Episode Transcript
[00:00:06] Speaker A: Hello and welcome to Music Industry 360 podcast, brought to you by Symphonic Distribution. I am Randall Foster, chief creative officer at Symphonic, and it is my great pleasure to welcome my friend Ari Hurstand here today.
Ari, we're going to get into your to your whole background in independent music, but I'll start with the most formal of introductions here saying Ari is CEO of Ari's Take, author of how to Make It in the New Music Business third edition. So get out there and get your new edition if you haven't already done so, and host of the Webby Award winning new Music Business podcast. In addition to that, he's also co creator of an immersive 1970s funk experience called Brassroots District that's just coming off a gig, and I think he's still high from the gig. Ari, welcome.
[00:01:00] Speaker B: Thanks, Randall. Great to be here.
[00:01:02] Speaker A: Great to have you, man.
As we discussed, I want to talk about you as a business, you as an independent business. Jay Z said, I'm not a businessman, I'm a business man.
And I feel like you really embody that the time we've known each other. I've known you as a talking head and an educator and a musician and an author and a podcaster and everything else that goes into that. But at the or of it, you an entrepreneur in the music business doing really great work.
I think your follower count and your book sales and everything else tend to point in that direction. Folks, if you're not aware of this book, it is the number one bestseller in three different categories on Amazon, and it's being taught at 300 universities, which I think is huge. I can't believe there are universities teaching music business.
[00:02:09] Speaker B: Yeah, we've come a long way, let me tell you. Yeah, when I went to school, when I went to college, there was like three universities in the world that taught, like, contemporary music business, and I chose one of them. But, yeah, we've come a long way. It's nice.
[00:02:23] Speaker A: Can you kind of start us at the beginning? Let's take away the academy and book and everything and is a great musician just getting out in the world. Let's talk about your steps that have brought you this.
[00:02:40] Speaker B: So, you know, I initially went to college for music education and kind of as a classical trumpet major with music education because when I was looking to go to college and apply, my guidance counselor in high school was like, oh, if you want to go into music, you have three options.
You can play in an orchestra and study classical music. You can teach music, be a music educator, or you can go into music therapy. And that was literally the only three options that were presented to me in high school by my guidance counselor. I'm like, oh, I guess those are my only three. Like, I was in bands throughout high school and I was writing songs, and I would have liked to pursue something in the contemporary music industry, I'd be a singer songwriter. But that wasn't an option at the time. So I chose music education, classical, trumpet. I was a trumpet player at the time. I went to the University of Minnesota. But the very early on I was like, all right, these studies are not for me. I wasn't really showing up to classes. I was starting to gig around Minneapolis. And I realized very quickly that I wanted to be a performing artist, a performing singer songwriter. So I found a music industry school in the Twin Cities at the time, transferred that, studied music business, studied songwriting, studied jazz, trumpet. I was only there for three semesters. I was in and out, and I kind of hit the ground running in the Twin Cities and started, I mean, well, let me say, while I was at the school studying music business, this was, mind you, 2005. So we're talking like this is napster had just kind of died off, but it rattled the whole industry. Itunes was on the rise. Facebook was still confined to colleges, universities. YouTube had not quite started yet. MySpace was just picking up steam. So it's like this kind of the end of the old music business, the rise of the new music business. And this is what I was thrown into. And so when I was at this school studying music business, they were basically teaching me the history of the music industry, not what to do. Because I realized as soon as I left this music industry school, I realized very quickly that everything they had taught me was completely irrelevant and was not going to be helpful. Because these courses that they were teaching, they're like, oh, here's how to negotiate a 127 page major label contract. I'm like, cool. Sweet. This is amazing. I was loving it. I got out of school. I was like, all right, cool. Where's my deal? Where's my record deal? Because they did not teach me how to get the deal. They're just like, once you get the deal, here's how to negotiate it. It was like, okay, cool. But how do I get the deal? Nobody knew. And of course, all the music business books at the time, they were like, oh yeah, once you get the deal.
