0:04

Welcome, Welcome, Welcome to the Bob Left

0:06

Sets podcast. My guest

0:08

today is most Easy manager

0:10

of Marshmallow and so much more. Good

0:13

to have you here, Mo, thank you for having me excited

0:15

to be here. Okay, Now, we live in a world

0:17

where many people don't know what's

0:19

going on outside their vertical, So give

0:22

us a snapshot of who Marshmallow

0:24

is and what is what he's doing

0:26

right now? Yeah, definitely. So, I mean I

0:29

think, uh, you know, Marshmallow was conceptualizing

0:32

in the last three years. You know, we came up

0:34

with this concept of creating something that was a faceless

0:37

brand, something that you know,

0:39

everybody could connect to in a way um

0:41

and essentially essentially like in a movement.

0:44

Um. And within the last you know, three years,

0:46

we've you know, he's got he's in the number

0:49

eight most streamed artists on Spotify in the world right

0:51

now, number at the most streamed. Okay,

0:53

that's that's what for twenty that's right this

0:56

very second, or for right

0:58

this second. Okay, So let's just to get the

1:00

ark. Have you been doing it for three years? What was

1:02

he last year? The last two years, we

1:04

we were feeding our core more so, Okay, I've

1:06

interrupted you Okay, so you do you had this movement?

1:09

Yeah, so we started this movement. UM fed

1:11

the core dance fans for the last two years

1:13

and then it wasn't until August

1:15

so last year that we released our first kind of commercial

1:17

single. UM was a record called Silence with Khalid

1:20

came out through our c a UM we're unsigned

1:23

UM, so we did a single deal with them, and then

1:25

we released the next single with Selina

1:27

Gomez called Wolves on an interscope, and

1:30

then we just released another single with

1:32

Warner called Friends

1:34

with Anne Marie. She's really

1:36

well known person the UK. She's dope and

1:39

that's how we've been kind of running it. So

1:41

as we sit here, how old are you? Seven?

1:44

This is the younger generation and you're from

1:47

southern California, right correct. I went to UC

1:49

Riverside, grew up in a thinyland Empire

1:51

and Corona UM and then moved to

1:53

l about four and a half years ago when I joined Red Light. Okay,

1:55

but before we get there, you grow up in

1:58

East l A. And your parents do what for

2:00

a living? So my mom worked

2:02

in department store, she worked at Robinson's May growing

2:05

up, and then my dad, my dad passed away when I was

2:07

seventeen. But my dad was

2:09

like a general contractor. My family was like

2:11

a low class We weren't rich at all.

2:13

Of his poor Okay, your

2:15

father dies when you're seventeen, that much really

2:17

fuck you up? Yeah? Yeah, it was, to be

2:19

honest, I mean at the time, like I

2:22

look at it like it's a blessing in disguise in a way though, Like

2:24

my dad was my best friend. But I wouldn't

2:26

be sitting where I am today if if you know, he would

2:28

have never let me go into music, like you know, being middle

2:30

Easter. And I think that the stereotype is you're either a

2:33

doctor, lawyer, engineer, nothing,

2:35

you know, so none of the none of the things that

2:37

you know, lad to the path here

2:40

would have happened if you know that didn't

2:42

happen in a sense. But um

2:44

it also you know, it was my biggest motivation. And

2:46

I mean I didn't ever want to go to school. I was like,

2:48

you know, I don't need to go to college. But you know,

2:50

before my dad passed away, I promised him, you know, I

2:52

would go to college, you get a degree. Did that

2:54

for him, and it's always been kind of like that motivation

2:57

for me. And as you get older, you see the sacrifices

2:59

your parents make for you as a kid, and

3:01

none of it ever makes sense until you're older, and until

3:03

you get to the age where like wow, like now

3:05

it all makes sense. I used to think my parents were stupid, and now I'm

3:08

like, wow, they've you know, really

3:10

done so much to get us to where we're at and really

3:12

make sure that you know, we never had to deal with the things we have

3:14

to deal with now. Now. Were your parents born in America?

3:16

No, So my parents are from Afghanistan. They came here

3:19

like forty years ago when the Russians invaded Afghanistan.

3:21

They left Um and came here as well.

3:24

Afghanistan that's a crazy

3:26

country. The Russians couldn't win, The Americans coodn't

3:28

win. Did your family have a big identity

3:30

of the Afghanistan aards soon as they moved to America, the

3:33

yeah, they left that behind. And so you've never

3:35

been to actually went uh? I

3:38

was thirteen. I went Um

3:40

for a month. My dad was back out there, and then

3:42

my mom started working with the military as a translator

3:44

for a little bit, and then I went there to see my dad

3:46

for like a month, when I was thirteen, Uh, and it was

3:48

I mean it's a culture shock, you know, growing up in

3:51

the Inlanta Empire, going to a country like that

3:53

where it's a third world country.

3:55

It's it's definitely different. But it was, you know, quite

3:57

an eye opening experience. Well. Tom

3:59

Freshen used to run MTV after

4:02

leaving Viacom,

4:04

he invested in television stations and

4:06

then we were at lunch about a year ago and he was saying, they

4:08

killed everybody involved. I mean, it's

4:11

really got more dangerous within the

4:13

last year. Definitely, definitely. Yeah.

4:15

I think they just don't They don't showed on the news as much

4:17

anymore because they've moved on to different topics.

4:19

But but yeah, I mean it hasn't settled

4:21

down right exactly. Like I watched five

4:23

Vice News, which Tom has also involved

4:26

in, and you see pictures of what's really going on

4:28

in Syria and it's like you're horrified.

4:31

It's crazy. It's crazy. Okay. So anyway,

4:33

you're in the Inland Empire growing up,

4:35

are you a music fan? Um?

4:37

I was always intrigued by but my dad wouldn't

4:39

let me listen to rap music growing up. He wouldn't let me listen

4:42

to it. No. No. I remember when I was like, I was

4:44

like seven or eight and Coolio

4:46

had this song where it was like one, two,

4:48

three, four, get your women up off the floor, and I remember

4:50

playing it in the car with my dad and from that

4:52

moment he was like, you can never listen to this to this

4:55

again, like because do you know what this means? And

4:57

I'm like no, so then uh. And then

4:59

I remember I took my cousin had like dmx

5:01

is album. I think it was like when

5:04

I felt what it was called, but it was you

5:07

know, I took it from my cousin. I used to hide it under all my

5:09

clothes, and anytime my dad was at home,

5:11

I would listen to d MX and be like, oh my god, like

5:13

I love I love wrap, I love this. Uh.

5:16

And then it wasn't until I was like fourteen or fifteen. I

5:18

think I was sixteen I got my

5:20

first car. UM. I just kind of gradually

5:22

started listening to it again and like not hiding

5:25

it, and then he was cool with it. Um so he

5:27

turned around, he turned around out. But I think at that point

5:29

I was seven years old listening to a song talking about put your

5:31

girl on the right right right, So

5:34

there are how many kids in your family? I have one little sister,

5:36

and what does she do now? She's in nursing school.

5:39

Okay, So you go through high

5:41

school, there's you're just listening. You're a music

5:43

fan. You're not in the business or dreaming

5:46

about being in the business. Yeah, not

5:48

not at all. Um. You know. So when

5:50

I was in high school, um,

5:52

you know, I my senior year, I was graduating

5:54

and that's when my dad passed away. So you know, it

5:56

took its toll on me where you know, my

5:59

mom wasn't really working, so I was having

6:01

to do everything I could to kind of provide

6:03

for the family. And then um, through

6:05

that though, I fell in love with electronic music. Just

6:07

it was one kind of vertical where I could escape

6:09

through and listen to and it was something

6:11

that like I loved, um And then

6:14

I was like, you know this is this is cool?

6:16

Okay, So this is like two thousand seven

6:18

or so. How do you

6:20

find electronic music? At that point? I think

6:23

that's when I had just a friend of mine

6:25

was like, yo, you know there's this festival um called

6:27

Nocturnal Wonderland in

6:29

Santa Berardino, Like, let's let's go to this

6:31

festival. Um, and I was

6:33

just like okay, whatever, like I've never been to a festival,

6:36

and I went and then just kind of saw

6:38

the culture of

6:40

of you know, this

6:42

this dance music. In a sense, it was just like this

6:44

is kind of cool. Um. And then just really

6:46

like the music. And then I connected with the music,

6:48

and then you know, it was like

6:50

okay, maybe uh, maybe I want to learn

6:52

how to be more involved in a sense, and

6:54

maybe I want to start deejaying. Um.

6:57

So then I bought some turntables um,

7:00

and then started with that, and then it

7:03

was just like, you know, I need to I need to make my

7:05

money back for these turntable. I spent a lot of money on these

7:07

at the time, and I found

7:09

a local dive bar. In the dive bar,

7:11

you're still in high school, I just I

7:13

graduated now, so I was in college.

7:16

Um, so I was I turned I think at this point I

7:18

was twenty one, and I found like there

7:20

was a dive bar down the street from my house. One side

7:23

was a strip club and then once I was a sports bar

7:25

and you could walk through each side. So

7:27

I convinced the owner to allow me

7:29

to start like a E d m night every Thursday night

7:31

there and in Corona. Um

7:34

and uh you know this, this

7:36

dive bar was on the show Bar Rescue Like that's how much

7:39

a piece of shade it was. It was the worst thing ever,

7:41

but it worked. At that time, electronic

7:43

music was just like, you know, starting to build, and

7:46

um, every Thursday night I was bringing you know,

7:48

a couple of hundred kids from all over the Inland emp party

7:50

to this bar to listen to like you

7:52

know, dubstep and all this other stuff. Um.

7:55

And then from there just kind of started building. And

7:58

then uh you I was like, okay,

8:00

I need to scale this up along. Okay, before you

8:02

get there, you're in college, you see riverside.

8:05

Are you doing anything with music? Then? Before you hit twenty

8:07

one, I was a finance major, okay,

8:10

and that's what you graduated in. So

8:12

you buy the turntables because you want to get

8:15

further into the scene and

8:18

a little bit slower. How do you decide, Okay,

8:20

I'm gonna go approach this guy in the bar. Most

8:22

people are not that motivated. Yeah, I mean

8:24

for me, I was, you know, I was a kid that was you

8:26

know, as a kids selling candy to all the neighborhood

8:29

kids from Costco. And then I was as I got

8:31

older, I was, you know, selling everything

8:33

I could. You know. I was coming to l A and getting like, you

8:36

know, fake jeans from the alley and taking it to all

8:38

the kids, telling you know, and selling it to the kids at school

8:40

like you know, I've got true religions about these geans.

8:42

Like I was always like you

8:44

know, looking, always like hustling

8:46

in that. And so you're a self starter. If it wasn't music,

8:49

could be successful doing something else. I mean I

8:51

don't know, but yeah, I would think I would think, so okay,

8:54

So the concept of I have these turntables, how

8:56

to get my money back and I got to find a place

8:58

to dj? It's not a you step for you,

9:01

not really, no, I mean it

9:03

was just something of like, you know, I was

9:06

how can I make money off this? Off this? You know,

9:08

And at that time, DJs were starting to become cool and

9:10

it was a new trend, and was like, okay, maybe

9:12

I can learn this and

9:14

and kind of go with it. Were you any good in retrospect?

9:17

No? I was terrible. I was, you

9:19

know, I looked back at myself like like, dude, I suck.

9:21

I don't know what I was doing so, um,

9:23

but it worked. I mean it

9:26

worked in a sense of like I was bringing

9:28

you know, two hundred three hundred kids every Thursday night

9:30

and created Okay, so how did you get the two three

9:33

hundred kids there? Facebook? So Facebook

9:35

had just kind of Facebook was like you know and

9:37

its things. So I was, you know, I was

9:39

getting you know, these all these girls

9:41

from school and stuff like that, getting their personal

9:44

facebooks from them, inviting all of their friends

9:46

and sending them messages acting like I was a

9:48

girl being like, you know, hey, come meet me at this show

9:51

on Thursday. You know. So I was just

9:53

guerrilla marketing and then hiring you know, other

9:55

kids to go and put flyers

9:57

all over you know, UC, Riverside and r CC

10:00

and all these different colleges and just kind

10:02

of just doing doing what a promoter

10:04

would do in a sense. Um and

10:06

uh, you know, spread the word

10:09

and then the rest of the word of mouth because you know, um,

10:12

we had a bunch of girls there all the time. So when girls

10:14

are there, guys want to come. That's for sure.

