Michele Clark Entertainment’s Sunset Sessions has spent the past 14 years bringing Triple A artists together with radio and music supervisors. This year, Clark, FMQB & All Media Music Group launched the first-ever Sunset Sessions Rock!, aiming to do the same for the Active and Modern Rock formats. In this week’s eQB, we showcase highlights from Glassnote founder Daniel Glass’ keynote Q&A conversation, along with panels and artists from throughout the weekend.
Daniel Glass
By Mike Parrish, Mike Bacon & Joey Odorisio
Michele Clark Entertainment’s Sunset Sessions has spent the past 14 years bringing Triple A artists together with radio and music supervisors. In 2011, Clark, FMQB and All Media Music Group launched the first-ever Sunset Sessions Rock! aiming to do the same for the Active and Modern Rock formats, and with an exuberant industry turnout of over 600 attendees Sunset Sessions Rock! successfully debuted earlier this month in Carlsbad, CA at the La Costa Resort & Spa. Also in attendance were broadcast partners 91X and NBC-San Diego and media partner City Beat, with an on-site presence from MusicCares and The Recording Academy.
The keynote Q&A of the event was from Glassnote Entertainment GroupFounder/President Daniel Glass. Glass has had a storied career in the music industry, helping launch the careers of countless artists. Glassnote is currently on a hot streak with the success of acts such as Mumford & Sons and Phoenix. As part of Sunset Sessions Rock!, Glass sat down for a one-on-one interview with journalist Matt Diehl of Rolling Stone. The keynote Q&A was preceded by a solo acoustic performance from Glassnote artistSecondhand Serenade (aka John Vesely).
Glass said that Glassnote aims to sign acts with ambition. “We want artists who want to play on the big stage one day. Could be the third album, could be the fifth album, I don’t care when it is.” He added, “We’re not the company to come when you’ve plateaued or you just want to put a record out. We just can’t do it … We’re patient…major labels for the most part are ambitious. They want to make money and they want to sell a lot of records quickly. We don’t have any of that motivation.”
When it comes to Glassnote acts in concert, the bands often prefer to underplay a venue. Glass said that “Mumford & Sons does it the best. They play small. They’ll do a couple of big shows. They weren’t small at Coachella they’re not small atBonnaroo. They underplay it. They sell very affordable tickets. They want you to have a great time. Their favorite shows are in pubs.”
Glass also spoke at length about the signing of Phoenix, who had hit a “glass ceiling” in their career, selling approximately the same amount of records each time out on EMI. He said the day he met the group, “I met the four coolest guys I’ve ever met in my life. They had the swagger. They had the cool. They were a band. They grew up together. They were boyhood friends from Versaille, France.” Glass also took a gamble by asking Bonnaroo to move the band’s set time up that year. “They put them on at 3:00 in the afternoon in some club tent, because that’s what the perception of Phoenix was… So we called them and said we wanted to ask for the ultimate favor: can you move them at night to the third stage of Bonnaroo? And it was a great gamble by them and a great gamble by us…It was 10:00 at night, it was so unbelievable. It started out with about 12,000 people [and] we were about 28,000 by the time they finished, thanks to word of mouth.”
Phoenix’s “1901” took one of the longest paths to #1 at the Modern Rock format ever. Glass said that, “Some cool radio stations came aboard early. In New York City especially, WFUV was there really from the beginning. The NPRs and the Triple A’s were there from the beginning, and then the progressive Alternative stations started coming in with San Diego, Boston, WFNX, The Current in Minneapolis… It was great having that base. Then Alternative radio, it took 58 weeks or something to go to #1. And it was amazing.”
Glass spoke highly of the label’s relationship with radio. He told Diehl, “[what] separates me from the pack, whether it be my independent competitors and peers or major labels, we respect radio. We trust radio. Maybe we’re old fashioned, but we’re very big proponents of radio. I don’t know artists that can get to the Staples Center or Madison Square Garden without radio. I know that’s different, perhaps that’s controversial, but I’m a huge fan of radio. And we spend a lot of time with radio. I talk to the artists about it. We do the lounges, we do the shows. I consider radio a great friend. So it’s part of our mix.”
Glassnote’s newest signing is the Louisiana band Givers, and Glass said, “I don’t know if we’re going to ship 4,000 records and I don’t really care. Who cares? You think anybody wanted to buy Mumford and Sons in the beginning? My own company, people in my own group didn’t understand what it was all about. And they didn’t want to put the banjo on the cover; that was a really big deal. I actually made the banjo bigger because people at our distributor really, really upset me and said you really can’t do that, and started talking about Americana and NPR. I said, ‘It’s rock! It’s a rock record, it’s alternative, that’s what alternative is!’”
He added that “The first 90 days were not good with Mumford and Sons. [We sold] nothing. We sold records because JimMcGuinn put the record on the Current in Minneapolis, and then it went on in WXPN in Philly and WFNX in Boston started playing the record. We had a #5 album the week the Current started playing the album and how we found out we had a hit wasn’t because of the stores, it was because the promoter called up [Glassnote Touring & Artist Development Head] Adam [Herzog] and said we need to change the venue! We sold out in minutes. We changed venues twice, from 300 to 500 to 650 people. It wasn’t a lot but in perspective, ‘Who are these people? Where are they coming from?’”
“And the marketing plan was great – it was one line: ‘Get people to see them live.’ That was the marketing plan. They wanted a whole thing…but we had one line. That was really it, because that’s what happened to me. The Temper Trap‘s singer said, ‘You gotta see these guys. These guys opened for us, they’re incredibly talented.’ There was nobody in the room, maybe 23 people, they were very fresh, very original… passionate show. And I went to London the next week to see them again with the Temper Trap, and it was great.”
