FCM007 – Relationships with Steve Ford

In this episode we sit down with Centricity Music General Manager, Steve Ford. Steve talks about his history in the music biz, the importance of working your way up, winging it and having balance in the industry.

www.fullcirclemusic.org

FCM007_-_Relationships_with_Steve_Ford

Duration: 00:50:21

You're listening to The Full Circle Music Show. The why of the music biz.

Chris: Welcome back to the Full Circle Music Show, it’s Chris Murphy and I'm sitting right beside Seth Mosley. How are you buddy?

Seth: I'm good man. It's a busy week, lots of good stuff going on over here at the studio. And I’m excited to take just a few minutes out of our schedule to talk to one of our favorite people in the industry, Mister Steve Ford.

Steve has been a guy that I've known for a long time, was one of the people that I met moving to Nashville in the music business. And we've talked to a lot of people on the creative side so far but we haven't yet talked to anybody on the label side. So, you think of the guy that sits in a dark room with a suit in a corner office, that's this guy! Except for not, he actually sits in a what is a pretty awesome office, he's the general manager of a label company called Centricity Music; has been pretty massively successful in the past couple of years and really since they opened. But, he's a really great leader and speaks to what they look for in a good producer, in a good artist, in a good team member at their label.

So, if you're wanting to get involved in the music industry, this is a great episode to listened to. I learned a ton and I think you will too.

Chris: You know, being a podcast junky, it's nice to meet a fellow podcast enthusiast as well. We had some great conversations in the episode but also talked a lot about our favorite podcasts on and off the mic. He's just a great guy, great to get to know him and I really appreciate Seth you setting this up. Another great interview and I can't wait to listen to it.

Seth: And you can check out his company at centricitymusic.com. They have a lot of great artists that I think you'll dig.

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Hey podcast listeners, something is coming February 1^st 2016. Have you ever thought about a career in song writing or music production? We have created a couple courses with you guys in mind. We've been getting a lot of feedback on people wanting to know more about how to become a song worker; how to become a professional music producer or engineer. These courses were designed to answer some of those questions. Go to fullcirclemusic.org and sign up there for more information.

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Chris: You were saying earlier before we started rolling that you were a podcast guy.

Steve: Oh yeah, big podcast guy.

Chris: And, you've heard this podcast before?

Steve: Yeah. I've listened to the first three.

Chris: Okay. So, can I ask you to go out on a limb and give us a grade so far?

Steve: You know what? I'd give them a solid B+. I want them longer. That's my thing; I want to go into the background. I want to hear when you did Brown Banishers which is funny because I've worked a lot with Brown but you didn't get past Amy Grant.

Seth: Sure.

Steve: I mean, this is the guy who worked with from everybody from Third Day to Mercy Me to Why Heart, he's done everybody like come one there are stories there. I tell people I'm on the corporate side because of Brown Banisher because of how he worked. I was an engineer in LA for ten years and he would come out and mix records with us, it was at a little place called Mama Joes and I would see him on the phone going, “Happy birthday sweetie.” Later knowing that it was Ellie; missed her first walk and all of these other things. And when my daughter was born, I was like, I can't do this. I needed a life and so I started praying and Peter York calls. So it’s because of him so it's fun to hear some his stories. I did a lot of records win Jack Joseph Puig and–

Seth: And you were engineering at the time?

Steve: Yeah. I was an engineer at LA.

Seth: And at the time that was really engineering?

Steve: Oh my gosh.

Seth: You were cutting tape and…

Steve: Yeah! I've cut a lot of two inch tape, quarter inch tape, half inch–

Seth: Stuff that I hope to never do.

Steve: You don't have to, Jericho does it for you.

[Laughter] 

Seth: I don't know if Jericho has ever cut tape? In school he did.

Steve: Now, I feel really old.

Chris: Is that kind of like when you're in a biology class and not in any other time of your life will you need to dissect a frog but you just have to do it for the experience of it. Is that what it's become cutting tape?

Steve: I don't know if you have to do it even that. It's sort of like this legend of starting a fire with flint, you know? It's sort of like, “Yeah. I used to cut tape.”

[Laughter] 

Seth: I mean there's probably a resurgence. I would imagine knowing the process of what coffee has become and how artists.

Steve: Yeah.

Seth: I think there's a big thing in maybe it's the millennial generation or whatever it is but I think people are drawn back to slower, older more hands on processes it seems like than just pushing the button or going through the drive through–

Steve: And somethings, don't you think, in some things its like just give me the button. Give me the filter on Instagram.

Seth: That is true! That's true but then you've got the whole wave of people roasting their own coffee beans now and then they're grinding the with a hand grinder, and then they're putting in a… And, I'm saying this because we have like three artists that we work with; that come in and they bring their whole coffee apparatus.

Steve: And they measure how much coffee goes in, weigh it?

Chris: Yeah.