10:16

Okay, So you start doing it and are you making any

10:18

money? Yeah? So you know the first couple of nights,

10:20

I was getting like three hundred dollars every Thursday, and I was

10:22

like okay, and then finally I was like, you know what,

10:24

like, I know I have something here at the bar never has

10:27

this many people here. So I went to the owner and was like, you

10:29

need to give me dollars

10:31

every night cash when your

10:33

bar exceeds

10:36

in sales. And she's like, you're crazy. And

10:38

I was like, fine, I'll go to another bar. And then

10:40

she's like okay, fine, like I'll give it to you. And then

10:42

literally every Thursday for like six months,

10:44

like her bar was doing like, you

10:47

know, five grand a night, which for her was a lot.

10:49

So you know, I was walking in with like hundred

10:52

plus a bonus sometimes when I was like

10:54

cool. You know. One you

10:56

know on my side job was working at I was

10:59

I was a sales for Hewlett Packard, so

11:01

I was I was on the weekends working

11:03

as a rep at Best By Selling. Okay,

11:06

okay, wait wait wait when did you start being

11:08

a sales rep? So I started that when I was eighteen. Okay,

11:12

so your father is now deceased, and

11:14

are you doing it for the family or for your own

11:16

money or for college? It was for more

11:18

so just a family and kind of my own like spending

11:21

money. Okay, so how do you become a sales rep for HP?

11:23

One of my cousins was doing that and

11:26

then it was like, hey, like you know and the So I

11:28

started at sixteen, I started working in the movie theaters.

11:30

So I was cleaning theaters at okay, So

11:32

your father is still alive, so money

11:34

isn't you know, you're not up for class, but money

11:37

you you want to you want to work or your family

11:39

says you gotta work. They were like, you have to

11:41

work, you have to start a start. So

11:43

at sixteen, I started working at the movie

11:45

theaters. And you said your job was cleaning

11:47

up. Yes, I was an husher. So I was cleaning movie theater,

11:49

cleaning the popcorn and all that stuff, and occasionally

11:52

would find something cool in the theater. Um

11:54

like what it's like someone dropped something

11:57

and it was but you wouldn't

11:59

turn it into lost if I would turn if it was like a wall

12:01

and or something like that would turn it in. But sometimes you find

12:03

cool stuff. Now I'm like, what

12:05

if watch I

12:08

don't even know. I can't even say okay, you

12:10

know, but you can't okay, and

12:12

are you enjoying doing that job? No,

12:15

no, I mean it was. It wasn't cool at all because I would

12:17

see all the kids you know from school at that time,

12:19

my high school coming in watching and I'm the

12:21

one cleaning the theater. But it was a job.

12:23

I don't really care whatever, How wowing do you do that

12:25

for? I did that for about a year and a half or

12:28

two years, and then when I turned eighteen, um

12:31

my cousin linked me up with Hewlett Packard

12:33

and the job was what So, it's basically

12:36

just as sales repference. I would go to different Best Buy

12:38

stores as a rep for Hewlett

12:40

Packard and then uh just sit in

12:42

the computer aisle and convinced people why

12:44

they should buy Hewlett Packard over Okay, so your

12:46

job was to be like the in house guy

12:49

had Best Buy and say Elett

12:51

Packard as opposed to the ass or any

12:53

of a competitor. And did you get paid a flat

12:55

salary or commission? I think I made like eighteen. That's

12:58

bad, wasn't No, That's how it wasn't

13:00

bad? So I was like, all right, cool? And then how did you become such a big

13:02

expert that you could do that job? Uh?

13:04

I wasn't they just give you tons

13:07

of training and you know, you

13:09

take all these courses online like they have these uh

13:12

like their online universities that

13:14

you that they give you for HP through their platforms

13:16

that you learn about new product,

13:18

product launches and stuff like that. And then, to

13:20

be honest, it's not it's not hard to convince someone

13:23

when it's like when you go to a storm like

13:25

what should I buy or what should I eat here? And the person

13:27

tells you something and you're like, okay, like I believe I'm gonna

13:29

buy that. It's the same thing with the computer. Everyone's

13:32

like I don't know what to get and you know, like, well

13:34

you should get this because this, and then but

13:36

you you got a three year customer. But how hard was it to get

13:39

that job? Was it too hard? I mean, okay,

13:41

so you did that for how long? I did that for

13:44

two years? Um? And then that's when I when I

13:46

turned twenty one, and and on the side, I was doing

13:48

like the DJing stuff. Okay, so

13:51

you were working two days a week doing that on the weekend.

13:53

Okay, so now the DJ thing is happening, you're still

13:55

doing the HP thing. And then what happens

13:58

and then I quit it once the bar started a kind

14:00

of picking up. I quit the HP thing and your mother says

14:02

what. Um. She was just like what are you

14:04

doing? Like why are you djaying? Like it

14:07

was? But I was like, you know, I'm in college, Like let me just

14:09

I'll figure it out. Um. So

14:11

then I was doing the HP thing and then uh deejaying,

14:15

and then from there, um,

14:18

the DJ thing was going so well that I was

14:20

like, okay, I need to scale this up. And there

14:22

was a venue down the

14:24

street from my house that was

14:26

like a House of Blues type venue. So

14:28

I struck a deal with them of like, hey, I'm going to bring in real

14:30

talent and create uh

14:33

you know, in a night here every

14:35

month. We'll do a show every month with real dj is,

14:37

like well known DJs and stuff

14:39

like that. Um. So they were cool with it. I

14:41

did that, okay, but before you get there, you're in

14:43

the bar. That's a cash business.

14:46

Ever have any dangerous situations.

14:49

Yeah, So that ended because my

14:52

my my six months at the bar ended

14:54

because somebody, uh

14:56

somebody pulled out a gun inside the bar at one

14:58

of my nights and then somebody got stabbed. Then the parking

15:00

lot there's a big brawl and someone pulled out

15:02

a gun inside and then people got stabbed outside,

15:04

and then yeah, it ruined my business

15:06

on that end, so then I had to Okay,

15:09

but before you how did it end the

15:11

cops actually interview you

15:13

or no, No, it was people were just

15:15

scared to come now because that that dive

15:17

bar. Like I said, it was on bar, it's in the hood

15:19

almost So then once that happened,

15:22

everyone was like, well, I don't know if I'm gonna go

15:24

there anymore. Okay, So it wasn't It

15:26

wasn't the bar owner, it was the customers

15:28

and we're done. So how many dead

15:30

nights did you have before you realize this is done? Well,

15:32

I never lost money because I owned the equipment, you

15:35

know, I just bring my equipment and play and that was

15:37

it. So you know, if if the bar didn't

15:39

do what it did, I still walked out with money, which at

15:41

that time was cash and was good and helped

15:44

help pay the bill. Okay, So now you go to this new club.

15:47

Do you have relationships with name talent

15:49

at that point? So I was you're completely

15:52

yeah, So I was just reaching out to agents and getting

15:54

raped by like getting the note you

15:57

know. I remember there was just one booking I did and it was

15:59

a group of four DJ's and

16:01

um, they ended up charging

16:04

me the regular price of the group for the

16:06

full group, but they sent me the one guy

16:08

that was the ghost producer. So nobody even

16:10

knew who the guy was. And he it

16:12

was his first show ever djaying and I had paid

16:14

like five grand for this guy. And I get him

16:17

and he's just like, yeah, I've never really DJ. And I'm

16:19

like, well, what do you do? And he's like why produce all the

16:21

music for the group? And I'm like damn, Like

16:23

what am I gonna do with this guy? So I'm like sitting there nervous,

16:25

like dude, this guy doesn't even know how to DJ, like you

16:28

know whatever. Um, But yeah,

16:30

you know, I I learned the hard way of this.

16:32

Like, okay, so you have that situation, did

16:35

you call the agent and say I want my money back? I called

16:37

the agent, was just like you know, and he's like no, I assure

16:39

you he knows what he's doing, like he it's fine,

16:41

like this this will be all good. Um,

16:43

And you know, I still made money on the show and

16:46

was just like whatever. So it wasn't like the

16:48

worst, but you know scary, Okay,

16:50

So you convince this guy to do it once a month

16:53

the bar, the guy who owns the club, and

16:55

you start, how long do you do that for? Um

16:58

only like it was it was like six months, six

17:00

another six months or so, and it was always successful.

17:02

Yeah, it was good until until

17:04

I partnered with the guy saw

17:07

what I was doing. The owner of the club, so he's

17:09

like, hey, let's partner on the next event. Let's

17:11

up the up the budget and get a

17:13

bigger name. What was the capacity,

17:16

like, yeah,

17:19

so it wasn't small. And he's like, you

17:21

know, I have a friend that's he books

17:23

talent for all these night clubs in Orange

17:25

County. He's going to give us a deal on a DJ

17:28

UM and let's book him. And

17:30

I was like, okay, fine, So we

17:32

went haves on this DJ and the guy

17:35

got bent over backwards on the rate he got

17:37

this guy for. The guy's rate is like six

17:39

grand and we ended up paying twenty grand for this guy whoa

17:42

Yeah, so we lost on that show

17:44

and I was just like, you know what, I don't want to do this anymore. But

17:46

through all that, UM one of my one

17:49

of my close friends, he was like an avid

17:51

photographer and he had a he had a

17:54

a blog. UM. It

17:56

was called us dub Steps, so he did like, um,

17:58

he was blogging about depths and blogs were powerful

18:01

at that time, so he was helping me promote

18:03

these shows UM. And I had told

18:05

him like, hey, um, you know you're helping

18:07

promote the show and it does well, I'll buy you

18:09

the new camera that you want, UM,

18:12

so you can go and shoot photos. And I

18:14

did that and then coincidentally, during this

18:16

time, he had gotten an offer

18:18

to go on the road as a full time photographer for

18:20

a well known DJ named Borger UM.

18:23

And then that's kind of how I got my chops

18:25

and meeting. I met Borger

18:27

him and I connected became really close um,

18:30

and that was kind of all I needed to really like,

18:33

you know, I got in with him

18:35

and you know, we became close. And then he was

18:37

like, you know, he was with red Light at he's

18:39

still with red Light, but his managers are red Light convinced

18:41

him to start a management company. So

18:43

he did that and he was like, you know, do you wanna start

18:46

managing artists with me? And I

18:48

was like okay, yeah. I was like, you know, I'm almost gonna graduate,

18:51

and I'm like, prior

18:53

to this, you're just hanging with him, going going to shows,

18:55

being his butt exactly, So just being friends with him,

18:57

and you know, that was it. And then when uh,

19:00

he kind of saw like my work ethic and everything I

19:02

was doing and hustling, and he was just like, yo,

19:04

you know if you want to manage artists with me, like

19:06

you know, we should do that. Like he had a label, UM,

19:09

and was just like, you know, there's a couple of guys, you

19:11

know, independent young guys that are releasing, they're not

19:13

really well known, and like, maybe you can just start managing

19:16

some of these guys, UM,

19:18

And we did, and I was like cool, So I agreed

19:20

to it. UM signed

19:22

this kid named Sick Dope. It was my

19:24

first artist with him, UM, and

19:28

uh yeah that was kind of how we started

19:30

started it And then was it immediately successful?

