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- [00:00]
Host 1
Clipping is quickly disrupting every single industry,
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Host 2
but few more so than music.
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Host 1
Artists are now bypassing labels and going
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Host 2
viral on their own by using fan pages. How people discover music closely follows how people discover products. So if you're an entrepreneur, marketer, or just someone interested in how this stuff works, you're going to love this episode.
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Host 1
We brought on industry thought leader Steve Gardigan to talk about how clipping actually
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Host 2
works, what's blowing up artists in 2026,
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Host 1
and the backstory behind the viral AI song from Haven I Run that took over TikTok and didn't use a single human voice.
- [00:29]
Host 2
That's what we get into right at the start of the episode. Let's get into it. So there was a viral song last year, I think it was called I Run. And I learned from you that this was a fully engineered viral moment. Like, this was an AI song. All these different theme pages. Like, I just need to hear the backstory on that.
- [00:50]
Steve Gardigan
Okay, so. So I Run. It was controversial because nobody knew it was AI at first. And it was a. It was a. These two guys in a studio and they were making, like, dark, like, silhouette content of themselves making this song. And it was a Georgia Smith, basically trained AI vocal. And everybody thought it was George female vocalist. Yes. So everybody thought it was Georgia Smith. And they weren't even shy about the fact that everybody thought it was Georgia Smith. They were, like, posting on YouTube, like, Georgia Smith leak dance music, or like even clipping pages were posting this new Georgia Smith house song. And so whether they. I'm sure that was paid out from them or clipping from them on their side, but this whole stir happened and this song gets massive and then everybody finds out it's AI and it was taken off of Spotify like, seven times, demonetized on YouTube. Like, all these things happened. And then they eventually got a human, I think, to cover their own song and sing it.
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Host 2
No way.
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Steve Gardigan
Because they. They wrote the song. Yeah. They have all the publishing on it. And so Georgia Smith came out and was like, this is not me confirmed. And so they actually got an artist, I think, to sing at the end of the day, and it. And it still ended up crushing.
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Host 2
So how did they make it blow up? What was the actual, you know, viral loop that they built?
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Steve Gardigan
Yeah, so they use clipping. So I. I made a post about how music curators are one of the most important future jobs in music today and the next five years because of exactly. Basically this. This instance. So it's basically, they would put the audio over clips from like boiler room sets or like reaction pages, Kaiser Knot. And they would just clip all of these, these clips to get all this UGC content. Because nowadays UGC is basically the new radio. Like people aren't discovering on radio anymore, they're discovering through content. And if it's not the artist content, especially a. No, a faceless artist, that's AI they're going to have to lean on clipping pages. So they were doing that really, really well. And the song is very good. Like it's very catching. It's your. Catches your ear. Right?
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Host 2
So, and I would say probably 80% of the people that ever heard that song, it never even really reached them
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Steve Gardigan
that it was fake or even today probably. Yeah, they probably, you know, like most of people still were just like songs of banger.
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Host 2
100%.
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Steve Gardigan
Yeah.
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Host 2
And the reason I, I'm so curious about this is because it seems like clipping is starting to become super mainstream. We're starting to hear Wall Street Journal talk about it. Everyone's seeing Clavicular doing all this stuff and it's like finally kind of reached the zeitgeist. Even though the song was what, two years ago? Like, it was, it was a minute ago. And these people were kind of on the frontier. And I mean clipping is nothing new. Like people have been slapping Temple Run underneath a podcast clip since the dawn of TikTok. Right? But I wonder, like, do you know any of the behind the scenes on the mechanism that they were using? Was it wop content rewards? Did they build an in house, you know, clipping engine?
- [03:42]
Steve Gardigan
There's probably wap. Yeah, that's what I would assume. And, and so that, that's a, that's a good side of it, right? Like the clipping and. Because another thing that people don't realize is the correlation between sound usages on TikTok and Instagram to streams is crazy. So yes, you're like, you're fighting for views, but you're also fighting for people using the, the original sound in their own content. And the best way to do that is to see that in a bunch of videos because then it's like you're playing the lottery not only for views, but again, somebody using that sound. And then all of a sudden if you're getting 10, 000 crates a day on a song, it's going to translate the streams really, really, really well. Like if you see all these songs popping off right now, you can trail it back to usages on Tick Tock and Instagram. Sounds like it's crazy.