Steve: My son has one of those has a scale that weighs, how much coffee goes in. Oh yeah just …

Chris: Yeah, I thought you were going to say some of the artists that you work with, they actually bring their own barista in the studio because–

Steve: I'm sure that will happen.

Seth: That’s kind of a prerequisite to be in a band. There has to be at least one barista.

Steve: True.

Seth: In the band.

Steve: There has to be one business guy in every band and one guy who can make great coffee.

Seth: And then the guy who can actually play the instruments.

Steve: Yeah. Then the artist.

[Laughter]

Chris: And then the fourth guy on base who just knows how to shape everybody's beards. He's more of a grooming guy.

Seth: And sometime there's a drummer.

[Laughter] 

Steve: You don't need a drummer; there are machines for that now.

[Laughter] 

Seth: Yeah. I mean, just take us through a little bit of your journey, you started in L.A.?

Steve: I was born and raised in L.A.; read an article when I was 14 years old about this guy named Sir George Martin. And I was like, “What? You can do that for a living?”

Seth: Who is George Martin?

Steve: He produced this little band called the Beatles, probably never heard of…most 20 year olds haven't heard of them so…

Chris: And then isn't true that he went on from there to write The Game of Thrones?

Steve: Did he? I'm not a Game of Throne person–

Chris: Okay that's R.R. Martin, sorry.

Steve: Wrong one. But I mean, you read about these guys and you sort of open a door into a new world that you didn't know existed. And so, I was 18 years old, junior out of high school walked into the recording studios and started from there.

Seth: So, you didn't wait to have some sort of a college thing to get internships?

Steve: My mom was like Reeds parents which was like, “That’s a nice hobby but let's make sure you have a backup plan, a plan B.” And so, I still went to school, I still went to college did all of that. Don't ask me my grade point average because I was going home at 4 o'clock in the morning, waking up at 8 to crawl into my first class, it was terrible. But yeah, my first job in the recording studio, I was making $500 a month from 6 o'clock to 3 o'clock in the morning.

Seth: Living in L.A?

Steve: Living in L.A.

Seth: And that probably paid for a tenth of the rent?

Steve: Maybe.

Chris: Or, just the gas to get around?

Steve: But I loved every second of it. And then from there you sort of work your way up. So, I did that… Like I said earlier my daughter was born and I was like an engineer’s life is a hard life in LA especially. Those were the days when you'd pay $1,500 a day block booking a studio; you booked a studio and you're paying $1,500 if your there six hours or eight there 24 hours. And a lot of them stayed 24 hours, and you just have next, next, next, next.

Chris: And you've got to be the first guy there.

Steve: First guy there, last guy out, yeah. You're sitting there winding tables at 6 o'clock in the morning going, “I just want to go home.”

Chris: When the bug caught you, from that point until the time that you walked into that first studio and got a job, what skills were you harnessing?

Steve: None.

Chris: Just reading liner notes?

Steve: Yeah. Lying in the floor, reading and going, there's one in North Hall and I'd write it down on a piece of paper because I grew up in the San Fernando Valley and start looking for them. Hey man that where Bill [inaudible 8:50] studio is or whatever the studio was and start. There wasn't really a whole lot you can do to prepare for it. It's no like in high school you go, “I wonder what class…”  I was in all the choirs and all the music stuff and that didn't prepare you for it. Probably the greatest skills for a studio engineer especially a starting one is being attentive, being hungry, being prepared and that depends on who you're working with.

When you working together with somebody so well, I'm sure you and your team, they know what you want in advance and plugin something in before you even have to ask, that’s just working together. I've told a lot of wannabe engineers who want to go to some of these very expensive schools, don’t do it. Take that money, live on it for two years and go give yourself away for free for two years. You learn more two years in a studio than you will however long you go to one of the expensive ones.

Chris: Yeah.

Steve: It's just doing it. Just aligning the tape machine which is once again, it's like starting fire with flint again, knowing the lines taped but you learn by doing that.

Chris: Absolutely.

Steve: You learn by making a lot of mistakes. I recorded a lot of bad drum sounds.

[Laughter] 

It just happened and then you go, “Oh if I do this, its better.” And 10,000 hours man, it takes 10,000 hours.

Chris: Again, I think that it's not that schooling is necessarily a bad thing but the way that you learn in life versus the way that you learn in a classroom is different because for the most part, a classroom will deduct points for the stakes and if you’re in the–

Steve: That's true. Good point.

Chris: Yeah. I heard that -actually going back to our love of podcasts here- I heard Tim Farris on his podcast talking about the fact that he was going to go to, was considering something like Princeton or Harvard or something to go get his MBA. And he thought instead of doing that -or maybe this was advice given to him and he took it- instead of taking that couple hundred thousand dollars worth of whatever I needed to go get my MBA. I'm going to invest that in myself, very similar to what you're saying. And I'm going to use that to live on so that way I can go and I can intern for that company that I would never be able to if the money mattered that much. Because once you get out of school its like, “Oo I've got to go do something with this.” But if you've got the money set aside to go get the MBA anyway, it goes a long way to really feeling free to not have to pay that rent or pay that car payment that you could really dive in.