But literally no one was saying, here's how to do anything. So I was like, well, shit, I spent a bunch of money on this music school education to study music business and all this stuff, and none of what they taught me was going to help me with a music career. I realized very quickly. So I was like, all right, I got two options. I can sit around, wait for this record contract to fall in my lap. Because also what they taught me at this music school was like, you can't have a music career unless you get a record deal.
That was fucking crazy. But this is like, what they said. It's like, the only pathway to a successful music career is through the labels. So you need a record deal. I was like, okay. So I could sit around and just wait for it to fall on my lap? Or I was like, well, I love playing music.
I know that that's what I like to do. I'm going to figure it out. So I chose the ladder. I was like, you know what? I'm going to just book shows. I booked my first show. Nobody showed up. I was like, all right, lesson learned. First lesson in the music industry learned. Why didn't anybody show up? Well, I didn't tell anyone about the show. I was like, oh, okay. I got to promote shows. First lesson, very important lesson to this day.
And so I kind of learned it the hard way. Fast forward five years later, I'm selling out venues in a five state region around the Midwest. I'm touring the country regularly. I had songs placed on TV shows and in movies and in commercials. I'm charting on itunes because that was a thing back then. 2010 ish.
And I'm like having this success. Totally DIY, independent. No label, no booking agent, no manager, no nothing. Figuring all this shit out on my own. I eventually moved to La. And musicians are coming to me, and they're, like, asking, like, yo, how did you sell out the Varsity Theater? 800 tickets last night? How did you do this? How did you get your song on those TV shows?
Who's your rep? I'm like, I don't have a rep. Who's your agent? Who's your manager? I don't have any of that. And then I would just get it back to everybody and tell them, oh, this is how I did it. This is how I did it. And then word would spread, oh, you got questions about the music business? Go ask Ari. And so as I was touring the country, and word spread even more and more, and I'm playing these festivals and everything, and eventually I just didn't have time to get back to everybody. And so I put everything I knew and was learning in real time on a blog. I called it. Ari's take. I threw it up. My brother's a web developer, and we just like I put it up on the blog. This was not a business venture. This was I want to share the information that I'm learning, because there is no information out there for independent musicians at the time we're talking. 2012 is when I launched artistic. All the tips and advice columns out there on the Internet were written by companies looking to gain customers or written by attorneys that don't know how to speak to musicians that speak in legalese that nobody can understand. And so there was not really helpful information written by working musicians that in the field that didn't have ulterior motives. I didn't have an ulterior motive. I wasn't charging for this information. I had no advertising, no partners. It was literally like, here's what I learned. Let me put it up. So when people would ask me questions about it, like, oh, I wrote about that. Go check out this article over here and go check this one out. And then more questions would come in. I'm like, oh, that's a really good question. And I would write a blog article about that. So that just kind of continued. And then I got more writing gigs with other publications, and they're like, hey, can you write for us? I was like, okay, cool. All the while, I'm still pursuing a full time touring music career, releasing music, doing this total DIY independent thing.
And then after a while, people are like, Yo, Ari, I read your articles. And they're helpful, super helpful, but I need something to connect the dots. Like, what music business books should I read that can help me get going? And I've read most of the music business books out there. None of them were talking about what was happening in the New right now, right in that moment. And especially because I had evolved from just writing about my experiences to when I was writing for other publications, actually sitting down with the movers and shakers of the industry and hearing how everyone else was doing it successfully, it was like, oh, shit. All of these other independent artists are doing things very innovatively, but no one's talking about Billboard's, not writing about it, rolling Stone's, not writing about Variety, Pitchfork, Consequences. No one was talking about it. So I was like, I need to write about this stuff. There's no books out there that can talk about. So, like, all right, I have to write this book. So I got the book deal. I wrote the book how to make it in the New music Business. And similar to kind of how the blog took off, the book took off because there just wasn't anything out there like that at the time. And fortunately, over the last six years or so, I've released now New Editions because the music industry changes so quickly that every three years now I'm updating this book and just kind of staying current with everything. And I'm still, like you said at the top. I just got back from San Diego performing a festival with Brassroots District. I'm still a working musician. I manage an artist as, like, I'm in the weeds of it because you have to be to really understand how it all works.