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Host 2
And it's funny, I think, you know, Tick Tock and IG have added that. Add to Spotify.
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Steve Gardigan
Yes.
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Host 2
On all of the sounds, which feature, you know, the. Thank you for playing nice Tik Tok and Instagram. Thank you for making that easy. And I, I feel like what we've seen is a lot of these songs actually lead now with a chorus. You know, like they have that really trendy 15 second moment in their song and they tease the song for 30, 45 days almost. People like begging in the comments like, when's it going to drop? When's it going to drop? And then the song ultimately drops and it's like, oh, the chorus was really good. But the rest of the song wasn't even there.
- [05:04]
Steve Gardigan
Yeah, you know, no, it reminds me. It's so funny. A good buddy and mentor of mine, Nolan Smith, talked about this exact thing a couple of years ago on a, on a conversation where he was, he was comparing it to like the Coke Pepsi challenge where he said, you know, back in the day there was actually a time where Pepsi eclipsed Coke in sales in the US And a big part of that was the Pepsi challenge where it was a sip of Pepsi versus a sip of Coke. And so what he was talking about was now TikTok is Pepsi where people. A sip of a song is, is what people hear. But if you drink a whole Coke versus a whole Pepsi, you enjoy the Coke more. So people are like, nowadays music is Pepsi when it should be Coke. But now it's like, like even I've seen people, I don't agree with it, but people have been saying that this song by Prosper and Murder Beats. Oh yeah. Is the same way, baby. Yeah. Because it was that huge moment like the, the classic murder sample and then it's the process sample and it was like, you know, the live, live show clips, really good. And then the full entire song, some people are saying like wasn't as good. I disagree. I think the whole song is amazing. But, but for, for a lot of people. Yeah, people think that way all the time.
- [06:14]
Host 2
I think that's a great segue into what are the smart DJs doing right now? Because to me there's two camps. There's people who understand social and those that don't and prosper. Clooney, Pasa. You know, all these like red hot DJs are also mega viral and I know enough to say that it is not just pure organic.
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Steve Gardigan
Right? They're not like sitting like, hey, what should we post today?
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Host 2
Yeah, yeah, like there's like Clearly a very sophisticated, you know, smart strategy behind it. So, like, what are some of these smartest artists doing behind the scenes to blow up?
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Steve Gardigan
Some good things I've been hearing is they'll create fan accounts. So let's say they make like 10 to 15 fan accounts for, say, Prospa.
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Host 2
Right.
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Steve Gardigan
For example, so Prospa, like Prospa fans, Prospa Daily. Like, you know, Prospa OGs or Prospa stands, whatever it is, they make 10 to 15 accounts and then these accounts are posting like three times a day. And imagine like all that compiling content to what we were just talking about. Right? It was. It's.
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Host 2
You become omnipresent.
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Steve Gardigan
Yes, exactly. Like you're getting hundreds of mil, you know, millions of views. Tens of millions of views and is doing. Yes, it's getting awareness out. So everybody's like, this DJ is everywhere because I keep seeing clips from all their shows are playing or people listen to their songs, or people reacting to their, to their, to their, their music. But so they're doing that and then they're again doing a call to action, which is basically like go stream, go download or see them on tour or whatever it is.
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Host 2
Yeah, dropping.
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Steve Gardigan
Dropping on this date. Yep. And then. But I think, I still think that like a huge part of it isn't just the views they're getting. It's this view, the. The UGC that comes out of it from everybody liking the song. It's an earworm, right? It's like when you hear a song on the radio back in the day all the time, it's the biggest song in the world. But this is the new radio, right? It's the biggest song in the world because I keep hearing it now. Beatport number ones are almost eclipsing the importance in house music, specifically eclipsing Billboard, because now that's where the culture is. That's who's buying the tickets now.
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Host 2
And B port is.
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Steve Gardigan
Is what?
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Host 2
Like the streaming rank.