Steve: And most people never use their college education for what they use. I had a meteorologist specialist. She had a degree in meteorology for TV and she was my marketing assistant. And you go, “I want to see what you spent four years doing versus what's your grade point average or what's you major.” I don't care about that stuff.

Seth: So to fast forward to today, you are general manager of a very successful record label. When you got to hire somebody to your team, do you even say, “Hey, send in your resume. Where did you go to college?” Or does that not even cross your mind?

Steve: I do want to see that. Four years in college gives me the impression that they follow through, they finish. You’ve said it before, finishing is such a hard art in today's world. To have somebody who finished is very valuable. Do I care about your grade point average? No. Do I even care about your major? No. Because if you have the right work ethic and the right heart, I can train you to do other things but I want to see how hard you're willing to work.

Seth: So, a college degree still carries some weight but maybe it doesn't carry the weight that people think it does in terms of having the training because you kind of have to relearn it all when you get out into the real world.

Steve: Exactly. Most college students that I see haven't learned anything that’s a really good use at a record label. My last five hires at Centricity have all come from internships. Now, I've had a lot of bad interns. I've wanted to fire a couple of interns, that's pretty bad when you want to fire somebody who works for free.

Seth: What defines a good intern and what defines a bad intern?

Steve: A bad intern sits on Facebook until you give them something to do and then they do exactly just to the letter of the law of what you asked them to do, hand it in to you and then get back on Facebook. A great intern does what you do and says, “Hey and I thought about this. And what about this more?” You give them to go to D and they go to G; then you give them to G and they go to S. I have a girl in my office, I asked her to do one thing and she says “Oh by the way while I was thinking about it I did these other three things that will help you out.” That type of proactivity and thinking ahead is so incredibly valuable. Like having somebody patching in your compressor before you ask for it. They know where you're going so fast that they're working ahead of you. And for all of those out there, that's old school once again patch bays.

[Laughter]

Seth: We have a small patch bay, we have two patch bays actually so we're probably on the old school end of things.

Chris: It looks very cool though. It's looks kind of old science fiction movie.

Steve: Spaghetti.

[Laughter] 

Seth: It's like a telephone operator kind of thing. I heard a thing on…man, we keep talking about podcast, we're all just podcasts nerds, dude. I think that’s what we do for a living is listen to podcasts. And I heard one last night, they did a study of millennials; if you had a dream job, pick out of these choices what would be your dream job. Number one was the president; number two was a senator; number three was a successful athlete; number four foreign diplomat; five was a CEO of Apple; and then the last choice was the personal assistant to a famous actor or athlete. And 45% I think picked that one, hands down.

Steve: They have no idea what that job looks like.

Seth: They don't but it also speaks to they don't want to take the responsibility. Like, when you're that person, when you're the boss, they want to have a boss and maybe you can speak to a little bit to that but I feel like when you were talking about the internships, the ones who go above and beyond are the ones who are willing to take some responsibility and say, “Here's an idea” and just put it out there. How many interns would you have to get, to get that one good one?

Steve: Probably 10 to 15.

Seth: 10 to 15 to 1?

Steve: Yeah, to 1. I think that’s what it is.

Chris: Wow.

Steve: Yeah, that's what it is. And I heard you, I think we had the conversation, there's such a different work ethic in today's young adults. And part of it is my fault, I'm a parent of a young adult they've been given everything in their whole life, they haven't had to work for anything. You want that iPhone! Here's that iPhone. You want that? Here's that. The art and the craft of working, the labor of getting something is a lost art, I think.

Seth: So, would you go back and do those things differently?

Steve: For my kids? My kids had to work.

[Laughter]

Seth: So, you weren't saying from my experience, you weren't–

Steve: I’m saying that personally and much more of…

[Laughter]

What we made our kids do is like when they wanted that $100 American girl doll is you buy half, we’ll buy half. And all of a sudden they're digging out rocks in the backyard at $1 a bucket out of the garden. Because you want to give your kids what the value of work is and that's that doll at the end.

In our world, I sat with an intern once and he was irritating everybody in the office. He's that guy who only asks questions because he wanted to tell you how much he knew. An intern needs to be quite and listen because there's a lot of information that flows around… And then they find the person that they can go to and go, what did that mean when he said this? So, what did that mean or… Come to me! I've told everyone in my internship, feel free to come to me and say, what does it mean when you said that? Versus this guy would come to you and tell you everything he knew. So, I was sitting him down one day and going,  “Man, you're irritating everybody. The whole office wants to prove you wrong.”

Seth: You literally said that?