Not just from a conceptual standpoint, like how lawyers and people who kind of philosophize about it all, but emotionally, if you're not actively releasing music or you're not managing an artist who's actively releasing music, you don't know the emotional toll that it takes and that musicians go and, like, I bring that musician's empathy to everything I do. Yes, I have a full business now.
Re's take has turned into from just a blog to a full on business. We have an academy with nearly 6000 students with online music business courses.
The podcast, like you mentioned, everything, it's a full business. But everyone who works at Ari's Take is a working musician and we all have this musician's empathy. It's just like, yeah, it's fucking hard to be a musician in this industry. I think this is the hardest industry on planet Earth and I'm trying to do my part to help people navigate their way through it all as you guys are as well. At Symphonic, I kind of look at this as like, there's no competition here. It's like we're all in this crazy industry together and we're all just trying to figure it out.
[00:13:06] Speaker A: Yeah, I agree wholeheartedly. I think the mental toll that it takes on musicians is something that's really overlooked these days. I am heartened. We have another podcast, shameless podcast, plug on mental health and on some mental health resources for musicians that came about earlier than this podcast. But I'm glad people are talking more about that these days. But that empathy. I get it. And I've uploaded tracks and entered metadata and it's the worst. It is absolutely the worst. It's like the most necessary worst thing music has to do.
I love that you come at it from such an empathetic stance.
I'm going to brag on you a little bit more. Not only did you play that gig last weekend, but it says here that you've played over 1000 shows and that's pretty incredible, especially self booking yourself regionally and beyond.
I think that only when you've stood on a stage and done load in and load out and done the rest, do you really, truly get it.
[00:14:28] Speaker B: Let me tell you, it's really about until you've played empty venues to the bartender, you don't really feel the pain of what it is like to be a performing musician. And love Billie Eilish, she's fantastic, but she never had to go through what it feels like to step into a venue that's empty and play to an empty room.
There's some of these artists that lucked out and that come from the internet era that blew up online first and their first tour is sold out. Bless their hearts. That's not the 99% of other musicians that are out there that are having to grind. Like, sure, I've played sold out clubs, theaters, arenas. I've also played empty rooms and it sucks. And I think we can all empathize and relate that have had to do that.
It's really hard and it takes an extreme emotional toll. And I loved hearing Chris Martin from Coldplay talk about he's like, I still have a little I have a fear that no one's going to show up to my shows.
The biggest band in the world, because that is burned into you. Like, Coldplay was a band that played empty clubs that was like, did that grind that hustle back in the day when they were getting started. And it's like if you go through that and you play empty rooms, like, whoa, that stays with you for life. That is traumatizing PTSD attached to that.
[00:16:07] Speaker A: I think it also says a lot. I think we're getting on tangents here, but that's fine. It also says a lot, I think, about the musicians, how they play an empty room. And our local independent room here is a spot called The Basement, which I'm sure you're familiar with. And I've been to The Basement with five, six people in the crowd. And it just breaks your heart for the folks on stage. But the most recent show I saw, the Folks were on top of it.
You would have never known there was nobody in the crowd if you just video them on stage. And it blew me away in many ways because I was just heartbroken for them that they didn't have a larger crowd. But in a lot of ways, this crowd building, this audience building is something you've had to do both as a musician and as an entrepreneur. And I was thinking of, as you were talking about the questions that would come in and you'd answer the questions.
That was audience Engagement 101. And I think we talk to musicians about engaging audience. And what do you have to have to succeed? Well, you have to have incredible music. There's no question your music has got to be great and then got to have an engaged fan base who gives a shit about you?
[00:17:25] Speaker B: Yeah, you make a great point.
Yes.