Glass also told a story about Glassnote’s publishing division, Four Song Night, which got its name thanks to Phoenix’s appearance on Saturday Night Live in the spring of 2009. Glass said that Lorne Michaels loved the band so much, he asked them to do three songs on the show (a rare occurrence) and then a fourth song after the show ended.
Glass said he wanted Glassnote to be a “small and personal and intimate” label, “and the publishing company is going to be the same thing, where we’re going to do old-fashion song plugging, old-fashion holding hands, old-fashion setting up writing sessions and co-writes and writing workshops and retreats.” He added that Four Song Night will “lean a little more Pop and R&B in our publishing than we would staying in the Rock world.”
Diehl asked about 360 deals, which were coming into vogue when Glassnote began in 2007. Glass said that when they signed their first artist, Secondhand Serenade, “we didn’t feel we really deserved a share of his live touring after a moment. John deserves that. I don’t play guitar, why should we get a piece of that? He and his manager should get that. We help John in publishing. I asked if we can help you in your publishing, we’d like a little gift on the side for that, and we delivered. And if we don’t deliver, we don’t get it. And I think that’s what’s fair, if you treat an artist like that up front. If we help with the merchandise, we deserve something for that. But we don’t fancy ourselves as anything but John’s record company, and I think that’s the confusion of the land grab. And if we’re not going to be a good publisher, I’d rather close the publishing company down or not publish the artist. We have to help the copyrights, we have to help them grow, because if not, they’re gonna tell other artists we are not good. And that’s the end of your company, and that’s the worst feeling.”
In addition to Glass’ keynote speech, there were a handful of panels held throughout the weekend. WJJO PD Randy Hawkemoderated a discussion on “Breaking New Artists,” with Gold Village Entertainment President Danny Goldberg, Reprise VP of Rock Promo Cheryl Valentine, Carved Records/HOR Entertainment Group’s Bob Divney, SideOneDummy co-founderBill Armstrong, Sony RED Director of Promo & Artist DevelopmentTommy DeBenedictis and Religion Music GM Elias Chios. The conversation ranged from the challenges of developing an artist amongst the many different options presented to music fans, to its benefits, and took into account the agendas present from the many sides of the radio/management/label/artists’ perspectives.
Perhaps the most fascinating panel at Sunset Sessions Rock! was “Maximizing Your Digital & Mobile Space,” moderated byPaul Jacobs of Jacobs Media. Jacobs showcased segments from Jacobs Media’s “Goin’ Mobile” ongoing study of mobile device users and their love of apps. The conversation touched on Pandora (is it “radio”?) and where the line should be drawn when it comes to jocks and their social media profiles. 91X Digital Director Lisa Minjares, KAZR/Des Moines PD Ryan Patrick, Daniel Medoza ofThe Recording Academy, ex-SVP New Media at Warner Bros. Records Jeremy Welt and Eric Page of NBC-San Diego were panelists as well.
On Saturday, Broadcast Architecture’s Allen Keplerpresented his video interviews with former PPM panelists, revealing the mindset of some participants in Arbitron’s PPM surveys.WIYY/Baltimore PD Dave Hill, WBUZ/Nashville MD Zigz andWEND MD DZL were on-hand to discuss their respective stations’ ratings successes in a PPM-measured market. Kepler’s presentation revealed many concerns about the PPM methodology and how that system is gamed by its participants.
As for the music, up-and-coming Canadian rockers Redlight King were the first band of the weekend, with Linda Perry’s newest project Deep Dark Robot performing as well. Riding high on their top ten Modern Rock single “Sail,” AWOLNATION played a high-energy set when the sun went down. In the Late Night Lounge, Our Lady Peace frontman Raine Maida played a set of solo material (along with a stripped-down version of the OLP hit “Innocent”) and actor Jake Busey drummed for his band Sons Of The Lawless. Busey was seemingly everywhere on Friday, filming everything with his Flip camera.
Friday afternoon included a listening party for Staind’s as-yet-untitled new album, with WCCC/Hartford’s Mike Karolyitalking with Staind guitarist Mike Mushok as he debuted a handful of tracks from the upcoming record. Later, a screening was held for The Other “F” Word, a powerful new documentary on punk rockers and fatherhood. The film focuses on ex-Pennywise singerJim Lindberg, who was in attendance along with his family. Everclear’s Art Alexakis also appears in the movie and brought his daughter Arizona to the screening as well. Both artists played an acoustic song for those in attendance after the film.
Buzzed-about Glassnote act Givers kicked off the main stage on Friday night, with youthful rockers Drive A cranking things up later in the evening. Irish trio Kopek turned heads with their closing performance on the main stage and made many friends throughout the weekend. Other standouts included Dead Sara, an act that took literally everyone by surprise, and the lovely and extraordinarily talented Ali Handal. Electro-rock trioInnerpartysystem got the Late Night Lounge dancing as part of an eclectic bill.
Saturday included a unique “bed in,” where three acts (Holcombe Waller, Jenny O. & Barcelona) performed brief acoustic sets sitting on a bed. The main stage was headlined by rockers One Less Reason, who surprised the crowd with a heavy cover of Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s “Relax” and knockout vocal performance by frontman Chris Brown throughout the set. SoCal institution Unwritten Law closed out the main stage with a barrage of their hits and the stunning live debut of their new single “Sing”.
Overall the weekend was a total success. Participants and attendees bathed in the SoCal sunshine and soaked up new sounds, made new friends and vowed to return. Thank you to all parties involved on an amazingly run and attended event!