Steve: I said that to him and later on, “I know I do that. I'm just trying to figure out where I fit and trying to find a job make $100, $120,000 a year and start in the music industry.” And I said, “You're in the wrong industry, man.”

Seth: Go into finance!

Steve: Go into finance, or go be an architect somewhere I guess or something. It was just about wanting to make as much money as his dad did, now! This generation wants to start where their parents have gotten to right now. I've seen it with artists, I've seen it with interns–

Chris: They don't want a drop in their lifestyle that they've become accustomed to.

Seth: A luxury once had, becomes a necessity.

Steve and Chris: Ooohh.

Steve: Very nice.

Seth: And I'm very guilty of that. You fly first class once and you feel like a swine by sitting in coach.

[Laughter] 

Steve: I've flown private jets twice in my whole life, in my whole career both times sort of accidentally. And man, once you do a private jet and you don't have to go through security and you’re just like, “Oh, I want that.” I say this all the time about artists. The worst thing you can do for an artist is start them touring in a bus because that's the expectation and then you know what happens? Is they got on the bus and they’re, “This isn't a very nice bus.” There are people in vans like when you were out in a van, to be on a bus, to be able to sleep horizontally would be the greatest thing ever and just because you started at this place and then you get into private jets. Everybody needs to start their first tour in a Silverado truck and then the next one to a bigger–

Seth: Graduate to a suburban!

Steve: A suburban would be great, then a 15 passenger old church van that you bought for $5,000 that the left side of the speakers don't work. And then, you work your way into a [inaudible 19:58] van and then into a bus. Then you're grateful for everything that's better along the way.

Seth: It's more about the process than anything.

Steve: Yeah.

Seth: And getting there.

Steve: A wise manager once said, his job is to make his artists life better every year, just a little bit better. I'm like, that's a good goal. That's a good goal to have.

Seth: It is. So, your transition, we shipped about 20 years–

Steve: We skipped through it very fast.

[Laughter] 

Your transition from doing that 6pm to 3 in the morning thing in LA, you had your baby…

Steve: Yep. My wife and I were praying at that point going, “God, please give us some sane clients or open another door.” And I just worked probably two months before with Peter York–

Seth: And for those out there listening, was this at a record label you got your first…

Steve: I was working with Peter in the studio and he called me up and said, “Hey, are you interested in A&R?” And I started in A&R in Sparrow…what's that 87, 88? Right around there and we were still in Chatsworth, California, spent time out there with him. So, I’ve been at Sparrow, moved from Sparrow to Star Songs and then back to Sparrow when they came up. Started in A&R worked my way into the marketing side, artist development side… So, yes back to Sparrow went to  Mer and worked my way up to Vice President at marketing at Mer, was general manager at [inaudible 21:34], general manager at SRI and now general manager at Centricity.

Chris: Wow.

Steve: It's been a long journey. If you’d ask me to 25 or 30 years ago, were you going to be general manager at Record Label? I would have laughed in your face.

[Laughter]

Chris: Because you didn't think it was attainable or because you didn't want have this job?

Steve: That was not the path I was on. I thought, I was going to be producing records and engineering records.  Jack Pueg is still mixing great great records out there and I thought I was going to follow that path. God had something very different in mind which makes me laugh going I was talking to [inaudible 22:09] this morning and I can't believe I’ve been doing this, this long. When you're now an industry veteran it means that you've been around a long time.

Seth: But I don't think looking back and I don’t want to put words in your mouth but you don't strike me as one of those people that's looking back and feeling like you’re working in the corporate side of the industry because you never made it on the creative side.

Steve: No, no.

Seth: You don't strike me as that at all.

Steve: I made that decision for my family. What's funny is I've learned more about engineering and more about mixing and more about mastering being on the corporate side of what we're trying accomplish and why trying to do what we're doing. I learned so much about that. And for the first year or so, I was mad at God going, “Why did I just spend 9, 10 years in studios, in dark rooms working long hours if this is where you wanted me?” But realize, every day of my life in the last 27 years in the corporate side I've used information I learned in the studio. Sometimes we can't ask God why until you're 20 years down and you go, “oh I get it.”

It's the path he puts us on, he brings people in and out of your life. I remember a girl over at Sparrow she was an accountant, that was her thing she loved accounting and God put me with her to learn that whole budgeting, it was only like for four months and then we were separated again but once again she changed my perspective and my life for the next 20 years. So, you don't know if these people that are coming in and out of your life are for a short period of how they're going to impact you.

But yeah, I've sort of worked my way, I was one of the strange guys everybody wants to be in A&R. I started in A&R and left to got to marketing and then got back into it as I moved back up into the but everybody wants to be an A&R guy, hang out in the studios and have dinner with the artists which is not what an A&R guy does.

Chris: Well it's the perception out there–

Steve: Yeah, exactly, that's what they think.

Chris: Just like you saying the artist is going to be in private jets.