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Steve Gardigan
B port is where DJs download music. So if you have a B Port number one, it means that all the DJs are playing your music. So right now, Baby is number one on B port. So I mean, that means all the DJs are playing the song. So that's a good signal to what all the clubs are playing, what everybody's playing in sets. Because for house music, it's very unique compared to hip hop or R and B, where everybody's playing each other's music. They're like selectors. It's very, It's. It's becoming more rare for a DJ to just play their own music. The whole set, right? It's like they're selecting and they're. They're showing up to the Yuma 10 Echella and they're going B2B with all their friends and they're playing all their own music. And then the hot new songs. And now artists are posting screenshots of Prospa. Clooney downloaded my record from B Port. So they get that notification and then they're like, oh, and now people are getting that social proof that all these big DJs and artists are like playing their song and. And then that explodes. And now everybody's commenting, oh, I want the song, I want the song. Because they know that that's the hot song at the moment.
- [09:18]
Host 2
That is so fascinating because it seems like house has obviously exploded in the last couple years and really overtaken, at least in the. I don't know, maybe I could be in an echo chamber. But it does feel like it's kind of overtaken rap in terms of cultural relevance. And you see that, you know, the clearest signal of that would be Coachella, would be, you know, the music festivals. Like, who are people really hyped to go see at these things, right?
- [09:42]
Steve Gardigan
Or Murder. Murder Beats produced some of the biggest drag records ever. He's now in getting into house music, right? I mean, Roddy Rich did it with Mar With Marshmallow a few years back.
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Host 2
And. And what's cool about that is what you just described is an insane network effect of if people, you know, if I'm Pasa or if I'm, you know, cooney, right? It's like, yeah, of course I'm going to play prosperous music because they'll probably play mine. We should go collab. And you kind of create this loop where like, it's so much more collaborative, which obviously features have always been a thing. It's not like that's. But I don't think people, you know, like Roddy Ricch was dying to play Moneybag Yo's songs at his concert, right? That's a completely different experience.
- [10:26]
Steve Gardigan
It's a huge difference between two genres. And I think why. Also, if you're at a show, think about like your experience at a show for. At a. At a rap concert versus a house music show. Yeah, the openers, right? Nobody knows their music, so everybody's kind of standing around. But the opener for a house. There's a huge controversy right now for the opening DJs, and if they should like outshine the headliner this is a, it's a big topic currently right now that's going around the Internet.
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Host 2
But wait, why, why is it, what's the debate, people?
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Steve Gardigan
There's two sides. One side says that the openers should like don't play the newest hot songs. And that's like basically been known in the industry forever. But now there's people that are saying, oh, if you have an opener that's playing songs that everybody likes and it outshining you, it's a you problem, not the opener problem. So like this battle happening, a little bit of accountability. Yeah, yeah. But to the point where if you're at a show from doors until the closer to the main act comes on, there's going to be good vibes the entire time because house music there's like they can play other artists. So like you'll see that people are moving and excited and I think that really helps smaller artists because if you're standing around and somebody's rapping their own songs or singing their own songs at an RV concert, at a rap concert, you're not going to get that love from the crowd that you would from opening for a really big artist. And like again, the content that comes with it, like you'll just see people staying in the crowd if you're like singing your song to them, but you'll see the crowd going crazy if you're playing a cool edit or a cool flip of a song or something that's hot right now as an opener for, for a show, for if you're a dj.
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Host 2
So that's super interesting. And so like if you were an artist just getting started, like how would you try and grow? Like how would you try and pop off?
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Steve Gardigan
Obviously like make making your own content is number one. Like nobody, like a lot of artists will sign to labels and they expect the labels to make all the content for them. But labels are now signing artists who are making content more and they're passing on artists who aren't because they know it's expensive and they know that the artists who are building audience and showing up and playing like the modern game are the ones that they can actually invest more money into.
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Host 2
It's just that it's the music version of founder led sales.
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Steve Gardigan
Yep. Right.
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Host 2
Like founder led content is obviously a massive leg up if you're building a consumer, consumer brand, if you're building a tech product, whatever it is. This is the same thing.