I think artists get real bogged down and distracted by these macro numbers, by the streaming numbers. Like, oh, I only have 10,000 monthly listeners. Like, my friend has 80,000. I wish I was there. And then the person with 80,000, like, why do I have 80,000 monthly listeners? My friend has a half a million, and the person had a half a million is like, I only have a half a million monthly listeners. Why don't I have 10 million monthly? Blah, blah, blah. That's a never ending battle. You're never going to win that. But it's like, if you really think about it, it is about fan building. It's not about those macro numbers. It's really hard for us because we've almost looked at those numbers as like a currency in the music industry, as, like, those monthly how many multi listeners you got? And that's like, this new currency. But it's really not about that. It's about how deep of a connection are you creating with one fan? One.
And if you create that deep connection with the one fan, they're with you for life. And now you do that to two get that the second one. Now you created a deep connection with two fans that are going to be with you for life. And guess what? They're going to be paying you lots of money, way more than a half a penny per stream or whatever. A third of a penny per stream. How many times they stream you? No, they're going to buy your merch. They're going to back your crowdfunding. They're going to buy whatever you have to sell, whatever fan club thing that you're going to be providing, whatever substack patreon, blah, blah, blah. Crowdfunding merch, backstage, VIP, they're with you for life. Now, you do that to three. And now, how do you get these people, the show that you were at with five people at the basement, if they really connected with all five of those people and created Fans for life and those five people and put on a dynamite show, got off stage, talked to every one of them, now you have five superfans for life. That's fantastic. And when you get into the digital realm, I think a lot of us can look at our Instagram DMs and like, oh, the requests folder, we're not going to ever get to that. Or do I really need to DM people back? Because yeah, it makes their day, especially people that you don't know, like, hey, I really love that song. Wow, it really spoke to me. That's an opportunity for you DM them back. And you're now building this relationship. And sure, after a while, you won't have the ability or the time to respond to every one of your DMs, but in the interim, you do, if you're only getting a couple a day, respond back to that. One of our instructors for Re stick Academy, Lucidius, he's a hip hop artist. He has over 300 million streams.
But how he got there and he's got hundreds of thousands of superfans, how he got there was by literally DMing everyone back that would DM him. And he shows me his inbox, his DM'd inbox. It's like, yes, it's flooded now, but he tries to get back to almost everybody.
But that's part of the job. And it's like if your focus as an artist and you want to build a professional music career and a lifelong career and you're not just trying to get a viral moment and be a flash on the pan and get rich quick, this is the way to do it. And you lay that strong foundation. So whether you're playing to five people or 500 people you put on that show, that's going to change their lives. And similarly, whether you have five followers or 5 million followers, you can still connect on a level that's respectful and authentic and that will get them to stick with you for life.
[00:21:16] Speaker A: Yeah, no, I completely agree with that. And it's almost like I've got you on retainer saying the things that I say to artists every day.
But it really is true. It's about building the fan base, and you have to be smart enough to approach the emerging technologies and things smartly.
And for those kind of things, you have resources like Ari's Take and the Academy on the Academy front, can you tell us a little bit more about the Academy, what it is? I know you said that your enrollment is quite large, but if you elevator.
[00:21:57] Speaker B: Pitch for us real quick yeah, totally. So, Ari Stick Academy, I launched it at the end of 2018, early 2019.
We're just over three years old.
Basically, it's all online courses.
And these courses are just music business courses, so we're not teaching how to play guitar or anything like that. These are courses we have on sync licensing, how to get your music on TV shows, film, that kind of stuff. And that course is taught by Bo Williams, who's arguably the most successful artist in sync licensing. He's a hip hop artist. He has over 1500 sync placements of just his own music.
And not to mention all the sports teams have used his songs to win championships. Like the Tampa Bay Lightning.
They're using his song as their entire season theme song. The Milwaukee Bucks. The World Cup used it. I was just at the Dodgers game here in La. And they're using this song as a thing. He is kind of like epic hip hop. So he teaches our sync course. And in that course, we're actually doing something that very few universities or any other course that I've ever heard of is doing. And what we're doing is we're helping our students get sync agents, get deals, sign deals. We're connecting our students with representation. I don't know any other school in the world that's really doing that in this way. We have a whole internal vetting process, basically, where we're pairing, we're filling needs is really what we're doing. Sync agents need some kind of music to fill the holes in their roster, in their catalog. And we have those holes, we have those students, we have these artists. And so we help connect the dots. And so we've gotten over 150 of our students signed actual sync deals just for that sync course. Now we have a course on streaming and Instagram growth, which is essentially taught by Lucidius, who I was talking about, that's teaching you how to kind of run marketing campaigns, digital marketing, using the social platforms, and how to run ads effectively for musicians.