Seth: And for honestly if somebody's out there, can you break down what exactly what it is A&R. What is that? What is that job?

Steve: A&R, we [inaudible 24:27] airports and restaurants which is [inaudible 24:28].

[Laughter]

It’s artist and repertoire. It’s basically looking for artist, finding people that have a seedling of something. Sometimes you don’t know what it is. We’ve all got our standards of what we feel like will lead to success. But finding that, nurturing it, grooming it, it’s sort of the mustard seed put into the ground, pat around and hopefully something really great grows out of it. Sometimes the plants don’t live, sometimes they give up. But it basically the music made by the A&R guy, we have one of the best in the industry in Centricity. When he’s done, when the music is done, he hands the baton over to me, and I go everywhere from there. But it’s his job to make sure we have hits, we have songs that work for live or work on the radio, an artist that’s got uniqueness to him that fits differently than everything else in the market place and sometimes it’s just plain old dumb luck. We’ve got all those where we’re like, “We though this person had everything they needed, was need for success and it didn’t work, and this one over here it’s that seedling and it’s just growing like crazy.

Seth: Yeah, sometimes you don’t know or probably more often than not, I would think.

Steve: How many songs have you worked on and said, “Man, that’s the hit.” I have a memory of I will eat my shoe if this is not [inaudible 26:04]

[Laughter] 

I believe you owe me a shoe eaten.

Seth: I’m wearing Nikes right now. I have a feeling that this material is not organic.

Chris: I was going to say, whatever you choose make sure its biodegradable.

Steve: I was going to send you a shoe after one particular sock.

[Laughter]

We’ve all got them dude.

Seth: Oh yeah, totally. I think more often than not and it’s honestly becoming a theme on this show is, we’re all just kind of winging it we’re all just guessing. So, my question to that is, I mean, it sounds like there’s a lot of responsibility placed on the shoulders of an A&R person. They’re the one that’s finding and nurturing talent and ultimately seeing what songs make it on records.

I think a lot of people listening in our podcast audience, we have a lot of producers and writers and people outside of the music industry but then there are also probably some people who are just wanting to get in on the music business side and people who maybe want to be in music marketing or be in music management or maybe do what you’re doing someday, run a record label. You said what you look for interns, what qualifies a person to be an A&R person?

Steve: Wow. Interesting. There are a few A&R guys you should interview. A great A&R person is able to inspire an artist beyond what they’ve every thought they could do. A great A&R person knows how to get a good song to a great song. We’re no longer in a society that good is not good enough, it has to be great. A great A&R guy can go, “You know what? There are seedlings, there are moments in here that are really great.” But you’re missing the mark I these two or three places. And then, coming in and sitting side by side with a producer like you and making sure that… I think that I’m a big movie buff and A&R guy is sort of like an executive producer on a movie where you put the team together and then sort of let the team go make the music. So, it’s the right producer for the right, for the right song and for the right artists and then let them shine where they go. It’s very much putting the pieces together. They’re not usually playing the music, they’re not [inaudible 28:34] musicians, they have to have a really good song sense and I think one of the skills an A&R guy has to know is, it’s not about them. They’ve got to know their audience, know what they’re making for because all of us have a tendency to gravitate towards music that’s on the fringe because we listen to so much stuff that all of the stuff in the middle starts mucking up. There’s a big muck in the middle. So, “you know what I like? I like this thing way over here or way over there.” Where a normal consumer listens to 10 records a year, the middle is the sweet spot for them. So, an A&R guy that understands who he’s trying to record for is very important.

Seth: That’s very good. And, you said that they have to have a great song sense, that is even a sticky situation because why is one person’s song sense better than the other? Is that determined by track record? And, if you’ve never done A&R before, how do you prove that, hey I know a hit when I hear one?

Steve: You know what? Our history of…John Mays is a 25 years somebody took a chance on him 27 years ago and said “You’re a great musician on the road, let me bring you in here.” Part is the relationship, you know, can they sit and hang with an artist? You know, you’ve been in these mediums. Where it’s like can you move an artist from A to Z while making the artist think it’s their move? As a producer it’s the same skill set of can you get an artist to bend without knowing that they’re bending? Or being able to move–

Seth: All the artists out there, they just had a–

Steve: I know they had a convulsion.

[Laughter]

And all the producer are like, yeah!

[Laughter]

But that’s part of it, of like how do you get a song… because you don’t want to tell an artist, “You know what? This song sucks.” You just want to say, “Let’s work on the chorus. The chorus isn’t paying off hard enough, let’s make it lift better. Let’s make it shine.” Whatever it may be, moving them away from, “I love this, this is my baby. It’s beautiful.” To let’s keep working on this song.

Seth: So, it sounds like it maybe starts with who they are as a person. Are they a good hang? Are they a servant? And then, the music kind of just follows and that taste follows.