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Steve Gardigan
Yep. And, and there's so many labels now and so many ANRs. So they're scooping up artists as quick as they can who are creating content, even if it's one video that pops off like they're going to get flooded in their emails and their DMs from ANRs, from labels because they know that you have to act fast. Because a hot moment, a viral moment that can happen, like that's, it's, it's so important. That's like the, the, the biggest leverage right now for artists is like to be able to go viral, right? It's not easy to do, but if you're showing it consistently and you have a better chance of doing so, that label will make a bet more so on that chance happening. So that unlocks more budget.
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Host 2
Do artists need labels right now? Like, is it still as much of a value add as it used to be with the viral distribution mechanisms that exist?
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Steve Gardigan
It's interesting because it depends what type of label. There's so many different types of labels now, right? These native, these digitally native labels that I'm trying to build at Put yout On Music Group. If the labels are good at making content or they're investing in these clipping pages, right, that are, or these, these, these fan accounts. Even like an interesting thing that we use for AM radio. The, the, the morning shows that we put on, the parties that we, that we kind of put on. We've been using a tool that a lot of artists will use as well like Blondish or Fred again. And it's like these fan pages are made from UGC at their shows. So every time AM radio is tagged at an AIM Radio event, it we on our back end. For Co Brand who's my distro partner, they have a bunch of music tools and they work with a bunch of cool artists. They're the distribution right now for, for, for artists. They have a tool that every time AIM Radio is tagged it saves on the back end in his video log. And now we can go after every single event and pull all of our favorite clips that people have shot and we put it through the AM Radio archives Instagram page, which is like our fan account basically. So if you're an artist, that's a smart thing to do because you're getting a lot of UDC from your shows that like you might have a couple shooters in the crowd but you can like get the real energy from a fan with their friends or a cool vantage point. Like those are the ones that do well online because it's a great social proof as well when you're showing so many people at your show. So then that's really smart. And then on top of that, a label that is able to like get these pages and stuff like that. But it's an investment. Like it's, it's tough. But a lot of, a lot of artists are starting their own labels because if they have motion, like Disco Line started good, good records.
- [15:18]
Host 2
Yeah. And S.G. lewis just started his own, right?
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Steve Gardigan
S.G. lewis. I'm sure he, I'm sure he did. You know, blondish, abracadabra, crazy.
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Host 2
SG Lewis fanboy.
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Steve Gardigan
Yeah, I know. I've been trying to get him forever.
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Host 2
If you got him in a PM
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Steve Gardigan
radio, I would, I would fly it anywhere in the world. We're trying to get him for like a vinyl one. Yeah, yeah. Oh yeah, yeah. He spins vinyl and like he plays like every instrument. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's great. He's crazy. So it's like. Yeah, it's. How do you play the modern game of radio which is just UGC content and showing up and how do you display that content? Right. You can just have a backlog of all this content, but you're not going to post on your own page. You need a place to post it. So you have to get kind of methodical with it.
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Host 2
What's the difference between a legacy record label and a digitally native record label?
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Steve Gardigan
Yeah, but in, in our instance and put you on music group's instance, it's the me, the curator, right. So it's funny because I didn't start a label and then decide to go make content and then decide to go start events. I did the hard part first, which is like doing the content, doing the 10,000 hours, showing up every single day, showing up weekly even when nobody's watching. Right. And then also the events when nobody was there, right. You're doing these things and then at the end of like kind of like it's all led to building a record label. But it's like a face to it, right? It's kind of like a, like a, a creator brand. Right. You have that moat because you have the audience. Right. But people know who. The late who runs the label. But it's harder for people to find out who runs a major label because you know, it's a corporate structure.
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Host 2
It's like a suit, a scary suit in the background.
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Steve Gardigan
Exactly. You see the videos manipulating artists. Bobby Shmurda performing his. His hot. To a room full of people in just a boardroom. It's just so weird, right?
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Host 2
Yeah.
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Steve Gardigan
So, all right, so over the last
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Host 1
two years of building Nibble, shipping nearly 8,000 UGC ads and getting performance Data on every single one of them. It became super clear there are two types of brands, those that understand creative volume and those that don't. The core difference was what they focused on. Brands that focused on volume plus hit rate were never complaining that meta changed the algorithms.
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Host 2
Their stuff just worked.
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Host 1
And anytime we did work with one of those savvy brands, it was always on the same platform.
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Host 2
Motion.