19:33

No? No, no, no no, So so I signed

19:35

him. UM. You know, I was making a couple

19:37

hundred bucks a month off of commissions and I had to

19:39

split it with Borgo every time. So you were living

19:41

on what I was. I was losing money, but

19:43

what were you living on? I was? I wasn't I had

19:46

I had a bunch of money saved from the bar and stuff like

19:48

that. Um, and that was kind of what

19:50

I was living on. And then I would get a couple hundred

19:52

bucks here and there every month from the management

19:54

stuff, but I didn't really care. Um, we

19:57

were living at home. I was living at home. And then I

19:59

was like I was buying cars on Craigslist and selling

20:01

them, flipping them, like tending the windows and then reselling

20:03

them and like just doing all kinds of different

20:05

stuff like that. UM. And uh

20:08

yeah, So then you know, we did that for about

20:10

a year together. We worked together, and then

20:13

about a year and I realized that, like you know, it

20:15

was kind of a conflict of interest for an artist off an artist

20:18

management company because none of my guys

20:20

could ever grow past past

20:22

him. UM. So it

20:24

was then that you know, I had to make the decisions

20:27

either stay here or

20:29

go on my own. UM.

20:31

And that was kind of it. So you know, we had the convone.

20:34

You know, he wished me the best, and you know I

20:36

started managing on my own.

20:39

UM. And then at that time,

20:41

then everyone started approaching me. Um.

20:43

You know, red light three

20:46

zero teamwork, Okay, but you're

20:48

coming with no acts. I had so at

20:51

that time in the year that we were doing it together, I

20:53

had three acts and he let you walk with those. And

20:56

those three acts were as a kid name sicked Dope

20:58

and this kid named Jaws and other kid named

21:01

dot Com and what was the status of their

21:03

careers when you Jaws had just

21:05

so coincidentally, Jaws

21:07

had just released a song that was starting to get

21:10

a lot of support in the DJ world. And a close friend

21:12

of mine is a talent buyer forer Insomniac. He

21:15

was a burning Man and I had set him the song. So he

21:17

was driving around in his golf car at burning Man playing

21:19

this song and Diplo stopped him and

21:21

Dipplo was like, yo, man, like I keep hearing the

21:23

song. Where who is this? And he's

21:25

like, this is a new kid, Jaws. So then

21:28

the next day he my buddy called me. He's like, yo, you

21:30

won't believe it. But Dipplo asked for the

21:32

Jaws record. I was like okay, And then

21:34

I get an email the next day from Diplo like, yo,

21:36

man, that song is huge. I want to sign it to Matt

21:38

Decent. So then from there,

21:40

you know, okay, let's go back. How do think

21:42

I end up playing it in his golf cart. He had

21:45

a golf car and he he was just playing music in the golf

21:47

car. Okay, how hard did you work that guy?

21:49

Not at I didn't work him at all. He's just a friend of mine.

21:52

Send it was Honestly, it was the most

21:54

random thing ever. So Diplo

21:56

wants to sign the act to Matt Decent. So

21:59

Dipplo wants to sign uh Jaws, and

22:02

we do it um, and then Diplo

22:04

puts a lot of like, uh, he

22:06

gives Jaws a big co sign and starts talking and Jaws

22:08

is like one of the most talented producers kids,

22:10

is a beast, and uh, Diplo

22:13

like starts putting them on and just kind of talking

22:15

about him in interviews and you know, we're working

22:17

together with him on different tracks, and

22:20

you know he helped a lot in the

22:22

in the beginning of my career of just like with

22:24

Jaws. And then once Jaws kind of blew

22:26

up in the dance world, Um, they opened

22:29

the door for me and um, you

22:31

know, having that leverage and starting to build my career.

22:34

Stand By, we'll take a short break and get right back

22:36

to this conversation with Motional Easy, manager

22:39

of Marshmallow. You're

22:42

listening to the Bob Left Sets podcast. Each

22:44

week I interview a new guest and we dive into their

22:46

backgrounds, current events, and everything in between.

22:50

If you like the podcast, subscribe, rate and

22:52

review the show. Check out our earlier

22:54

episodes. You can hear them all on tune in, Apple

22:56

Podcast or your podcast player of choice.

23:00

Let's continue the conversation with Motional Easy,

23:02

manager of marsh Mama. Okay,

23:06

so you had these three acts and suddenly

23:08

all these management companies were interested in

23:10

making a deal with you. So how did

23:12

you decide to go to red Light. I looked

23:15

at I looked at who was there?

23:17

Um, And you know at the

23:19

time, I was twenty three, and

23:21

there was no other young managers I read Light.

23:23

Everyone else was old older. UM.

23:26

So for me, it was just like I was unsure what was

23:28

going to happen with my career and as a whole.

23:30

And I was like, you know what, like I

23:32

see all these other guys, and all these other guys are worried

23:34

about just the bottom line of like what like

23:36

before anything, They're like, what's your commissions? What are you making?

23:39

What is this? What is this? And like red Light

23:41

was the only place where and borg Or is managed

23:43

by Red Light, so his manager see souther White and

23:45

Richard Bishop. At the time, we're kind

23:47

of like, hey, you know, we want you to come in with us, um.

23:51

And you know, I had worked with them for about a year and was just

23:53

like, you know what, Like I feel like here I

23:55

have the most job security in

23:57

a sense, being you know, twenty three and

23:59

being in the trenches all the time. These

24:01

guys are not in the clubs the same way I am all

24:03

the time. So I was just like, you know, fuck

24:05

it, like I'm gonna take the chance to go here. Um.

24:08

Okay, so Jaws is blowing up with diplow and

24:11

continue the narrative. Yes, So at

24:13

that point, um, I

24:16

I had just started this idea

24:19

called Marshmallow UM

24:21

and I just joined Red Light. And when

24:24

I had played this music to borg Or, this Marshmallow

24:26

project, and I told him about before, I spip, okay, we

24:28

have but a little bit. There was a DJ involved,

24:31

but no one knew who it was, uh

24:34

correct, Yeah, So to to go

24:36

with a little bit slower, how you come up with the

24:38

idea of marshmallow um

24:41

without going into too much detail because it's still secret.

24:44

Okay, go up to the line and with secret, although

24:46

a lot of information has now come out, its identity

24:48

is come out definitely. Um

24:50

No, it was just someone

24:53

I was working with started making a different style of music and

24:56

we knew it would never work with like

24:58

the dance kids are so close minded and sense

25:00

of like if they like you for making one style of music,

25:02

the second makes something else, they're like, you sold

25:04

out, Like we don't want to listen to anymore. You sold out.

25:07

So for us it was like, you know, we knew that this

25:09

style, Um, there had to be somebody

25:11

new with it. It couldn't be attached to any other identity

25:14

besides something new and fresh.

25:17

Um. So we came up with the idea

25:19

of how successful was this DJ

25:22

before you came up with a marshmallow concept?

25:24

Um,

25:26

not very successful. It was just it was just

25:28

a you know, a normal two to three thousand

25:30

dollars the show kind of so nothing

25:32

crazy. Um. And then

25:35

so you want to have another identity so you're

25:37

not rejected by his choral audience and

25:39

whose ideas that yours are his? It was

25:41

it was mine to come up with somebody new and

25:43

then and who came up with the name

25:46

Marshmallow. We both did collectively.

25:48

We we kind of he was pitching me like he

25:51

was sending me a song a day and it was this new

25:53

style that was super mellow and

25:55

the music was mellow melodic, and you

25:58

know, I was just like, yo, how are you making all this? And he's just I don't

26:00

know, it's just coming to me like it's easy. And you

26:02

know, in one week he sent me like six different songs.

26:05

So I was like, okay, we have to come up with a new name. Um.

26:08

So we thought about it and I was like, okay, what about marshmallow.

26:10

The music super mellow um.

26:13

And you know, I remember he was at dinner with his family

26:15

and he told us his family like you know, Moe

26:18

wants to call it marshmallow, and they're like, d J Marshmallow,

26:20

Like that's so stupid way

26:23

and I was like, dude, like we have nothing to lose, like let's

26:25

let's come up with the logo and see.

26:27

So I sat there and to what we

26:30

was inspired by dead Mouse zero?

26:33

Yeah, to be honest, there was no Dead

26:35

Mouse was not an inspiration at all. I think people

26:37

put the helmet correlation

26:40

as like, you know, but there's been daft

26:42

punk. There's been people before Dead Mouse that

26:45

had helmets that still have helmets, Like, I

26:47

think it's just a costome at the end of the day. Um,

26:49

but the reasons why we did that was just you

26:51

know, I guess I'll get into that later, but um,

26:55

you know, from there, we

26:58

came up with the logo. I sent him the logo.

27:01

He liked it and gave me his blessing

27:03

and was like, okay, cool, let's just do it. So we started

27:05

okay, wait, wait he sent you all these mixes.

27:08

Do you immediately see dollar signs? No?

27:10

No, not at all. You are you just saying

27:12

this is a client and I'm just gonna

27:14

do something different. Or do you say, wow,

27:17

this, I'm gonna work this hard because I know

27:19

this is the new thing. No, I mean I just

27:21

was like, Yo, this is different, Like this is something that's

27:23

not I think in dance music,

27:26

especially like when you're able to create a sound

27:28

and you get you get

27:30

kind of titled with that sound. So when you when

27:33

people are like, oh, that sounds like this person

27:35

because that's his style, you know what I mean? If

27:37

like that's when you're the most successful, you know what

27:39

I mean? In this style nobody had really pioneered

27:41

this sound that he was doing. So

27:44

we were like, okay, like, let's just you know, I didn't see

27:46

dollar signs at all. I was like, Yo, I'm just gonna put this

27:48

out and let's just see what it does. So and

27:50

you put it out how so through

27:53

SoundCloud. So we put out a song

27:55

a day on SoundCloud every day for free download.

27:58

UM. And you know, in one you could

28:00

put song five songs out and

28:02

what people

28:04

were just the first song dropped, people are like, Okay,

28:06

this is cool. And at the time I

28:08

was, you know, reposting it through my network

28:11

of artists that I had UM.

28:13

And then we put out another song, another song, and that people

28:15

kind of were catching on, like yo, what is this? Like who

28:17

is this marshmallow guy? You know, the there

28:19

was no photo, there was nothing, It was just a logo.

28:22

UM. So people were just kind of wondering what it

28:24

was. And then from there,

28:27

um about two months

28:29

in two or three months in, I get

28:31

a call from Scrillics UM

28:33

and Scrillics is like, yo, man, you know I had

28:35

no Scrillics through Jaws like he was. He

28:38

started messing with Jaws too, And UM,

28:41

we'd built a relationship and he's like, yo, I need to know who

28:43

Marshmallow is. He's like, I can't stop listening to this

28:45

music and I'm like, I can't tell you.

28:47

It was like it's a secret, and he's like no, like you know, you

28:49

gotta tell me, Like I'm going through some stuff right now, and

28:51

all I'm listening to you like I really need to

28:53

connect with with him. So

28:55

I told them, um, and then you know I

28:57

connected Mellow and Scrillics

29:01

and Mellow. At the time, it never met

29:03

Scrillics, like Scrills was an idol to him, and

29:06

you know, he was just a small town DJ.

29:09

So then um, from there, Um,

29:11

one day he could come to l A and I was

29:13

like, yo, you need to hit up Scrillics now, like you

29:16

need to connect with them. And he's like, no

29:18

way, I'm not calling Scrillics. Like there's no way. So

29:20

I was like, okay, I stopped a car in the middle of the road and I said,

29:23

yo, I'm not moving until you call Scrillic. So

29:25

um, He's like fine, whatever, like wall, she's not gonna

29:28

answer. He calls Scrillics and a

29:30

woman picks up. A woman picks up

29:32

and it's like, you know, Hello, Hey, Marshmallow,

29:35

Like, good to talk to you. You know, Scrillic

29:37

says so much about you, and he like whispers

29:39

to me. He's like, dude, it's Katie Kirk and

29:41

I'm like, what, I didn't know who

29:43

Katie Kirk was that, you know, I was like okay,

29:45

Like um okay, and then

29:47

uh so he goes into convo with her and

29:50

she's like, you know, maybe one day I'm gonna be interviewing

29:52

you, and you know, Scrilics was like Sonny was like,

29:54

you know, Marshmallow, he's a really talented kid.