Steve: Our young A&R guy over there, he went through our radio department so he was listening to radio hits, radio hits, radio hits. And part of it is… There’s marketing guy named Roy Williams, I went to a seminar with him and he said he has a friend that works at General Market Record Label to pick all the singles and I’m like, “How did you learn this?” And the guy basically said, “Since I was five years old, every week I’d get my allowance and I would go buy the number one song in America.” And so for his whole life, he poured into himself hits. This is what a hit sounds like, this is what a hit sounds like, this is what a hit sounds like.

Seth: That’s pretty good wisdom, right there.

Steve: And so, at a certain point you go, you got to know our music, you got to listen to our music, you got to know what a hit sounds like. I’ve heard a lot of kids come though “I hate listening to Christian radio.” Then why do you listen to Christian music? How many people in country music go, “[inaudible 32:11] but I hate country music.” Get out! You’re not going to succeed.

[Laughter]

But they almost wear it as a banner that I hate Christian music in our market place. We have an open concept office and I’ll try to listen to two hours of Christian radio every day in my office. And if I’m listening to it, everybody in my office is listening to it too; more for this is what a hit sounds like, this is what radio sounds lie. If you’re trying to meet a need at radio and you don’t know what they’re playing, how can you meet the need? So…I digress, sorry.

Seth: No, that’s gold. That’s all gold.

Steve: I think you nailed it in your earlier podcast when you said, this is a servant industry. It really is. And in my life, it took me a lot of time to figure out what my calling was. I knew I wasn’t an artist but God, what does that mean? And I was walking through Exodus with my kids when they were very young and hit Exodus 17 where God say to Moses, they’re out of Egypt heading towards the Promised Land and they hit the Analcites, God calls Moses up to the hill top; arms up in the air he wins, arms down they lose. But what never caught to me until I was reading it, Moses took two people along with him Aaron and Hur and I love to say I am the Hur in the Moses’ life. It’s my job, what Hur was up there to do is to hold Moses’ arms up, that’s all he did. When Moses was weak, when Moses needed help, Hur held his hands up. That’s my calling be a servant, be there to hold your hands up. Some people know Aaron “Aaron, you know, Moses’ little brother.” No one knows who Hur is. If you’re okay standing, holding someone’s arms up and no one recognizes, you are created to be in the music industry. Because you’re not in to be the rock stars; we’re in the back of the room with our arms folded, looking at the person on stage going, “Yeah. I was there to hold their arms up.”

Chris: That’s wise. One of my favorite movies is That Thing You Do, I don’t know if any of you have seen that.

Steve: Yeah. I’m the guy that goes, “You look great in black.”

[Laughter]

Chris: Has anyone told you that?

Steve: Yeah.

Chris: But, one of my favorite characters in the movie, and they’re filled with them. Anybody out there that hasn’t seen it, it’s a great movie.

Steve: Please, go see it.

Chris: But there’s Horus who’s basically the A&R guy that sees them in–

Steve: In the camper-

[Laughter]

Chris: Yeah, he lives in a camper and he’s essentially the A&R guy. But he sees them in a performance at an Italian restaurant or something and comes and buys their album and get’s them to sign a little deal. And then at the end, when they get signed to a major label and they’re going out to play these state fairs, Horus leaves and the main character drummer of the band says, “We don’t want you to leave.” And he goes, “My [inaudible 35:27] is done. I’ve done what I’m supposed to do.” And then move on to the next thing and so he wasn’t meant to ride that out the whole movie; he’s there for a specific piece to move it from A to C. He’s the B part of it, the Hur of that story so to speak.

Steve: Nowadays, you’d call them just production deals. You start working with an unknown artist who has a little bit of talent, you start developing them and then you start shopping them to record labels. And then you go, my job here is done. They then take the baton and now try to make to a national artist. If you make 2 out of 20, 3 out of 20, you’re in great shape. You’re a hall of fame baseball player if you hit 3 out of 10. And you’re a hall of fame A&R guy if 3 out of your 10 are hit artists.

It’s a cycle, you have the young artist going up; you have the artist at their peak; and then you have some that are on their way down. And you’ve got to keep that circle going because any artist that’s been at the top is going to be past its peak and slowly work its way down, and you got to have the new artist coming up behind to grow into. So it’s a continual cycle of in the music industry. The circle of life in music would be that.

Chris: I had a mentor –Scott [inaudible 36:48] if you’re listening I’m about to talk about you- but he always talked about how life in the ministry or in a career is kind of like looking at life or the people that you interact is like a watching a parade go by. There are things that are right in front of you, there are things that you just saw, and there are things that are coming down. And to really appreciate what is happening in the parade you have to absorb it all. And so there’s a little bit of grabbing from each of those in order to get the full experience of it all.