- [17:32]
Host 1
Motion is by far the best tool to optimize your creative pipeline. Provide structure, visibility and insights that your creative team needs to make better decisions. I like to think of it as like what Meta would actually show you if they cared about your success. All the key metrics like 3 second stop rate, winning angles, formats, competitor research, it's all built into their platform so you can make quicker and better decisions. They even just launched their new AI agent, Runneth, which functions as a 24.7creative strategist, providing recommendations to your ad account. Make sure to go check them out@motion app.com. all right, let's get back to the episode.
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Host 2
I think probably helps you in your relationship with the artists as well, right?
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Steve Gardigan
Because they, when you can provide value directly and like they can like text you or like, like yesterday I posted a video for our artist pods out of Chicago and was just comparing them to other artists that people love in the industry and other. Chris Lake. Right. So you're able to do that, kind of give them a cool co sign and then that content itself lives in a way that I think has worked in the past. So I'm able to kind of know, all right, cool. How do I present this art? Right. Or Bergeon. Right. Bergen is an artist who I found from Toronto. He is from Turkey originally and I was able to create a viral moment for him. And then now he went from 0 to 300,000 monthly listeners from a single video. And then so it's like a different. There's different styles of labels right now. There's ones that are not digitally native that are doing really, really well as well. The digital media ads and like creating original content. I think there's a difference between paid media and original content.
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Host 2
I mean paid media feels like a complete money pit in the music world because yeah, paid media is like that's how you get false signal a lot of the time versus organic content creates grassroots.
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Steve Gardigan
Yes, yes, exactly. So even if we are. So let's say that even like playlist playlists, right, that labels might own, they're going to run ads all day long or like these YouTube, like it kind of is transitioned from these YouTube labels like, like Suicide Sheep or the Nations. Right. Trap Nation, House Nation. And they're just, there's. There's running ads all day, all day, building up the YouTube channel and their playlists and then they're seeing their artists to these playlists and these YouTube channels. And it's, it works well. But the margins are smaller, obviously, than somebody who's creating original content over and over and over again. And that's like the, that's the biggest difference between, I think what we're doing at the label because we're able to manufacture a moment for a low cost because we're doing original content ourselves.
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Host 2
When you're also putting together irl. So there's real events. Right. So I mean, and then you have a playlist actually that I think is super interesting because, I mean, for those people that don't have a total background on. You start as content creator. You know, been in the industry for a while. You have a Spotify, several Spotify places,
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Steve Gardigan
like a network, I guess all of
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Host 2
them kind of like curated.
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Steve Gardigan
Yep.
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Host 2
And like, I think it's a really interesting value prop to a new artist. Right. It's like, hey, we have a place to put you also, we have a place for you to be discovered. And look at my storytelling chops. Because when I talk about an artist, like, it resonates with people. I'm really good at explaining what their vibe is and what the appeal is. Have you found that to be like super helpful in attracting new talent?
- [20:44]
Steve Gardigan
Absolutely. I mean, when I am talking to a new artist. Right. You kind of list like the. The benefits of working with our label. Right. To sign into our label. It. It started to add. But yeah, like the playlist with the. The first thing. And that kind of goes back to
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Host 2
how big is the playlist right now? You have a lot of.
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Steve Gardigan
I feel like I have a lot of like four main ones. The big one has 190,000 followers.
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Host 2
Yeah.
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Steve Gardigan
And then it goes like 100k huge on Spotify.
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Host 2
Like 190,000. I mean, those aren't usually pretty viral. Right.
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Steve Gardigan
So it's literally been consistent organic content. Zero paid ads ever on any playlist of mine. It's only organic content. Call to action, end of the video. Follow this playlist. Or here's more songs like this on this playlist. It's in my bio basically right now with many chat. It's even like, better because you can just. You can have a hundred, a hundred people right away that are just commenting to help the, to push the video even more. But that in itself is really big because the organic side of it is key. And then the, when building these playlists, it's, yeah, it's a value for the artist, but not only just for like streams on the playlist, but also for the algorithm on Spotify. Because if I have, let's say you drop a song and I put you on a playlist next to Prosper and Cooney and Frankie Rosado, like your, those you're gonna start showing up on their radio stations and vice versa. So like the Brian Blum radio will have these big artists on it. So like you're kind of being coupled in. It's more of like a long term play. But the playlist might get you, you know, a thousand streams a day, but over the course of it, it might generate millions of streams for you just from like the ecosystem it creates on Spotify for it. Because Spotify is smart. Spotify knows who is saving songs and sharing. They then who the good listener is. So those listeners, those. Your content typically finds those same people because the algorithm. So now Spotify is like, oh cool. Brian, who shares all music every single week with his friends and is listening to albums and saving them and adding them to his own playlist. Like it knows who you are. So if you're now listening to you're. You're a high value listener to Spotify.