29:57

He's the next generation all this stuff, like, you know, really

29:59

you speaking highly about him. And

30:02

he gets off the phone and he's like, dude, he was an interview

30:04

and he told me he's gonna call me later. I was like, okay,

30:06

Cozy, do you think that's gonna get posted? And I

30:08

was like no, no way, Like there's no way they're gonna put

30:10

that in an interview. A week later,

30:12

we wake up to the front page of Yahoo

30:14

News and Katie Kirk's interview with Scrillics

30:17

is in there, and it's a video interview and in the

30:19

video interview, um

30:22

scrillis his phone rings in the interview and it said

30:24

and it says, uh, Chris

30:26

Marshmallow on the phone. And

30:28

at this time we had created this buzz through

30:31

you know, the Reddit, reddit sphere and online

30:34

where nobody knew who Marshmallow was and everyone was trying to

30:36

figure it out. So when this post

30:38

said this was the first clue anybody ever got to

30:40

his identity, They're like, oh, his name is Chris. And

30:43

then you know, everything just started going from there.

30:45

But you know, it was probably it

30:48

caught so much attention from everybody with the

30:50

whole Katie Kirk thing, and then from

30:52

there, um, the music just started connecting.

30:54

Uh. We did a couple of big remixes and

30:57

then um, you know, then we hadn't we

30:59

hadn't done a show for the first year. How did you get

31:01

the remixes? It's like we did a remixes

31:04

of the Scirlington Justin Bieber song where are You Now? Um,

31:06

that was a really big remix for us. Justin weep started playing

31:09

in his tour um and then

31:11

from there we did like a big remix Adele's Hello's

31:13

unofficial remix. But the remix

31:15

got almost like four fifty thousand downloads

31:18

um and it was just it was just hosted on

31:20

our We had a there's a platform called Hive, so

31:23

we're hosting it through our Hive channel. Um,

31:26

and then from there just kind of connected and then, um,

31:29

you know I wasn't letting him tour, so that for

31:31

the first week, I

31:33

didn't want it to come into the market at a low price,

31:36

you know, so I didn't want to build from a two thousand dollar active

31:38

ten thousand to fifteen thousand, so um,

31:41

you know, we we turned down every single

31:43

offer. And he's living on what he's

31:45

living off of what he had from his prior

31:47

career. But he didn't he doesn't live a lavish He

31:49

didn't live a lavish life. So I was just a normal kid. So

31:52

he was fine without going on the road for a year. Yeah,

31:54

he was cool with it. He was cool with it because

31:56

he had his other project to offset his expenses.

32:00

And you know, for for us too, was like,

32:02

you know, let's do this right. So

32:04

it wasn't until we we

32:06

waited a year and then we got a big festival

32:09

offer, um, like a thirty dollar

32:11

offer to play our first show, and we're

32:13

like, okay, cool, we got the billing we needed on the

32:15

festival, so we could come into the marketing which festival

32:17

was it? It was a hard, hard day

32:19

of the dead. So we were able

32:21

to bypass, you know, a lot of DJs

32:25

by being built over them. You know, in in the DJ

32:27

world it means a lot. Billing. Billing is a huge thing.

32:30

So we were able to come in with like you know, top

32:32

tier billing, a big set time. And

32:34

then from there, you know, we launched our first tour

32:36

and it was a hard ticket tour. We

32:39

did like you know, six to sid

32:42

cap venues and we sold

32:44

that out immediately. What are the dates worth

32:46

to you? What do you mean? Well,

32:48

how much did you get paid

32:49

on? Oh so I got

32:51

not you as a manager, but the marchal so

32:54

we got. We So what I did was

32:56

I wanted the lower ticket prices on all the shows,

32:58

which so they were what so there of fees were

33:00

like between like five and seven thousand for

33:03

those shows based off the ticket scale and there are how

33:05

many dates in those markets? There was? There was

33:07

I think the tour was like twelve shows. Okay, so

33:09

small, it was small, It was small, but it was all the

33:11

major markets. Um, so

33:13

we hid in everything blew out right away. So

33:15

there was this huge buzz of like, Yo, Marshmalla was just

33:17

sold out his whole tour immediately right on

33:20

on sale. So through that,

33:22

um, you know, in the music and everything, we kept

33:24

going and you know, we got we caught a lot of breaks

33:27

just with publicity and all kinds of stuff

33:29

like that. And then you give us an example

33:31

or people just trying to figure out who Marshmallow was. So

33:33

every day there was an article being posted of like Martin

33:36

Garrick's marshmallow, TSO's marshmallow,

33:38

this person's marshmallow this, and it's like every

33:41

day. It was just a new a new theory. Um

33:43

that kept us in the in the bloggestphere

33:46

every single day. UM. And with that,

33:48

we were just releasing music consistently. UM.

33:51

And then it wasn't until about

33:54

two or two years in that I

33:56

found tune Corps. And we didn't

33:58

at this time all of our music was on SoundCloud. We

34:00

didn't have any music, so you were unaware of

34:02

tune Corps. Yeah, I was unaware of it. And then someone

34:05

was like, yo, you should check out tune core because we you

34:07

know, we didn't want to sign. For those who don't know, tone core is

34:09

a service where for a very small

34:11

annual fee they place your music on all the streaming

34:14

and download services. Yeah,

34:16

it's like sixty dollars for five years. So

34:18

I found this and was like, okay, let's

34:20

rebundle all this music that we put out a year and a

34:22

half ago or two years ago and put it out

34:24

as a new album and get it up on

34:26

Apple and Spotify on all these only other DSPs.

34:30

And we did that. Um, what kind of reaction

34:32

did? Your album went number one and the songs were

34:34

all still available as a free down on our on our

34:36

SoundCloud. So we were like, what the heck?

34:38

And then we just kept putting out new music, new music,

34:40

and then um, you know, then

34:42

I go, so, at this point in time, are

34:45

the major labels knocking on your door? Not

34:48

really, No, it wasn't. They were. We

34:50

got interests of like doing remixes and stuff

34:52

like that for majors, but nobody

34:54

was really knocking on the door. Um.

34:57

It wasn't until about uh

35:00

last year that we got the majors interested. Okay,

35:03

so you're on all these digital

35:05

services, You're making any money on that?

35:08

Um? Initially no, but

35:10

it was you know, but once I you

35:12

know, was able to build a relationship with the you

35:14

know, the DSPs, you know, personally

35:17

with the guys that were important

35:19

to us in a sense. Um,

35:21

you know, we got the same placements as you know,

35:23

major artists were getting in. You know it really I

35:26

think for for them, like we

35:28

we brought everybody to the table from the beginning.

35:31

You know, so all the guys at Apple, at Spotify, everybody

35:33

knew about Marshmallow as it was being growing.

35:36

Okay, but you know at that

35:39

point in time, while it's growing, your

35:41

leverage is limited. How do you establish those

35:43

relationships with Spotify and Apple? I think

35:45

everyone was just seeing that how much attention

35:47

was on Marshmallow from the big names. So the

35:49

door was open. Yeah, So the door opened,

35:51

and from there it was just like I think

35:53

for them, you know, we got them connected so early

35:56

that they felt vested in this project

35:58

and they got behind it. Um. So then

36:00

you know, then once the label started coming in, and I was getting

36:02

the pitch of like, you've done a great job so far, but

36:04

now watch what we can do and we'll elevate the brand.

36:07

And I'm like, yoh man, like I get the same placements

36:09

that you do, you know, And and he's not a radio

36:11

artist. We're not looking for radio at this time, like, you

36:14

know, we're building our course still,

36:16

you know, we're building a founding. So labels come

36:18

to you, you're not going to the labels, and

36:20

and you say no to all of them. Yeah.

36:22

Yeah. So it wasn't

36:25

until you know, we we got a

36:27

big offer, a multimillion dollar offer, where we're

36:29

like, man, like this this could be cool. Um.

36:33

But then you know, sitting down with the labels

36:35

and hearing what their thoughts were about Marshmallow,

36:37

and it was just like, Okay, these people don't really even know what

36:39

this is. It's just like one of those

36:41

things where they're just trying to offer us money

36:43

in case it blows up and they have it

36:45

on their rosters. So I was like, you know what, like forget

36:48

like this, like let's pass. And we passed

36:51

on all the deals and um, that

36:53

usually makes him hungrier, though it does. And

36:55

now, I mean the deal we got offer, you know

36:57

two weeks ago, had of offer that's I

37:00

would think like ten x of what the deal was, you

37:02

know, nine months ago, ten months ago. Because

37:05

we had to really prove ourselves. Everyone thought it was a gimmick.

37:07

Everyone's like, oh, it's a dead dead mouse knockoff. He

37:09

doesn't make music, it's a but you

37:11

know he's one of them. Okay, so let's go back.

37:13

First year, you're off the road. Then

37:15

you do twelve dates and you go with tune

37:18

courts who are on all the DSPs. What's

37:20

the step after that? And then festivals

37:22

going into the festival world and all

37:24

the festivals are eager to have them. Yeah, everyone

37:26

was eager to have How many uh festivals

37:29

did he play that next year? A lot? We

37:31

did. We did a lot of big festivals. How much

37:33

production did you bring? None? None?

37:36

So the helmet and that was it. Yeah, the helmet and in

37:38

the artists and the USB stick and that's it. So

37:41

um, that was it. But then we used

37:44

we use those festivals as kind of our entry

37:46

point into doing bigger, hard ticket shows. So

37:48

we come into the market, do a big festival, get a big

37:50

look, and then we we launched

37:52

our first kind of big hard tickets

37:55

tour. So then the agent is

37:57

who the agent is Steve Gordon at Circle

37:59

Talent. So he's got a him and his

38:01

partner, Kevin Gimble. They have a smaller boutique

38:04

agency, but they have a lot of dance acts

38:07

um. So you know, we had had

38:09

like a couple of clients with him prior to that, so

38:11

we had kind of built this whole thing together. Um.

38:14

So then it was then that we we're

38:16

like, you know, let's use the momentum and go into a bigger

38:18

rooms. Okay, so how big were the rooms now? So then we

38:21

in November of two thousands

38:23

sixteen, we did h three

38:25

nights at the shrine, so we sold fifteen thousand tickets

38:27

and about we did fifteen thousand

38:29

and about an hour and a half. Just to be clear, since

38:32

that's so many tickets, how does

38:34

the word get out? How do you sell those fifteen

38:36

thousands? Um? Or

38:38

well, how long did it take you to sell?

38:41

How many dates did you put up? At first? So

38:43

we put out so we rolled out everything.

38:46

Um, we rolled out everything, and

38:48

then the on sale for l A was

38:50

on its own dates. So the

38:52

first the first shrine blew out immediately, then

38:55

we went up with the second one that blew out after

38:57

like thirty minutes, and then the

38:59

third one went up and then that blew out after like an hour.

39:01

So really there was no promotion involved the audience,

39:04

know the audience you we posted on our social media like, hey,

39:06

tickets are going up. It blew out. Then we

39:08

did the Bill Graham in San Francisco. We

39:10

did eight thousand tickets and um,

39:13

I think it was less than like thirty seconds that blew out

39:15

immediately Red Rocks blew out in a couple of hours.

39:17

Um. So we did ten thousand there, um

39:20

and then we did two nights at Echo

39:22

Stage and d C we did in

39:24

Montreal, we did three New city gases, which

39:26

was twelve thousand tickets, which was their venue

39:28

record for an artist doing that many.

39:31

Um. So right off the bat, you

39:33

know we did you know, tend to or

39:35

eight to twelve thousand tickets in every major market.