You could learn how to run Facebook, Instagram ads, TikTok ads, whatever, but not in this way. That's so targeted for how musicians do it and in the ways that's, like I say, we're like the smartest creative mind in the world, or the creative marketing mind in the world. Because we have like 1000 students in that course that are active in our community groups talking about brainstorming new marketing ideas. And that's the other thing. It's like, yes, all these lessons for the course are online and pre recorded, but we have a private community group where all of our students pop in frequently daily, asking questions, networking, sharing ideas. Our instructors are in there answering questions. Then we have regular kind of zoom Q and A's with our instructors and the students, and they can ask for feedback and stuff in real time.
I teach a course on touring, all about how to get your tour set up and going. I teach another course on registration, royalties and release. We talk about release strategy, release plans, how to get yourself properly registered everywhere, to collect 100% of your royalties. Not just some of your royalties, not just your performance royalties, but all the royalties that are owed to you from every platform in every nook and cranny of the world. We make sure you're properly registered and set up and then get a full we have like an eight month release plan, strategy day by day.
And yeah, we have various courses.
We had one on live stream, we had one on TikTok for musicians. So taught by experts in this space if I'm not teaching it. And yeah, we're just about to pass 6000 students amongst all the various courses that we have. And I started re stake Academy, honestly, because after so many schools were using my book to teach, like universities, I would get invited to lecture and to speak at these schools. And I would go to these schools and oftentimes I would sit in on some music business classrooms and I'd sit at the back of the room and just listen to the teachers and professors give their spiel and teach their students or whatever.
And at the time, more times than not, these teachers, no shade to them, but they're in their sixty s and they're teaching a course about social media, and they're seven years outdated on what they're actually teaching. I'm just like, all right, not only was it not relevant, it was just flat out incorrect information that they were giving. And these were at major universities, and these students are paying sometimes $200,000 to get a degree, a music business degree. And I'm like, this is like negligent.
This is borderline criminal. You are charging your students tens of thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars to get a worthless degree. And you're not only giving them because you know how many times I've been asked by a talent buyer or a promoter or a club owner to see my degree before they let me stand on stage? Zero times.
You don't need a fucking music degree to be a musician in the music industry, but you should be empowered with the knowledge.
Nothing against music industry programs if they do it right. But unfortunately, so many just don't know how to do it right, and they're teaching incorrect information. And it drove me insane. And I would sit in these music business classrooms and I wanted to stand up and scream at these students, like, stop listening to them, they don't know what they're talking about. You're smarter than them. You're 19. You know what the hell is going on in social media. They don't let's talk about this for real. And it's such a wasted opportunity, and it's just like it broke my heart, frankly. Like, all of these students, all of these people, these kids are spending so much money, and they're not getting the value out of it. So I'm like, all right, I know I can do this better. I know that we can do this better. So let's charge a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of what any other school in the world is charging, and let's actually give them results. And that's the big difference, is, like, we're getting our students deals, we're getting them signed, we're having them succeed. Like, the feedback we're getting from our registration, royalties and release course, which is our newest one, they're like, holy shit.
The price of the course paid for itself by the royalties that I found. And I'm like, yes, that's it.
And I'd have these kids, they'd graduate college with a music business degree, $150,000 in debt. And they would come to me and they would say, ari, my songs are blowing up on Spotify right now, and I have millions of streams, hundreds of thousands of monthly.
I want to make sure I'm getting my royalties. I don't know if I'm collecting all my royalties. I'm just like, wait, you spent $150,000 on a music business degree and you don't know how to collect your royalties?