- [22:52]
Host 2
So do they have archetypes like that? Like they have like a, like a share, like a super share. A curator. Like do they tag? I don't know, I don't, I don't know.
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Steve Gardigan
Interest? I think they must. I mean they're smart, right? They know, they know. Like cool. If the people who are really active listeners are listening to these artists, it's a good signal for them. So like that might, you might show up in more radio stations, you know, more autoplays, you know, more, more generated playlists, you know, algorithmic playlists. Right. So it's really important. So, so, so labels, yeah. Like labels will typically go and try and pay curators to get on their pages or get in their playlists. But as a curator I, you don't want to ever take money for playlisting ever, ever, ever. Content you can, whatever. But like playlisting, that's such a big no, no. Like it's like destroys the entire integrity of it. It's. Yeah. And like, and then your playlist aren't very good. And then Spotify knows like if you're adding a really moving song, it's like a mess.
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Host 2
So like Spotify is not guilty. I Mean, Spotify runs ads. Spotify lets a lot of artists put, you know, the sponsored like discovery thing. Which is so funny because I mean, and I would, I would love to look at the click through rate data on the back end of that. But for me, if I see a sponsored suggestion from Spotify, I'm like, bro,
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Steve Gardigan
get out of my.
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Host 2
Do not show me this. You know.
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Steve Gardigan
Yeah, yeah, organic. I mean, that's why curators, I think are so important. Because we have the age of AI songs getting clipped like we talked about, right? And then you have, I mean, if you think there's a lot of music now, wait until five years from now when there's like a million songs per day uploaded to dsps. Like where do we, where do we sift through everything? Like, where's a human in the loop? I think human friction in music is important, but also in everything it's important, right? Like think about like a premium feature for calling into Delta Airlines, right? If you want to talk to a human, it's going to probably cost you in the future because a human in the loop, human friction is like a premium, premium feature.
- [24:49]
Host 2
Everything has a hotline for a vip, like Delta Airlines Chase whoever it is. Like they treat you way differently if you're a good customer versus like, you know, 45 minute wait. And I think that's an interesting point. Like in music there has to be friction. There has to be that recommendation. Besides, I mean curation, the AI music thing is just too much to even. That's brain frying, you know, like it's A million songs a day is possible. I mean Suno is exploding.
- [25:19]
Steve Gardigan
Well, it's that, but it's also like I'll get submissions for the label all the time. And I'm like, wait a second, like this vocal is really good. Who is the artist that you have? And they're like, oh, it's. You know, because now an artist can have an idea in their mind. So now they don't have to go and find a vocalist to get their, their ideas out. They can just do it and then they can create a good demo. And then all of a sudden they're like, wait a second, this is better than Jenny, who I really know, who's a great songwriter, but she's going to cost money, take points, which she should because she deserves it. But for me, if I'm a new artist, I would rather get out the ideas myself. And it's AI vocals is now just becoming a tool. Just like the way that splice became a tool where it was Everybody was using the same sounds because it's a library of available tools and sounds like the same thing with vocals is going to happen. So now you imagine how many artists are going to be out in the world because now you're like, oh, I can make a hit now because I don't need to sing it or I don't need to find somebody. I don't know any singers. So now I can go in and I can just make, you know, like, like I, like, I run like Haven. It's like nobody knows who those guys were before, if they were accomplished producers.
- [26:30]
Host 2
Have they delivered anything after?
- [26:32]
Steve Gardigan
I think so.
- [26:32]
Host 2
They've had a couple.
- [26:33]
Steve Gardigan
Yeah, yeah. Haven. I think so. Yeah.