39:38

How much production bringing so we so

39:41

at that time, yeah, we brought in um

39:43

like one semi truck. We had just created a

39:45

rig um that you know, it

39:47

was just a big led wall

39:49

with some stuff here and there. Um

39:51

a lot of like special effects like you know, fireworks

39:54

and stuff like that, but nothing nothing crazy. Because you

39:56

know, our mentality was like, this is our first

39:58

kind of big tour. If we go also the walls, now what

40:00

do we do the next tour? So we

40:02

were like, let's you know, scale it back because we know the

40:04

kids want to come and watch us, So like, let's

40:07

keep this more about Marshmallow than production and

40:09

stuff like that, because you know, there's a lot of acts now that their

40:11

entire career revolves around their production

40:14

where it's like, you know, they have to bring you

40:16

know, a million two million dollar rig to to make

40:18

up for their cheesiness. So

40:21

it's like, you know, we don't need to do that. Okay, So it's

40:23

November of that you

40:26

start this big tour and

40:28

that plays for how long? Um,

40:30

Like our tour, like the traditional dance tours aren't

40:32

like a traditional artist tour, they're more like flying

40:34

in dates. We fly in, we do the major markets

40:37

throughout a time span. So like that

40:39

tour was within two months. But it was like, you

40:41

know there's festivals mixed in, there's you know, so

40:43

we had our days for these hard ticket shows,

40:46

um, but they were we would just fly into

40:48

them, the production would be there, We've set it up with the promoter,

40:51

and then it will be done. Okay, so we go into what's

40:54

the next event? Was

40:57

this? So this last last year was all

41:00

it was global. It was like, how do we make

41:02

sure that this momentum and imprint carries

41:04

onto a global level. So we spent almost two

41:06

months in Europe, a lot of time

41:08

and ages. These are festival festivals

41:11

and a couple bigger heart ticket

41:13

shows, but mainly festivals, um.

41:16

You know, so it was it was big on

41:18

Europe doing a run there. Um

41:21

we did, like we sold out the Brixton Academy in

41:23

London on the UK um,

41:26

and then just doing a bunch

41:28

of festivals um. And

41:30

then that was kind of it. And then this year is when we

41:32

launched. Well, well before you get to this year, suddenly

41:36

he's involved with literally top tier talent.

41:38

How does that come together? People

41:41

just started talking about him people. Everyone

41:43

was kind of like, you know, we were getting him into the studio

41:45

with people, um, and

41:48

people were just meeting him, you know. We like through

41:52

just the hype, people were intrigued by

41:54

his brain. You're not working at your phone

41:56

is ringing? Are you working? I mean I

41:58

was working it for sure. I was working trying to get him

42:00

in the studio with people. But it wasn't until you

42:03

know, we just had a lot of big like Coachella

42:06

was a big moment for us. We did Coachell last

42:08

year. UM, we headlined the Saharitan

42:10

closed it out and you know, the tent was rammed

42:13

from front to back, and you know, we brought

42:15

throughout the process of the project.

42:17

We've always brought special guests with us

42:19

everywhere, So what's the thinking there.

42:22

So it was always about, like, you know, connecting,

42:25

It was it was two fold. It was, you know, for us,

42:29

getting Marshmallow connected with these other artists and

42:31

exposing him to their fan base. Because again, for

42:34

Marshmallow, it's like, you know, we need people to see

42:36

him one time and they'll never forget who he is. You know, it's

42:38

not a traditional DJ where you know,

42:40

it could be you know, Calvin Harris could walk in here

42:42

and nobody might recognize him. But

42:44

with him, it's like, you know, it's a brand, it's a it's

42:47

a character that we need people to see

42:49

one time. So for us, it was like, you know,

42:51

let's bring in people that matter in these different

42:53

you know, if we went to Atlanta, we brought Germaine

42:55

Dupriat. We brought Little Yaddi out in Atlanta,

42:57

we brought walk a flock out in Atlanta. Um,

43:00

you go to Detroit, we brought out D twelve in

43:02

Detroit, you know, and their them, you know, Detroit

43:05

in Detroit D twelve is like you know

43:07

when they were with eminem like that was those are the hometown

43:09

heroes. Okay, how do you literally make

43:11

that happen just by hitting them up?

43:13

You know, I would we would go on Twitter, d m

43:16

them or I would you know, find a way to get intro

43:18

to the manager and be like, hey, look like Marshmall

43:20

has got I would explain to them like this, like Marshall's

43:22

gotta sold out show. There's five thousand kids that are

43:24

dance fans. It's not a traditional show,

43:27

like we don't we're not offering money, like, but

43:29

if you want to come for you know, a one song,

43:31

come, you know, and it's a whole new demographic. You're exposing

43:34

the artists too. And it would be one of their songs.

43:36

It would be one of their songs. And people were always like,

43:38

you know, if they if they realized kind of what

43:40

it was, and um, you know, people

43:43

had heard about Marshmallow, they were like, okay, cool, let's

43:45

do it. So then we would get these people to come

43:47

out, and you know, it created a moment for us

43:49

to you know what I mean. It was a cool moment um

43:52

and at that time we had racked up like three million followers

43:55

on Instagram and Facebook. It was at

43:57

a couple of millions, So we had a social reach

43:59

that over. You know, I saw that, like,

44:02

Okay, you know that's cool. Okay,

44:06

So let's go back to how you end up working with Selena

44:09

Gomez at all? Yeah? So what so

44:12

during Coachella, Um, you know, Marshmallo

44:14

become friends with who was the special guest of

44:17

Coachella. So the first weekend we brought

44:19

out I

44:21

forget what weekend we we brought out asap for we

44:23

brought out Yogatti, we brought out Travis

44:25

Barker, um

44:29

O Cirius, um,

44:32

we brought out Andrew Watt, and then I'm

44:34

sorry, I think who else we brought up? I

44:36

think I think that was it. I think we brought

44:38

Okay at this point in time, since Marshmallow

44:42

has his own sound, which is not as aggressive

44:44

as other people's or his previous sound, and

44:47

even though it's three years many people

44:49

might say it's overnight. Is there

44:51

any backlash against him in the

44:53

scene, tons of backlash. Every DJ

44:55

is like, yo, this is a gimmick, this is stupid, Like

44:58

this guy puts a buck on his head, and all of a sudden,

45:01

this it's it's it's not good music. The music

45:03

sucks all this ship. So we we've heard it

45:05

from every angle. Well, how do you

45:07

cope with that? To be honest, you

45:09

do. I mean, it doesn't bother us, you know what I

45:11

mean, Like you know, for for us, it's

45:14

turned all of our lives around, you know. And

45:15

and and none of the guests special

45:18

guests said no, I'm not gonna play with you because of the backlash.

45:20

No, not at all. I mean, because the backlash is all whispers.

45:23

You know, nobody, nobody, nobody says it to us

45:25

in person. Nobody says it, you know, no

45:27

one's like vocal about it. But you know, as

45:29

we hear it from like, you know, other people in the industry.

45:32

Oh, this DJ was talking it saying like marshmallows

45:34

cheesy, or this person is this or like you

45:36

know, we'd walk into a you know, a festival

45:39

and walk by the trailer of another DJ, and

45:41

you know they wouldn't acknowledge us or like you

45:43

know, so it's I mean, it's just it's it's like

45:45

any other industry. Okay. But since

45:47

he's keeping his identity secret when he

45:49

goes to the coach. He's got to wear the damn helmet of all

45:52

time. Yeah, so its it

45:54

sucks for him. And you know he always

45:56

was like, you know, I can never connect with like it was.

45:58

It was what sucks was when he met artists outside

46:01

of the dance world. So he met like a rapper or somebody,

46:03

and he would have to talk to him in costume, and then he

46:05

would, you know, when he would not be in costume and to go up to

46:07

that person and the person like, yo, who then are you. We're

46:11

gonna pause for a moment. We'll be right back with my

46:13

conversation with Motional Easy, manager

46:15

of Marshmallow. Thanks

46:19

for listening to the Bob Left That's podcast.

46:21

If you want to see videos and photos of Motional

46:23

Easy, Tony Hawk or any of my guests

46:25

here in the tune In studios in Venice, go

46:28

to at tune In on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook

46:31

and now more with Motional Easy,

46:33

manager of Marshmallow. So

46:36

you played Coachella, you say this is a turning point. Yeah,

46:39

Coachello was a big moment for us because you know, we

46:41

were going up against Kendrick. Uh,

46:44

you know, we didn't know what it was, what was gonna happen. We're

46:46

like, oh man, we're gonna get killed. It's Kendrick Um.

46:49

But you know, the tent was rammed

46:52

um and uh it

46:54

was. It was a big moment for us because so many people had were

46:56

watching that that set, and people had come and heard

46:58

about it, and uh one

47:00

one of them. We wanted to create a moment at the things, so we

47:02

had a drum off between Marshmallow

47:05

challenge Travis Barker to a drum off. Is

47:07

Marshall of a drummer. He knows how to drum,

47:09

but he's not Travis Barker, it

47:11

means. But we did this thing where and it

47:13

was on the live stream where we brought Travis out and

47:16

out of nowhere. Travis rises on a riser and

47:18

then Marshmallow rises and then they challenge each other

47:20

to a drum off, and it was like a moment

47:22

that you know, Billboard and everybody's writing about. You

47:24

know, one of the biggest moments of Coach Hell was a drum

47:26

off. Um. We tried bringing

47:29

Nickel back out, you know, that was the moment I wanted,

47:31

was bringing Nickel back out, but they they

47:33

were recording their album the otherwise

47:35

they would have done it. Yeah. We offered to get him

47:37

a jet to come, and they're like, we already have our own

47:39

jet, but

47:42

we can't come because we're busy with the album. Um.

47:45

I thought that would have been a dope moment to absolutely

47:47

their mistake. Okay, So

47:49

Coachella ends and then all of a sudden

47:51

there's a buzz and people are making offers.

47:54

Yeah. So the people are making offers. Um. And

47:56

we had gotten the studio with a couple

47:58

of big writers Andrew his

48:00

crew. We had a couple of records that we

48:02

had done together. Um, and we were just

48:05

shopping for top

48:07

lines or for upstar features and Demi

48:09

Lovato was like, how you know she hopped on one song

48:11

and then how did she how did she

48:14

find it? So I had sent it

48:16

to because Monty, so every

48:18

every label that comes to the table. I was like, look like

48:20

if we're gonna talk, like show me what you're gonna do,

48:23

you know what I mean? Like, you know, we've we don't

48:25

need your help developing the artist because at this point the

48:27

artist is big. Just like, show me what you're gonna

48:29

do that you're saying you know? So, Um,

48:32

we sent the music out to some people and you know, I sent

48:34

it to Monty and you know that's mining Lit

48:36

Minute Republic. So Monty

48:38

was like, you know, let's let's see who we can get on this. And he

48:40

had sent it to David Massey and then

48:43

they sent it to Demi and then I connected with Phil,

48:45

Demi's manager, and was like, here's this record,

48:47

and Demi loved it and she hopped on it, and then

48:50

um, you know the Selena

48:53

thing kind of the same thing. Uh. Andrew Watt, one of the

48:55

writers on the Selena record, had

48:57

a close ration with Selena Um.

48:59

John j and I had met a bunch of times and

49:01

he was like, you know, I want to do something with Marshmallow, and

49:04

you know, he had heard the record and was like, let's

49:06

let's put Selena on this. I'm like, a cool, let's

49:09

do that. And then kalid

49:11

Um Marshmallow had brought Kalide

49:13

to our Coachella house, so he's crashed

49:16

on our couch for like four days during Coachella.

49:18

He was coming out to perform with another artist,

49:21

but he stayed with us and they were supposed

49:23

to get in the studio. They never did, and they had just met

49:25

through Twitter. So he came with us, UM,

49:27

and nothing ever came up, but they just became friends and I was

49:29

it. And then two months later,

49:32

UM, Khalid was here in town and you know,

49:34

Marshmall hit him up and I was like, hey man, let's you want to go

49:36

in the studio. I'm in the studio. Kalid's

49:38

like, all right, I'll stop by. Stops

49:41

by, and within four hours they make the song Silence.