Steve: And the bigger what’s right in front of you, the bigger those artists are in front of you, sometimes you don’t have time to look behind and develop what’s behind and what happens is with a lot of these record labels and I’ve been at these where, man they’ve got the big, and they slowly slipping. The [inaudible 37:32] slowly start getting past their prime and they haven’t developed anything behind them and then you’re in trouble because you’ve got this machine you’ve got to feed and you haven’t created for the future, it’s only for the present.

And so, every A&R guy wants to sing but some of the big labels, the big artists, the A’s are so big that’s all they’re paying attention to. We’ve all seen it, we’ve all seen artists where we say, “Man, they’re amazing” but they got lost in the shuffle and that’s the sadness. We forget that we’re playing with people’s lives, especially on the record label side their dreams.

I signed this band at a label and they were 18 years old when I signed them and 21 years old when I had to drop them. So, their dreams had come true and shattered by the time they were 21. And it’s just hard when you start thinking about that stuff.

Chris: That’s true. And if you think about it there are some people that are fortunate enough to have a full career in the music industry and there are some people that have a three year window kind of like a profession sports guy or those things. There’s a window and the once you pass it, yeah but the guy is only 24 and the band is only 21. What’s coming up for them?

Steve: You know what, I think it’s a catalyst of those people leaving or burning out, is balance. You guys have said it; I can walk through a record label at 8 o’clock at night and I can tell you which employees will be gone in a year because they have nothing to put back into themselves. The music industry is a take industry, it just continues squeezing and it just wants more and more and more. If you have one they want five; if you have five we want ten; if we have ten we want twenty, and it’s never enough. My poor radio team goes, “Hey we got number one.” And I’m like, “Great. How do we keep it on number one for another week?” It’s never enough and so you continue squeezing out what this industry does, if you don’t have a ministry, if you don’t have a relationship, if you don’t have friends that give back to you that don’t care what you do  for a living and basically go, “Yeah, yeah. You do music, how are you?” You know, if there aren’t nursing students at the college that you got to that are your friends, you’re going to burn out.  Because there’s nothing giving back, there’s no one pouring into you. Sooner or later the candle ends, there’s no more fuel and it juts burns out.

So, I try to keep my staff saying, I want you to go to concerts and date people and go home at 6 o’clock and have a life. Because if you don’t have a life you have nothing to come back when you come back tomorrow.

Seth: That’s really good. You sound like a great person to work for so, where can I apply?

[Laughter]

Steve: Tell that to the few people I’ve fired in my life.

[Laughter]

We all have people who don’t like us. If everybody likes you, you’re not doing your job right. I hate to say it because sooner or later there are going to be artists that you have to hurt because you drop them. Take my word for it, we have wept over artists that we’ve had to drop before. We love these people, they’re our children and it’s just wrong place, wrong people, wrong time I don’t know what it is. I’m lucky enough to have an amazing team of people that work with us. I wouldn’t trade one of them. It’s a year ends, we are a little emotionally attached and warm fuzzies but–

Seth: No, I can vouch for that though. I’ve spent a lot of time at Centricity with the staff and you’ve done a good job to create really what feels like a family culture there.

Steve: And culture is a very important issue for us, as a record label. Our office is a house, we’ve even designed it in such a way that there’s seating areas almost in every place you go so if you’re not sitting at a desk, you’re sitting around on a couch. Our marketing meetings are on chairs and couches. You go into Publishing and he’s got four chairs sitting around a table. A&R its leather chairs and leather couch, it’s very much more relational. There are other places that you got to, that you need to get little buttons to pass and there’s a guy out front that will tackle you, if you, you know. You walk right into our offices, and welcome. It’s very different and we do that very intentionally.

Chris: And the fact that you were saying that office [inaudible 42:20] is open concept. So that if you’ve got your music going, everybody hears it because you’re in the mix of it with everybody–

Steve: So, I’ve listened to a lot of bad pop music because the other girl that controls the music in the office like all the really glossy Justin Biebers and…sorry I just called out an artist.

[Laughter]

We make fun of her because she keeps me on. I hear stuff from her going, “What is that? That’s really good” When she told me it was Justin Bieber I’m like, “Really?”

Seth: Hey if Justin Bieber is listening, I’m a huge fan of the new stuff.

[Laughter]

Steve: That is official kiss up.

Seth: That is a kiss up.

Chris: Well I have heard that he does listen to this show so apologies and–

Steve: I apologize. I also learned later in life that there’s a difference between not good and not for me.

Chris and Seth: Ooh.

Steve: Justin Bieber is not for me.

Chris: We all just grabbed for our pens writing that down.

Seth: I’m taking notes. I’m learning so much from this conversation.

Steve: Yeah, like I’m not a big horror movie fan, not for me. I can0t tell you if it’s good or bad but my life there are certain things I love–

Seth: Is Star Wars for you? Or, Star Track?

Steve: Not too much into Star Wars more in Star Treck.

Seth: Okay.

Steve: My kids are very much into the old Star Treck, they can quote you [inaudible 43:39] episodes.