- [26:35]
Host 2
I want to switch a little bit because you kind of live in both, right? Very digitally native, but at the same time you're investing a lot in, in real life events. Like you have PM radio that you're hosting tomorrow.
- [26:45]
Steve Gardigan
AM radio.
- [26:46]
Host 2
Like talk a little bit about like a. The funnel for both and how that kind of interplays with your content and then just be like the behind the scenes, like throwing those events. You know, I'm sure there's a lot of different things people just don't even appreciate.
- [26:58]
Steve Gardigan
Yeah, yeah, the funnel is crazy. I mean, so I started something called the put you on music club like four years ago. And it was me sending a playlist of new releases every Friday to the people who signed up for it. And it was like three at first. It was an email newsletter, it was a, it was a text list on lelo.
- [27:17]
Host 2
Oh no.
- [27:18]
Steve Gardigan
And I, and I, and I, I charged $3 a month for it because I was like, I need. Okay. It's because a pure music discovery back before kind of like the events were happening, I was like, how do you like, monetize being a creator, a music curator? Because, you know, you can charge for playlists. But I was always against that because it's just sketchy and I think your playlists become bad and then they don't grow. So I was like, cool, how do you kind of do this? And so I charged three bucks a month and I was like, cool. I got like 50 people. So like 150 bucks a month and I'm sending them a playlist every single Friday. So that music club was sitting at like 50 to 75 people for a while and I wasn't really promoting it. It was like always in my bio. And then when the idea happened for me to create more events around our label and for our label artists and for the music club community, that Wasn't that big at the time, but it was at a. We had the idea for AM Radio. Dan, who's my co founder, he moved from Denver to la and him and I had become Internet friends because he was talent buying artists from the label I was an A R at. And then he's like, hey, I'm gonna be in la. I knew he ran events and I was always like, I've been really trying to do more events for the label. So when that happened I was like, I need you to run the events, be the head of events for put your music group right. So we're doing like some artist campaigns for a while where we'd like an event the media for them and then invite our music club. And it was like, okay. But it wasn't know we did some cool collabs like 360 out of London. And I finally had the idea to do it at a coffee shop because we want to get our YouTube popping. And I was like, how do you get these YouTube sets that were like popping off at the time, like Apartment Life and book club radio? Like these. The DJ sets were running things where an artist could like throw a party. Like JRO was doing these candy clubs for like 100 people. He would get millions of views on YouTube. So I was like, all right, how do you. How do we.
- [29:14]
Host 2
Crazy FOMO.
- [29:15]
Steve Gardigan
Yeah, exactly. And. And like, it's just people like DJ Seth just still today are just so good on YouTube because you can just play it. It's basically. Playlist. Yeah, exactly. And even if you don't watch it. So we were like, cool, let's get into YouTube. And then I was like, I think I know where to do it. Where to do it? Coffee shops. Instead of like a playlist on Spotify, let's get an artist that you might see at like Coachella and like invite our music club. And we did the first one, there's like probably 60 people there. And we were like, we are popping. Yeah, we're like, where? We made it. We did. We did it. And the second one we did, I wanted. I wanted to double my RSVPs from like 500, like or 300 to like 600, right. So I made this video that changed my life, Dan's life, every. The whole thing when AM radio was really like became viral. So it was funny too because Dan was like texting me that day. He's like, man, LA is tough. I've been trying to apply all these jobs. Can't get a job. I don't know if I Can just stay in la, like, an hour later, I post a video and, like, the rest is history.
- [30:16]
Host 2
Now all the problems are solved. Yeah. So what was the hook on that again? What was that?
- [30:20]
Steve Gardigan
Club culture is dying.
- [30:21]
Host 2
That's right.
- [30:21]
Steve Gardigan
That's right. Club culture is dying. And I did that for a jaro video about YouTube sets, how they're. How important they are, and it did really, really well. And I was like, okay, cool. So I use Club culture is dying because in LA especially, all the clubs were closing down, Nobody was going out, everybody was going to house parties, and everybody was doing day parties. So I was like, all right, that's a good hook. I use a hook for a good eight months. Probably keep rinsing it. And then. And then I was kind of. But, yeah, so the flow. So back to the music club, right? So when that video goes viral, the music club jumps from like 70 people to, like a thousand. And I was like, whoa. First of all, good problem to have. But now to send these text messages,
- [31:00]
Host 2
now you're at the 3,000.