49:43

It's just them two in the room and you know, they

49:45

make the song Silence and UM.

49:48

When when all of us heard that, we were like, this song

49:50

is gonna be huge. UM. So we

49:52

reached out to our c A like, you know, we want

49:54

to put this out as soon as we can UM,

49:57

and that was right as Khalid was blowing up to UM.

50:00

We put the song out. The song now has

50:02

I think almost like eight hundred million streams collectively

50:04

through all the platforms. UM.

50:06

It was like, you know, top ten on Spotify for a

50:08

couple of months. Big song. UM.

50:11

And uh you know, from there and then we went to Selena

50:14

and then now we just dropped a record, uh, the Friends

50:16

record with Anne Marie. And then tomorrow

50:18

we have a single with with with Chris

50:20

with Logic. So Chris and I've been working

50:22

together on the logic

50:25

correct. So Chris Ruin, we're doing

50:27

this logic and Marshmallow single. It's Logics

50:29

next single. Um really dope song.

50:32

Um okay, so it's twenty eighteen.

50:34

What's next? What's the next step? So

50:37

for us is you know after I

50:39

left that the dinner that you and I had at Jake's house

50:41

with uh, that's how I met MO. We had

50:43

a couple of months back. Yeah, we

50:45

had dinner with Jake Oudell and it was

50:47

us and manager Jeff who manages Logan

50:50

Paul. And that was before the crisis. Yeah.

50:53

Yeah, So but you know I sat

50:55

there listening to Jeff talk

50:57

and it it was just like I was, you know, I

51:00

was fascinated in a sense of like, you know, it's

51:03

crazy this the impact that Logan's had

51:05

on this is this is Logan

51:07

Ball the YouTube star. Yeah. So you

51:10

know, listening to their concepts and listening to you know,

51:12

some of the stuff he said. You know, one thing resonated

51:14

when he was like, if they're not watching you, they're watching somebody

51:16

else. And I was like, okay, this

51:19

makes sense. So um, you

51:21

know, when I got back home that night, I emailed

51:23

my entire team and was like, hey, guys, first thing in the morning,

51:26

how many people are on your team? Um? I have

51:28

five five people that work with me, and what are the

51:30

other five do? So three of them

51:32

our day to days, and I have one

51:35

guy who's a social media guy.

51:37

He kind of runs some of the other artists social media.

51:40

And then uh, the other one's my assistant. Okay,

51:43

so you get home and email your team.

51:45

I'm like, hey, you know, in the morning, we have to have a

51:47

talk about content strategy

51:50

creating content because at the time we had Marshall

51:52

had like, you know, four million YouTube followers,

51:55

four or five million, and

51:57

it was coming from the music videos, and

51:59

we were uploading a music video maybe once every month

52:01

or two months, and there was not a consistent

52:03

feed of of content. So

52:06

I was just like, after listening to Jeff,

52:08

I was like, okay, maybe like you know what

52:11

blows my mind is like their numbers. You know,

52:13

it's like this logan is making probably million

52:15

dollars a year creating content in his house

52:18

or wherever, and it's like, you look, think about the biggest

52:21

musicians to make that

52:23

kind of money, and they're touring the world in a

52:25

studio every single night, and you know, then

52:27

Logan drops a song on on Spotify

52:29

and it's you know, thirty million plays

52:31

on Spotify and he's in New Music Friday and all this ship.

52:33

I'm like, damn, Like it's just it's

52:35

crazy. Um but it

52:37

really kind of like opened my eyes sit where I was like, you know what, maybe

52:40

we should focus more on content. And with

52:42

Marshmallow, we have a character, so it's like, how do we

52:44

create content around this character?

52:47

Um So it's from there that we started just

52:49

coming out with different creative ideas to basically

52:52

kind of have a piece of content that goes

52:54

out every day. Um So, within the last

52:56

like we've been in the last like six

52:58

months, we've been averaging nine hundred thousand news

53:00

subscribers a month. How so

53:03

you're putting out content every day, what

53:05

how many views does that content end up having?

53:08

So the channel is doing a hundred and seventy

53:10

million views a month. Yeah,

53:12

so the channel right now is averaging a hundred seventy million

53:14

views of the cross all the video. What was it before

53:16

before he employed this new strategy? It was,

53:19

I mean, it was it was growing. It was probably that I

53:21

think we were at like a hundred million. We had one music video

53:23

for a song he did two years ago called Alone.

53:26

The video is like a video about it

53:28

was kind of like him getting bullied as Marshmallow

53:30

and he grows up and becomes his DJ and everybody

53:33

starts to like him. All the kids that bullied him started

53:35

being like trying to be cool with him.

53:37

And we put this video out and

53:39

the video has almost one point three billion views

53:41

in two years. And it's an independent

53:43

record, no no radio support, nothing

53:46

to the degree you can mention it to remember it.

53:48

What is one point three billion views worth

53:50

financially? Um,

53:54

it's I don't even know it's

53:56

it's probably a couple of million.

54:00

But that okay, So he had he had this success

54:02

previously. But now you're putting account content

54:04

every day, right, So we started putting

54:06

out content and we wanted to We

54:09

wanted to create a deeper connection with our

54:11

fans. So one of the

54:13

first concept that we created was cooking with Marshmallow.

54:16

So we were like, okay, let's let's look at it this way.

54:18

How can we create something that's going to reach a different audience,

54:21

but how can we tie it into our fans? And

54:23

then you know, also, let's we

54:25

need something that we can upload every week, you know. So

54:28

we created this series Cooking with Marshmallow, where

54:30

we look at we take our biggest demographic, right,

54:32

so Indonesia's our biggest fan base, so

54:34

we go and create Why is Indonesia your base?

54:37

I have no clue. I have no clue. Indonesia

54:39

is our biggest and we have like I think our second

54:42

Indonesia Singapore, um,

54:45

and then the US and then Canada and

54:47

then Brazil is like our top five.

54:49

And have you been to Indonesian Singapore?

54:51

Yeah, we've done festivals in both of them. Um.

54:54

But I think it's because of the character. You know, the character

54:57

really resonates with that side of the

54:59

world. Um.

55:01

But we you know, we did cultural dishes

55:04

of you know, like we did Nazi gerrang,

55:06

which is like a Indonesian rice. It's

55:08

like a fried

55:10

rice that you know. So we did this and

55:12

then we did you know, for India,

55:14

we did another dish. We did like chicken Tikam masala,

55:17

and then for Brazil we did another dish.

55:19

And for so for every market that

55:21

you know, or for every demographic that we had a

55:23

you know, a big fan base, and we did a dish

55:26

that would resonate with them culturally. And

55:28

how long were the clips a minute and a half.

55:30

So it's just he really

55:32

doesn't know how to cook, does he know? So it's just like

55:34

it's but it's like those those viral videos

55:37

where it just shows the ingredients, how you put

55:39

it in, make it boom, walk out

55:41

with the dish, you know, very quick, short

55:43

form, one minute videos. But

55:45

every time we were posting these, we were going to number one

55:48

on all the cooking playlists. So for

55:50

us, it was just like a new thing of Like, so if

55:52

you type in right now on YouTube how to make Mongolian

55:54

beef? Right, the biggest video on

55:57

YouTube right now has like maybe

56:00

three hund thousand views. Our video has a couple

56:02

of millions. So right now we're at the top of how to make Mongolian

56:04

beef? And it's like, okay, cool. Every

56:06

time someone searches like these dishes, our

56:09

videos are popping up because our fan base is fueling

56:11

the views. I get it, I get it. So that's

56:13

one day a week. What are the other six? Yeah,

56:16

So we tested this concept. Then we tested some

56:18

animation as well into the like music videos

56:20

are doing animated music videos, and now we're

56:22

introducing three more concepts.

56:24

So we're doing uh

56:27

gaming with Marshmallow. So we're doing

56:29

We're getting like a bunch of the big gamers. You

56:31

know, the gaming world is massive right now. So

56:33

we're doing uh concepts

56:36

with him, gaming with these guys

56:38

and challenging them and stuff like that. We're doing

56:40

life hacks with Marshmallow, um,

56:42

which which is it's a series on how

56:44

to live your life with a bucket on your head and

56:46

the hacks that you take to you know,

56:49

do stuff. And then um, the

56:51

other one that we're creating is, uh,

56:53

we're doing one called Unboxing with Marshmallow

56:55

because unboxing is like, so

56:58

what's Marshmallow going to unbox different

57:00

stuff that relates to his family, so like DJ

57:02

equipment and gear and stuff like that. Um.

57:06

But that one that that's one that we're like really

57:08

trying to figure out. But that's one of the concepts because we've been

57:10

kind of looking at what are the biggest trends on YouTube

57:13

and how to bring our brand

57:15

into that in a in a way that's organic

57:17

and doesn't seem to right

57:19

to what degree are the people already subscribers

57:21

and then finding this and what degree are you working at

57:24

Um, what do you mean socials?

57:27

Are you saying today's video on Instagram

57:30

and all this other stuff. Yeah, so every time we upload,

57:33

um, one of these videos to the YouTube, we're posting

57:35

it on the other socials and stuff like that and

57:37

posting clips. But we're driving all

57:39

the traffic back to the YouTube, right

57:41

And so to degree you're knowledgeable,

57:44

to degree you care, is

57:46

any other DJ doing this? No, not

57:48

on this level because right now we've

57:50

racked up we're at almost eleven million

57:52

subscribers, um, and it's

57:54

average you know that nobody, I don't. YouTube

57:57

is like nobody's growth is as big as ours right now

57:59

on DJ. And so YouTube notices

58:01

this, and what will they do for you? They YouTube

58:04

is now helping, you know, fund

58:06

some of the content. What kind of budgets

58:08

do you using? Is it most of this zero budget

58:11

anyway? No? I mean because we're bringing in

58:13

you know, um, a full on

58:16

staff to our crew to film this

58:18

and create the editing and all that stuff. And if

58:20

you watch the videos, you see there's like they're

58:22

fun videos, sound effects and they're

58:24

fun to watch. Where um, you know,

58:26

there's some money that goes into that. So

58:29

but YouTube will help fund it yeah, they

58:31

Yeah, they put some money in. You know, is it what degree

58:33

where they helped promote it? Um,

58:37

that's like that's to be determined on their end,

58:39

Like they'll they'll they'll give us playlistening and stuff

58:41

like that. Um. But you know, I also

58:43

they have to stay within their lines of right right,

58:45

I know that you know, they they'll give you the money, but they don't

58:47

want to promote it. They say it's you know, contradiction

58:50

in their ethos. But okay,

58:52

so all this is happening, which is a mind blowing

58:55

great, but what are the next couple of steps?

58:58

I think for us, it's just you know, we've, uh,

59:00

we've kind of solidified ourselves in the music

59:02

space as far as music with releases, and we've

59:04

got a couple of big singles coming out still till

59:07

the end of the year, we'll have a couple of big records. Um.

59:10

But to be honest, it's just about really

59:13

solidifying the brand as a whole. You know. We just we

59:16

launched our tour a couple of months

59:18

ago. So we're doing the l A Convention Center

59:20

in March. Um tickets

59:23

there. We already did two nights at Bill Graham

59:25

again. We're doing two nights at Red Rocks.

59:28

Um, so we're going into another round

59:30

of hard ticket stuff. Um. And then

59:33

um, it's it's a lot of music this

59:35

year. Okay, you're playing festivals. Yeah, we're playing

59:37

a couple of big festivals. Um,

59:40

he's you know, he's in Israel this weekend.

59:42

He's in Israel and doing some you know, more global

59:44

stuff. But um,

59:46

this year we've kind of slowed down and

59:49

we're more so focusing on music and just

59:51

creating content and all kinds of stuff. Okay,

59:53

you know the rule of thumb as a manager, you

59:55

never want to you never want to be a manager who

59:57

wants it more than the act. So

1:00:00

in this particular case, you have an act and

1:00:02

everything's on his shoulders. To

1:00:04

what degree does he wanted? To what degree is he coping

1:00:07

with this success? I mean, I think we've

1:00:09

we've found a way to balance out what's

1:00:12

on his shoulders, you know, his his he loves

1:00:14

making music, and that's what we

1:00:16

We try to alleviate as much stuff outside

1:00:19

of you know, what we can on our end.

