologist, mom, dad, brother and more. The typical rock fan doesn't know about the time it takes to deal with egos and expectations. And it's not just the artists, but their management and their agents. We can't speak for every other promoter, but we feel it's important to be honest, to not lie and be transparent. We tell everyone right off, "Here is where and when you'll play, where you'll be on our ad map and so on -- and that ain't gonna work for ya, we'll have to love you from afar." We just do our best for everybody, so we all can play in the sandbox together.

Are ego issues becoming worse, or are your artists and their reps becoming more cognizant of the new world order of the music business?

Sixteen years of radio promotion have trained me well. I do my best to stay-level headed and stay patient when dealing with artist, manager or agent issues. If I didn't have that label experience, I'd lose my shit over this stuff, because it has gotten worse. The expectations of some bands and their reps are just not in synch with reality. Even so, we do our best to accommodate.

Over two years ago in an All Access 10Q interview, you advised rock bands: "Please stop making music only because it 'sounds like it will be on the radio.' Mistake #1." Since then, have you heard bands taking more chances and radio responding, or is it the "same as it ever was?"

I was told a long time ago by a wonderful boss of mine, Andrea Ganis, who once said, "Artists are always one step ahead of us" - and I agree with that. Soundgarden didn't make "Black Hole Sun" just to get on the radio; they made it because they're real artists. Unfortunately, I still get the sense that some bands go into the studio and start compromising. I implore bands not do that.

Case-in-point: One band we booked on all of our "Loudest Month" shows is called Rival Sons. I was talking to their manager recently, who said, "You know, my boys aren't exactly sure about playing these festivals after seeing the other bands on the bills." And I said, "That's exactly why we want you. You're a rock band but you're different ... you don't exactly fit with everything else we have."

You also advised Rock radio programmers: "Stop with the round pegs for round holes. Again, that formula ain't exactly moving mountains these days. If it 'sounds like something safe' to you, STOP right there." Since saying that two years ago, has Rock radio gotten safer or more dangerous?

The more things change, the more stay the same. Programmers should look at different research. A band called I Prevail is doing things outside of radio; 80% of bands on radio playlists aren't. Radio should look for bands like A Day To Remember. Obviously, you have to look for great songs -- that's #1 -- but other factors are involved, such as real fan bases with strong ticket sales, YouTube and Spotify numbers. You should also look at merch numbers - different things outside of callout research.

You also advised both: "The bottom line is to musicians and Rock programmers alike: Don't do this job to keep your job. Do your job to get fired. Take risks. It worked well for Howard Stern. He did his job to get fired. Blow up the system. Again, it's supposed to be about Rock N Roll." What do you do at DWP to live up to that motto?

At least when it comes to our booking and curating festivals, we want to superserve our audience, but we also want to educate. By that I mean bringing bands such as Frank Carter and The Rattlesnakes, featuring the former lead singer of Gallows and Pure Love, to America and booking them on our shows. Same with Rival Sons. So while we superserve fans with a lot of band such as Chevelle, Papa Roach and Seether, we also have bands such as Machine Gun Kelly to have a proper balance.

Do you feel like a defacto A&R man in searching for new bands?

We are looking under every rock and stone possible, looking for anything that goes viral, be it on radio, the Net or in magazines. There's no wrong way to get exposed to music. I totally get off finding a band like Black Maps, from Oakland, who didn't even have an agent or a label. Someone just turned us on to them.

What about DWP's future - do you see yourself staying solely in concert promotion and adding new concert sites, or branching out into streaming or other complementary revenue sources?

Marc Geiger, who knows my personal music tastes, once told me to be really great at one thing, and I can always expand from there. We're going to do our best to be great, to put on the best rock fests in America - and keep trying to raise our own bar. In terms of new places to stage concerts, if we feel it's the right market, we're there. A lot of criteria goes into picking new destinations. It has to be a great rock and roll market, with the right media to support it and the right population and feeder markets, so we're always on the look-out, but at the same time, we're always trying to make the festivals we do have greater than they already are.