That is negligence. How can a music business school, how can any school in the world look at someone in the eye and be like, pay us $150,000? That is a really good investment of your money. And when you graduate in four years, you're going to have no idea how to collect your royalties or run a business. Run a music business. That drove me nuts. So that's why I started Reestech Academy. And that's been the mission, the driving force behind it. Not to put these music business schools out of business, necessarily, but to show everyone out there of all ages, because we have students who are 16 and we have students who are 60, everyone in between to show them that this is for working professionals. We don't offer degrees. It's not for degrees. This is to actually help you along in your music career that you're running right now.
[00:30:33] Speaker A: Yeah, well, I mean, that was kind of my comment earlier about the 300 music schools with music business programs. I'm like you as a dinosaur. When I was in music business school, there was only a couple of them, and they were in major music markets most.
There are some that I hear about these days, and I'm like, whoa, whoa. Is there music in that town?
[00:30:56] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:30:59] Speaker A: Set at the university in the town that Footloose was filmed in.
[00:31:03] Speaker B: Right.
[00:31:04] Speaker A: No musical ever.
That's really cool, though, that it feels to me like you really democratized the information here with the book and everything else. Let's talk a little bit about your revisions of the book and really about how. Fast. Everything moves in this business. Because you did just reference the 60 year old trying to teach social media strategy. And shoot, like four years ago, if you'd have said twitch to somebody, they would have thought you had, like, a nervous tick.
If you had talked about TikTok, they would have thought you were talking about a clock. And yet these, from the live streaming standpoint and from the social really, career building standpoint, are necessary.
Just thinking about your first edition book, which I think I have your first or second, but AI isn't going to be in there. NFTs aren't going to be in there because they weren't a thing there.
[00:32:06] Speaker B: No, and TikTok and Twitch weren't in those books either, because they weren't a thing at the time. You know what was in that first edition? Vine.
You remember vine, right? Yeah. So, yes, things change dramatically, and that's why I update the book every three years. That is the challenge of trying to write a book on the music industry.
And the way that the book industry works is that when I turn in my final edits, it's then, you know, months before it hits the shelves.
Hell, the first edition of the book, from the time it sent it to the printers to when the book hit the shelves is when vine died.
So it's like, things change so quickly. So that book was those two pages. They were already outdated by the time it hits the shelves. And so I've learned from that experience. So the third edition, now, I don't say like, oh, these are the social media platforms you should be using, and here's how to use them. That would be negligent, because by the time you're reading it, it might not be true anymore. So when I discuss social media, I mostly say, here's how other artists have used them successfully. Here are some anecdotes and stories you can learn from them.
Here's how to find what is relevant and most necessary and needed, and then kind of go through it. And that's the new approach. Yeah. In the second edition of the book, I had one mention of TikTok, and that was because all I said was, oh, and musically was just acquired by TikTok. Moving on. That was literally the only mention in a 500 page book that came out in 2019. And so this new edition, yes, of course, there's a lot of ink on TikTok. There's a lot of ink on Twitch and NFTs and all of that. There's not any ink on AI because that wasn't a thing six months ago when the book went to the printers. But that's the thing. It's just like, things change so dramatically. It's just like, I mean, hell, what AI was three months ago is not what AI is today. It's not going to be what AI is in three months. So it's like this book is more so rising above the noise of all the trending hot topics of the moment. It's not about that. I'm not trying to capture this lightning in a bottle of what's happening right now in this moment. It's about do you want to build a long term sustainable career for your life?
Here is the blueprint and here is how the industry is functioning right now. Yes, things are evolving and shifting. Like sure, if you want used AI to help you create your beat or impersonate Drake or whatever, that's going to come and go and that's going to be your own creative personal preference.
And that's not really the focus of the book necessarily. But I talk about it on the podcast. I talk about it frequently. I write about it on the blog too.
[00:35:34] Speaker A: Yeah, it's certainly interesting and it is the hotbed topic du jour right now in almost every music discussion I have.
If you were to look in a crystal ball, looking at your fifth edition or fourth edition, AI obviously will be there. There should be case law in place that defends or debunks the copyright status of AI, things like that. Is there anything else you see bubbling that you're excited about? That is a new thing for Ari to learn. That's a new thing for you to grasp so that you can then pass that knowledge along.