1:00:21

So like we can't obviously I can't tour for him.

1:00:23

He has to go on the road, but he loves going on the road. For

1:00:26

him, I think, you know, it's been such an

1:00:28

eye and opening experience, you know, meeting all

1:00:30

these people. Like for him, that's what he gets off

1:00:32

to the most, is just like I don't think any

1:00:34

of us sought the cultural impact and the global

1:00:36

impact that Marshmalla would have has happened.

1:00:38

You know, we never thought in a million years would

1:00:41

be this big and have this kind of a footprint.

1:00:43

UM. So for him, you know, he loves

1:00:45

when he's home, he's in the studio or he's making

1:00:48

music at home, and then um, if

1:00:50

he's on the road, he's touring, and he loves that. Um.

1:00:52

And then everything else outside of that we try

1:00:54

to do ourselves and alleviate that pressure

1:00:56

on him. So how many other acts are managing

1:00:58

at this point? I've got about seven

1:01:00

other acts? And since

1:01:02

Marshmallow blows up? What

1:01:05

opportunities come to you and your management

1:01:07

company forgetting Marshmallow? A

1:01:09

lot? You know, from the

1:01:11

clients that are now coming to the table to potentially

1:01:13

sign and um, there's a lot of big acts

1:01:16

that you know I've been fortunate to to turn

1:01:18

down. UM and then uh,

1:01:21

just a lot of opportunities for all my artists. As a

1:01:23

whole um. And then you know just the

1:01:25

relationships we've been able to build with other you

1:01:27

know, companies and managers and brands and

1:01:29

stuff like that. So and are you

1:01:31

if a big act came to you, would you make that deal?

1:01:34

It depends, I mean for me again,

1:01:36

like it's it's about none

1:01:39

of my clients. I don't ever wake up to one of my clients

1:01:41

and be like, oh God, like he's calling me, you know what I

1:01:43

mean? Like I love all my guys. We've come

1:01:45

up together, so it's like almost like it's

1:01:48

become a family. Um. And

1:01:50

that's and that's the vibe I want to maintain, you know, I mean,

1:01:52

none of my guys are hard to work with. Everyone is just like

1:01:54

everyone's appreciative of where they're they're at and

1:01:56

there's no ego. We're all very grounded.

1:01:59

Um. So then when you throw in somebody that's not

1:02:01

like that into the mix, it throws off that dynamic.

1:02:04

And that's what I would never do too, because all

1:02:06

my guys work together like that. If they're

1:02:08

not making music together and not playing a festival together,

1:02:11

they're hanging out, going bowling together or doing stuff

1:02:13

like that. Now, since you're so successful,

1:02:16

does it pay to be with an organization with red

1:02:18

Light, or does it pay to be independent? Because

1:02:20

it used to be all managers were independent, and

1:02:22

now so many managers are either with Live Nation

1:02:25

or with their Maverick or red Light.

1:02:27

Certainly, even I don't know whether

1:02:29

in terms of acts they have even have more acts. I

1:02:32

think I think it depends on the person, you know. I mean,

1:02:34

I think, um, you know,

1:02:36

for me starting out, it was definitely helpful

1:02:38

because you know, it gave me the like

1:02:41

the infrastructure was something I didn't have to worry about.

1:02:43

I had that back end if I need, you know, I

1:02:45

knew I was getting my my paycheck,

1:02:47

you know every two weeks. I could live my life and focus

1:02:49

on work, you know. I mean, and I think moving

1:02:51

forward, you know, there's a lot of managers there that have

1:02:54

you know, kids in a family, and they they're not

1:02:57

trying to chase the dream in a sense, you know. I mean, They're

1:02:59

they're intent with working and paying

1:03:01

a cut to to the bigger man, and you

1:03:04

know, and that's it. Um.

1:03:06

You know. So it works for some people, and then some people want

1:03:09

to go to Live Nation and get a big check up front and live

1:03:11

their life and invest in what they need to do to secure

1:03:13

their future, and that's the way they look at

1:03:15

it um, you know. But then there's other guys

1:03:17

that you know, being an entrepreneurs

1:03:20

what you know, what what drives

1:03:22

them? And you know too, you can

1:03:24

never at the enda you're working for

1:03:26

other people's companies, you know. So if you're one of those

1:03:28

entrepreneurs, you're always going to be waiving

1:03:30

somebody else's flag. Um

1:03:33

And if you know, if that that's cool

1:03:35

with you, then that's cool. And if it's not, then you know,

1:03:37

you've gotta figure out what the right move is. This

1:03:42

is Bob left Sets. I'm a writer and

1:03:44

you can read me at left sets dot com.

1:03:46

If you're like listening to the innovators of the music

1:03:48

gidustry, like today's guest Motional Easy,

1:03:50

I'd like to invite you to attend my Music Media Summit

1:03:53

in Santa Barbara the last weekend in April. I'd

1:03:55

love for you to come and learn from the best of the business,

1:03:57

like Troy Carter Spotify. If interested,

1:04:00

go to Music Media Summit dot com for

1:04:02

tickets and more information. I hope

1:04:04

you'll join me. Let's

1:04:06

continue the conversation with Motional Easy, manager

1:04:09

of marshmallow. Okay, so what's

1:04:11

the status of electronic music

1:04:13

you're deep in the world. Conventional wisdom

1:04:16

is that it peaked five or six years

1:04:19

ago. What do you think. I don't think it's peak.

1:04:21

I think it's in a correctional phase. I think

1:04:24

the consumption of music is so different now. I

1:04:26

think with streaming, how people consume music

1:04:28

is it is so it's the

1:04:30

attention span is so short now, so

1:04:33

you know, you gotta as a whole.

1:04:35

You know, on the electronic side, there's

1:04:37

so much saturation with kids that

1:04:39

want to be an artist, a deep producer, DJ, whatever.

1:04:42

Then you have an excess of festivals.

1:04:45

You know, there's a festival popping up every other week

1:04:47

now, where uh, you know, kids

1:04:49

would rather go

1:04:51

pay a hundred bucks for a festival ticket and watch

1:04:53

twenty acts versus coming to your hard ticket show

1:04:55

and paying sixty seventy bucks and just

1:04:57

watching you unless they're you know, a die hard fan.

1:05:00

And but the way people are, you know, finding

1:05:02

music now is through you know, Apple Music and Spotify

1:05:04

and these playlists. You know, And this is my opinion,

1:05:07

I think we're here.

1:05:09

Your opinion, they're they're not building a real connection

1:05:11

with the fan with the artist, um,

1:05:14

you know, because you're you know, you're you're

1:05:16

connecting with the playlist now and you're listening

1:05:18

to that playlist over and over and over. But

1:05:20

how many times are you discovering that artist on your

1:05:22

own? Like you know, I found every one of my artists

1:05:24

too SoundCloud. I was would go through SoundCloud

1:05:26

to find an artist. I would follow their their

1:05:29

career in a sense, and their releases and be like, wow,

1:05:31

like I found this guy. I felt vested in this

1:05:34

guy that I found and I've started

1:05:36

following before anybody else did. And I would tell my friends

1:05:38

like, yo, I found this guy named so and so

1:05:40

you should listen to him or you know, And that was how it worked.

1:05:43

Now it's like I think everyone kind of listens to a

1:05:45

playlist and it's like, you know, I'm

1:05:47

guilty of you. I listened to you know, rap Caviare Cavier

1:05:50

all the time because I'm like, Yo, this is the newest

1:05:52

hip hop, it's the coolest hip hop, it's you know, and

1:05:54

it's it's probably the best song of that artist

1:05:57

right now, you know. So why don't need to listen to anything else?

1:05:59

Because year I can listen to twenty of

1:06:01

the best songs right now that are in

1:06:03

the in you know, in the hip hop

1:06:05

world. Why am I gonna go elsewhere? You know? I mean, I'm not gonna

1:06:07

go find the artists and be like okay, um,

1:06:09

you know, unless unless that artists really

1:06:12

stands out to me, you know. Um.

1:06:14

And that's why I think, like, you know, there's artists

1:06:16

that have billions of streams on Spotify and you

1:06:18

know, on Apple, and they can't sell a single

1:06:20

ticket, you know, because people

1:06:23

aren't really becoming real fans. They're

1:06:25

they're only with you as as much as you

1:06:27

know, the music is there in a sense.

1:06:30

And then one, so let's assume you manage one of those

1:06:32

acts. How do you make it so that they can

1:06:34

sell tickets? You I think you have

1:06:36

to do a good job of building a core audience

1:06:39

first a brand. You have to build a brand that people

1:06:41

connect to on the core level. So

1:06:43

you have these fans that are gonna follow you through every

1:06:45

footstep of the career. Um.

1:06:47

And I think that's the hard part today. Does that come

1:06:49

before or after your first hit

1:06:51

single? I think that comes way before,

1:06:53

you know, I think because once you get to the commercial level,

1:06:56

you know, we see it with I see with all my acts,

1:06:58

the second they do anything that's remote commercial

1:07:01

all of the day, one core kids are like you sold

1:07:03

out. I don't want to listen to you anymore. I'm gonna go to the next kid

1:07:05

that's coming up on the underground, you

1:07:07

know. And it's like, you look at these SoundCloud rappers, you

1:07:09

know, you look at these guys that are amassing

1:07:12

massive followings from from

1:07:14

that level. You know, it's that SoundCloud level

1:07:16

there creating you know, huge fan

1:07:18

bases, and then you know then they're jumping

1:07:21

up into the bigger level, and then you

1:07:23

know it is kind of what it is. Yeah, but you say

1:07:25

you want to establish going through the threads

1:07:27

here? How do you manage that as a manager

1:07:30

where you know as soon as you have a hit, there's

1:07:32

gonna be a backlash, You're gonna lose some coreal audience

1:07:35

or do you have enough people still left to make it work.

1:07:37

I think it's making a hit that still resonates

1:07:40

with your core, like you have to find Like, you

1:07:42

know, if if you went and you're a rapper and then

1:07:44

all of a sudden you went into a song with clenic comez, I

1:07:46

think you're gonna piss off a lot of people, you know, But

1:07:48

if you do a song that you know is

1:07:51

a really good song and you

1:07:53

know your core can't really complain

1:07:55

about it in a sense, it's not something that's completely

1:07:57

off of your ethos of your brand in a sense, like

1:08:00

I think, then you're okay, okay. But if we

1:08:02

went on Spotify right now, look at the Spotify

1:08:04

US Top fifty, the vast

1:08:07

majority of those acts would be urban hip hop.

1:08:09

So where does this leave electronic music? Uh,

1:08:13

it's in a weird say. I mean, it's definitely a weird say.

1:08:15

It's it's become electronic music become pop music

1:08:17

today, you know. I like, you look at the

1:08:20

you know, the playlists for dance music and the

1:08:23

streams are you know, streams

1:08:27

a day for the biggest songs on the

1:08:29

plat on the playlists where you look at the pop side

1:08:31

and the urban side, it's millions of streams today. People

1:08:33

aren't and I think I think dance

1:08:36

is losing more fans and it's regenerating right now.

1:08:38

So that's because

1:08:41

the sound has changed or the listening

1:08:43

platforms has made that. So I think it's

1:08:46

I think it's just it's

1:08:48

been you know, I think urban

1:08:50

music has just come back so strong finally, And

1:08:53

I think, you know the culture that comes with

1:08:55

urban I think I was reading your you know, your letter

1:08:57

you wrote and so true about just there's

1:09:00

culture with urban dance doesn't have a culture really,

1:09:02

you know, pop pop is what it is. But um,

1:09:06

but dance originally came from rave culture.