Chris: You know what, that is so wise. I wanted to quickly mention that, I know that we need to let you get on with your day but it is so wise to say, not good versus not for me. Because often times again, the path that you have down in the music industry was not one you that could have foretold. And so you have had to work with people or artists or maybe eve industries or styles of music that may be for your personal taste or not necessarily…you could be in love with it or you could be there because  it was something you felt as important to the world but you didn’t’ necessarily like.

Steve: Sure.

Chris: Like Justin Bieber or whatever was going on but you’re not saying that it’s a bad thing, it’s just that it’s not for me. And so, sometimes you have to do the not for me even though you have to get up and–

Steve: You’re trying to market that record. You’re trying to sell a lot of those records. We’re privileged enough that we get to know the artist a little bit better so what you try to do is define the thing that you do love about that artist. I don’t love their music but I sure do love that he’s a reader. Something to find a connection that can drive that even when you listen to it and you go, “I don’t like that. Is this good?”

Seth: Well, I’m guessing that by the time you go through all the process to sign an artist you’ve already… If you didn't have something you loved about them you wouldn't  probably sign them

Steve: Correct. We even talk about, does the artist fit our culture? Because we are such a relationship driven, relationship being one of our core values within our company. If we don't want to have him over our house for dinner, then why are we signing them? Maybe we're not the right place for them. And that doesn't make them bad or us bad, you can't marry everybody you date. Sooners or later you've got to pick the ones or twos–

Seth: Well, depending where you're [inaudible 45:35]

[Laughter]

Monogamy is over rated.

Chris: So 2000.

Seth: Well, thanks so much for joining us in the show today.

Steve: Oh man, my pleasure.

Seth: Just to leave the audience with because it's a question that I always think about working in the music business, where do you feel like we're at today? I mean, there's definitely a lot of doom and gloom out there, there's a lot of music streaming is killing the industry. How are labels making money? How are artists supposed to  money? How are song writers supposed to make money? What is the hope in the music today that keeps you on the path of doing what you're doing?

Steve: There's a spiritual side to that and a financial side to that. The spiritual side is, we get notes sent to is artist do and going, “This song changed my life.” I had to pull over because I was crying in my car because it connected in such a deep level. We're in an industry that really, we're distinguished by our lyrical content and that lyrical content can cut to the heart like nothing else. This feeds us, that drives us if you're not moved to tears when you get some of these letters, you should probably think about another industry.

On the corporate side, on the business side as long as people are still listening to music and wanting to hear music, there will be people like us needed. There will always be artists that can make music but don't know how to get out of their bedroom with that music. Don't know, how do I get it to people? How do I get them to listen to it? I mean, there are so many opportunities in today's world to do, you know, you can make records for $1,500 where you can get the old studio I worked at for a day for that. There are a lot of opportunities but as long as we need to move amateur to professional for producers and engineers, we need the Reed [47:38] of the world. We need the Seth Mosleys. We need this Brown Banisher producers to make great records that are world class. Most people can't do that in their bedroom.

I mean, listen to the first so you ever wrote or the first record that you ever produced compared to what you're doing now, you learn, you grow, you're now a professional. There is money to be made. There is money to be made in streaming services when we break out our digital to physical. Now, if you were a physical retailer, I'd be worried because people aren't buying physical anymore. We're seeing those numbers continually drop. Where streaming has hit, the business side more than anything else is on the physical  sales and on the digital albums both of those are continuing to drop in our numbers. But streaming whether it be Spotify, Apple Music, Pandora, YouTube are all growing in numbers but because you make so much less, the numbers have to be so much more.

Chris: Sure.

Steve: What is it? 1,300 streams equals one album per [48:46]. So, that's a lot of streams to make up for. But as long as they're making music, they need people to promote the music and help make it better.

Seth: So, you're saying it’s a good time to be in music?

Steve: No. 1999 was a really good time for music.

[Laughter]

I mean the hard parts were measuring on the boom years. Most boom years in the music industry are all related to a new technology, if you think about it. The heights of  the Walkman helped. She you make a portable 1950s or 60s that thing you do, transistor radios changed how people consumed music. CDs, digital, now streaming has changed how we're consuming music. It's all–

Seth: Disruptive?

Steve: Yes, very much disruptive technology.

Seth: Well, a fascinating conversation and I wish we could do it all day.

Chris:  We could sit here all day, absolutely. It goes by way too fast!

Seth: It does, yeah. Well, thanks so much for joining us.

Steve: I appreciate it.

Chris: Good to have you again sometime.

Steve: Make me sound good.

[Laughter]

Seth: How do we find your labels?

Steve: Centricitymusic.com is where we're at.

Seth: Go check it out.

Hey we hope you've enjoyed this episode and we hope you join us again soon on the Full Circle Music Show. The why of the music biz.

The post FCM007 – Relationships with Steve Ford appeared first on Full Circle Music.

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