[00:36:14] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean I'm a student first. That's the thing is just like I'm obsessed with learning and obsessed with sharing and so anything that comes out all new.
Basically anyone that's doing anything innovatively, especially in the independent realm and how they're succeeding, I'm all over and I want to learn about it, I want to share it.
So I'm not as afraid of what AI is doing to the music industry as maybe some of the major labels know. They have always been on the wrong side of history.
At the turn of the startup, when Napster came out, their method was let's try to shut it down. Essentially their game plan was like, let's turn the internet off. Can we do that? Yeah, we're going to try and let's sue fans. They were completely wrong. They were just like, they got it wrong and they've continued to get it wrong over the years. And the fact that sampling is so difficult and they still haven't figured out how a hip hop artist or any artist can sample a beat without actually getting a one on one, like a license directly from the publisher and the label, come on, how have you not figured this out yet? It's very easy to do. We have the technology, you just refuse to do it. And don't get me wrong, artists should be compensated.
But there's ways to work with technology instead of against it. And I think if you work against technology you're going to lose every time. If you work with technology, you're going to win. And I look at AI as kind of like where we were in the sampling era of just like hip hop artists using disco tracks to help create their a new song that's cool, that is creative and innovative. And that's like what we can kind of, at least in the creation realm of using AI for.
But similarly, I'm not going to be opposed to a technology just because it's new and scary. I don't know where we're going to be within three years with what AI is going to do.
Already.
We've seen it help artists, help people create innovative marketing strategies and campaigns. It can learn the tastes of your fans and then it can market directly to a new audience because it is learned. And it can write the copy for your ads. And essentially, it's going to get to a point where I believe we're going to get there. AI is going to be able to create short form music videos for you that is using your music, using your likeness, your video that is going to be specifically targeted for the social platforms of the moment, whether that's TikTok or Instagram or one that we haven't even heard of yet. That is going to come out and it is going to create your entire promotional strategy and digital marketing campaigns based on learning you, your artistry, all of it. And so I think artists can use it as a tool. And so it's like, all right, now it's like, how do we create a TikTok that's going to connect and it's trial and error. Well, eventually AI is going to have learned. TikTok is going to know. These are the TikToks that work. These are what's not going to work. And instead of us having to rack our brains, whatever, you're going to ingest all your music videos, all your live videos, all your bedroom recordings, all of your music, your biography, all the content that you have. And then the AI is going to pump out the best social media videos and posts for you with the right copy, exactly what the description is going to say. And then you can run ads on that. And then you can target and it's also going to find the right audience. It's going to be like, oh, don't just try to target these people. That's who you think your audience is. But guess what? The AI knows better. They know that your audience is actually this group over here. So I think that on the creative side, producers are going to be able to use AI to help create tracks and work with technology. Just like producers use samples and splice loops or whatever. But on the business side, artists are going to be able to use AI to help them create innovative, creative, very targeted, highly effective promotional and marketing campaigns.
[00:41:21] Speaker A: All right, you heard it here, folks. Right here. First, Ari's laying it down. Well, Ari, this has been such an informative conversation. I thank you for being here with us.
[00:41:32] Speaker B: Totally.
[00:41:34] Speaker A: Anyone wanting to learn more about Ari and what he's about. Please visit Aristake.com for information on the book. Book Aristake.com and for the academy. Aristakeacademy.com. Ari's been a good friend to symbonic throughout the years and we really appreciate you and your non biased approach to the music business because I really do feel like you sell it out good, bad, ugly, whenever you do the distributor breakdown every time, it's a little bit like, man, oh, gosh, what's going to happen this time?
But what I do like about it is that I know it's a fair shake to all participants.
So many things in this business are often quite one sided. So I appreciate you and your perspective. Everyone, please go frequent Ari's websites, read his new book. And Aria, thank you for being here with us today.
This is Randall Foster from Symphonic and we're signing out the Music Industry 360 podcast with Ari's Take. It has been informative and riveting and we appreciate you all being here with us. Come back next time.
Sam.