1:09:08

They grew up hand in hand. There was a live

1:09:10

experience which still exists with it. Again.

1:09:13

You got Electric Daisy Carnival. If you're not

1:09:15

there, you have no idea what's going on, it's

1:09:17

not might go to the pop show. It's Staples

1:09:19

Center. But you think it's just long in the

1:09:21

tooth that people are just so entranced by hip hop.

1:09:24

I think so, I think I think people are just it's

1:09:26

something new finally, you know what I mean. Like hip hop for

1:09:28

a while was just so stale and like there was nothing,

1:09:30

and now you have this new wave of like

1:09:32

you know, the little Oozies and the loads and all

1:09:34

these you know, these guys that you

1:09:37

know are creating a buzz and you know through social

1:09:39

media and everything that people are attaching

1:09:41

themselves to that, you know what I mean. So,

1:09:45

you know, historically, prior to the Internet,

1:09:48

every three years it was a new sound. I'm like

1:09:50

Seattle killed the air band sound and

1:09:53

after that came pop, etcetera. Whereas

1:09:56

one can say, in this century

1:09:59

hip hop up has been wax in Wayne but been

1:10:01

pretty dominant. So is

1:10:04

that going to continue? I mean, I'm just asking

1:10:06

your opinion because we don't have a crystal ball in

1:10:08

terms of hip hop is so dominant now

1:10:11

because I think about it, because all the other genres

1:10:14

have bitched about new distribution platforms,

1:10:16

not electronic. Electronic has at this moment where

1:10:18

it's merged with pop anyway. But the non pop,

1:10:21

non urban sounds, they've bitched

1:10:23

so much about SoundCloud and Spotify

1:10:26

whatever, and they've been left out. So the

1:10:28

question becomes when they, when

1:10:30

their fans finally get on these platforms,

1:10:33

do these new genres have a comeback or

1:10:35

is it just forget it. I

1:10:37

don't know the answer to that. I don't even know. I

1:10:40

think, uh, I don't think urban's going anywhere,

1:10:43

you know, I mean, I think it's it's really there's

1:10:45

a movement going on with her right now, you know what I mean.

1:10:47

But in your particular case, Marshmallow

1:10:50

was built outside the traditional

1:10:52

thing. I mean, if you if you were to sign with a major label.

1:10:55

What they would tell you is a couple of things. Besides

1:10:57

the relationship with streaming services. They would

1:10:59

say, we have related ship a terrestrial radio, and

1:11:01

we have a relationship with television in

1:11:04

your a particular case. Both of those are essentially

1:11:06

prior to the recent working with Name talent

1:11:09

have been completely irrelevant to March Battle

1:11:11

success. Okay,

1:11:13

and I would assume there hasn't

1:11:15

been that much. But mainstream press irrelevant

1:11:18

too, Yeah, I mean, I think

1:11:21

because the amount of organic press

1:11:23

that's happened, like there's no kind of

1:11:25

outlet that really we need, you

1:11:27

know, I mean like it's always been like, you

1:11:30

know, he doesn't do interviews to this day, he doesn't do interviews

1:11:32

because we don't need it. So

1:11:35

is this one of a kind or is this the

1:11:37

new paradigm? No, I mean I think,

1:11:40

you know, I think there's a lot of anomally like it's it's an

1:11:42

anomaly in a sense of how quickly

1:11:44

and what it's done. But you know, I think there's

1:11:46

you know, there's potential for other artists that pop up

1:11:48

in the same well forgetting the fact that he's unique in

1:11:51

terms of the sound and the look etcetera. With

1:11:53

the target audience, which is basically under

1:11:55

thirty five, if not younger than that, do

1:11:58

the old media really

1:12:00

not matter to that audience? Um,

1:12:04

that's a good question. I don't know. Okay,

1:12:07

let's go to one other question. To what degree and

1:12:10

electronic music dates to

1:12:12

what degree are drugs an integral

1:12:14

element of the show. I

1:12:16

mean, I think that's like a common misconception because

1:12:18

I think you go to Coachella, you see people

1:12:21

doing drugs. You go to any any festival,

1:12:24

people do drugs, you know, And I think it's just

1:12:26

like anything else, you know. I think, like

1:12:28

trying music gets you know, the ship and the

1:12:30

sick of if one thing happens, it's,

1:12:32

you know, all hell breaks loose, you

1:12:34

know, in in in the eyes of

1:12:36

the public. Um. But I think it's

1:12:38

just like anything else. You know, kids are experimenting, and

1:12:40

kids are doing what they want to do. They're being kids,

1:12:43

and they're gonna do ship, you know what I mean, Like in for

1:12:46

them, that's that's the way that they experience

1:12:48

that cut. Well, let's

1:12:51

say if one went to an act in the

1:12:53

classic rock heyday, it would be very

1:12:55

much about the act on stage and bonding

1:12:57

with that act, Whereas when many shows

1:12:59

you to today, never mind the festivals, which are

1:13:01

really like that, the audience is the

1:13:03

star and the audience is you know, shooting

1:13:06

selfies to be going on Instagram,

1:13:08

etcetera. So when

1:13:11

we're at a Marshmallows show, if

1:13:13

we took out the drugs and

1:13:15

we and I say, I'm not saying they're more drugs in there

1:13:17

on any other show, But to what degree

1:13:20

is it a scene that the

1:13:22

people want to be at and Marshmallow

1:13:24

is just the juice? And to what degree is oh

1:13:26

I gotta go here in Marshmallow? I

1:13:29

think it's it's probably half and a half. You know.

1:13:31

I think there's there's always gonna be kids that want to just

1:13:34

be in that environment to do what they want to do

1:13:36

in a sense, you know what I mean. And if that's doing

1:13:38

drugs or you know whatever, then you know they're

1:13:40

gonna do it. Um. But then you know, there's

1:13:44

a good amount of core fans that just want

1:13:46

to be in that presidence and want to watch the music and watch

1:13:48

their performance and watch their favorite DJ, you

1:13:50

know, play his his music. Okay,

1:13:53

so you're twenty seven, what's the dream

1:13:55

marching forward? You personally?

1:13:58

Um, I think it's know, I'm living it

1:14:00

right now. You know, I couldn't. I couldn't be happier with everything

1:14:02

that's going on. And you know, I never in a million

1:14:05

years thought i'd be, you know, in in the position

1:14:07

I'm in, and you know, it's all it's

1:14:09

all been an amazing experience just learning and

1:14:11

growing and surrounding myself from people that I get

1:14:13

to learn from, and you know, just watching everything that's going

1:14:15

on in the landscape of music. Um,

1:14:18

you know, so to be honest, it just

1:14:21

keep going. Okay, Marshmallow,

1:14:24

you conceived of with the act

1:14:26

and it's you know, it's almost

1:14:29

back to Iron Maiden where they have Eddie, which is

1:14:31

bigger than you know, the Faceless Act. And

1:14:34

is this a replicable thing or

1:14:37

no, we didn't once move on to something

1:14:39

else. I think, Uh, I think it's harder

1:14:41

to breaking artists now than ever, you know what I mean. And

1:14:43

I think the tools and kind

1:14:46

of the you know, the things we had three years

1:14:48

ago or not are

1:14:50

not as It's not as easy as it

1:14:52

was then, I mean. And like again,

1:14:54

like I think SoundCloud was a huge pardon in marshall

1:14:57

success and a lot of my artist success and

1:14:59

like SoundCloud now is has become

1:15:02

you know, kind of not irrelevant,

1:15:04

but it's become like moribund,

1:15:06

right, So it's like things

1:15:09

like that where um, then you have to play

1:15:11

the politics of the DSPs, you know what I mean. If

1:15:13

you do something with Spotify, then you

1:15:15

know someone you know, you're upsetting

1:15:17

another partner and then vice versa, and it's just

1:15:19

like there's a lot more politics that you have to

1:15:21

play with, and you know, artists have to go

1:15:24

through the hoops in a sense. Sometimes, since

1:15:26

we're talking about DSPs, to what degree

1:15:28

with Marshmallow, is Amazon important?

1:15:31

To be honest, we haven't really done anything with Amazon, because

1:15:34

it's interesting. I mean it's like Garth Brooks is only

1:15:36

on Amazon, and you know, you

1:15:38

talk to the manager and say why on all these other

1:15:40

services? Then they start talking about what Amazon

1:15:42

did for them and the number of streams they got

1:15:45

an Amazon go, hey, it might be working for that, right

1:15:47

And when you sit with the people from Amazon, who were

1:15:50

anything but pompous, you know, they talk

1:15:52

about opportunities. It's it's an interesting

1:15:54

thing. So, Okay, if

1:15:56

you were to view yourself ten years out, you

1:15:59

view yourself as a me the juror I mean, because you've

1:16:01

had a lot of history with a lot of things. You've been a hustler

1:16:03

with DJ's promoter, you've been a rep

1:16:06

for HP, I mean a lot of people.

1:16:08

David Geffen started out as a manager. Although

1:16:10

he certainly manages people, at this point in time,

1:16:13

that would not be his job. Okay,

1:16:15

do you have any vision of where you would like to be

1:16:17

or you just saying I'm here now, I'm seeing what's coming

1:16:20

over the transom. I mean, I think it's

1:16:22

I love, you know, I love my job

1:16:24

as a manager, you know, I mean, I love I love doing what

1:16:26

I do. I love waking up every morning wondering how I

1:16:28

could, you know, make an artist

1:16:30

footprint even bigger? Um? And how do you keep

1:16:33

this going? You know what I mean? I think that's the

1:16:35

challenge, and you know, unfortunately it's also

1:16:37

kind of like a curse, like I can't you never stop working,

1:16:40

you know what I mean? Okay, So that's so there's seven days

1:16:42

in a week. You ever take time off? Never

1:16:45

have a girlfriend? Uh? Yeah,

1:16:47

okay, So how does she cope with this? Uh?

1:16:49

She comes second to my other boyfriends.

1:16:52

And so if if you were listening to this right now, she

1:16:54

would say, yeah, that's it, and I own that. Yeah she

1:16:57

knows. Okay, I mean it's

1:17:00

a curse. But it's also like I

1:17:02

love what I do, you know, and you're riding the wave right now.

1:17:04

Yeah, And it's like every missed opportunity,

1:17:07

I feel like if I'm not on it, I'm

1:17:09

missing an opportunity, you know what I mean. If I'm not you

1:17:11

know, out there networking or doing what

1:17:14

I need to do, I feel like I'm not doing, you

1:17:16

know, my job as a manager. And

1:17:18

and to degree, you have an office.

1:17:21

Are you in the red light office? Okay?

1:17:23

So how often are you in that office? Um?

1:17:25

Maybe like once a week okay? And

1:17:27

where are you the rest of the time. The rest of the time, I'm

1:17:30

you know, I have a home office too, Um, so I have my

1:17:32

staff come there sometimes. But I also I am

1:17:34

always just on the meeting after meeting

1:17:37

after meeting, so more so in my car just driving

1:17:39

around. Okay, you've been listening to Motional

1:17:41

Easy. If your head is not spinning, you

1:17:43

didn't pay attention. This is the

1:17:45

New World with a young guy, incredible success.

1:17:48

The whole bit about the daily YouTube I'm thinking about.

1:17:50

You know, I was there when that happened. We batted around

1:17:52

ideas, but I'm sitting here right now, go God,

1:17:54

what am I doing wrong? So thanks

1:17:56

for helping me. Until next time, It's

1:17:58

Motional Easy. I'm a Bob Left Sets podcast.

1:18:06

That wraps up this week's episode of the Bob Left

1:18:08

Sets Podcast with both chel eis my

1:18:10

head is spinning, I feel inadequate and

1:18:12

I'm decades older than bo. I Gotta go home and contemplate

1:18:15

my future. As always, you

1:18:17

can give me feedback on the conversation reached

1:18:19

me at Bob at left sets dot com.

1:18:21

I hope you enjoyed this podcast as much as I

1:18:23

do.