- [31:01]
Steve Gardigan
Yeah, right, right.
- [31:03]
Host 2
Can almost afford, like, a shack in ven. Yeah.
- [31:05]
Steve Gardigan
Well, no, the thing is, this was free at the. I saw. I. I made music club free. Yeah, the paywall, like, years before, like a year before it. So these are free people. And now I was like, cool. If I want to send a playlist of these new releases to everybody, it's going to cost me, like, hundreds of dollars. I was like, not really the ROI
- [31:23]
Host 2
I'm looking for here.
- [31:23]
Steve Gardigan
It's not really, like, my thing. So I moved it to Instagram broadcast channel. And then from that point on, I was like, if you want to get invited to AIM Radio, we invite our music club. And then it grew from November to January to like 12,000 people on the broadcast channel. And I was like, okay, cool. Because it's like a lot of great social proof with it. You can kind of see how many people see the post and how many people are engaging with it and things like that. So now, to this day in la, we don't post the events anywhere publicly except for the music club. And we'll do like 1500 ticket sales in 10 minutes in LA. Or we'll do like.
- [32:01]
Host 2
Are you selling out every single time, like, off rep?
- [32:03]
Steve Gardigan
Yeah, yeah, yeah. In LA especially, we'll get like. We don't. We haven't sold that every single show, but almost every single one has been a sellout. Our Basel in Miami wasn't a sellout. Yeah. So, like, it depends.
- [32:18]
Host 2
I mean, just from a pure audience owned Audience, though. That's crazy. You know, I mean a lot of people are like hosting these events publicly, running ads, that sort of thing. And Yeah, I mean, it is kind of. It's just interesting how powerful even like a channel like Instagram broadcast can be. You know, I feel like a lot of people neglect that.
- [32:36]
Steve Gardigan
Yeah. I mean, if you can get on broadcast channel. I don't, I don't know what the qualifications are, but it's been a game changer for us because now when we. This like our flow. Our. This. This is our flow when we go to like, I used to use New York City, for example. So for this most recent New York City show, biggest risk yet. It's our biggest cap venue we've ever done. Yeah, yeah.
- [32:54]
Host 2
Can you, can you share like a lot of the numbers on everything? Like. Yeah, venue artist, like expected ROI like a lot of.
- [33:02]
Steve Gardigan
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So 1200. 1200 is the capacity of the rooftop.
- [33:06]
Host 1
Ton of people.
- [33:07]
Host 2
Yeah, a lot of people that's like.
- [33:10]
Steve Gardigan
And it's a big risk. It's like cool. How do we, how are we gonna do this? Right? So we invite our music club so we first into the music club and that typically gets us the first couple hundred sales and like people that are in the city talking about it. Right. Because we just want, like. You just want a few hundred people in the city talking about it.
- [33:22]
Host 2
Oh, dude, everyone in. I mean, people are feeding for events right now.
- [33:25]
Steve Gardigan
Yeah.
- [33:25]
Host 2
Like anything that's not like, hey, let's just go to the bar.
- [33:28]
Steve Gardigan
Right?
- [33:28]
Host 2
Like, it's just so. I mean, New York in particular, the line culture is out of control.
- [33:33]
Steve Gardigan
Right.
- [33:33]
Host 2
Like people will do anything to show up just to have, just to be
- [33:37]
Steve Gardigan
in line just to prove that they are showing up to something that people are excited about.
- [33:41]
Host 2
People just want activities here because you can't be in the house.
- [33:43]
Steve Gardigan
Yeah.
- [33:43]
Host 2
And so like any sort of popup is going to have a line around the block because it gives people something to do.
- [33:48]
Steve Gardigan
And New York is very unique too because like you said, I don't think people realize you can't like have people over to your crib.
- [33:55]
Host 1
No.
- [33:55]
Steve Gardigan
Because your apartments are typically small.
- [33:57]
Host 2
No.
- [33:57]
Steve Gardigan
You can't like have like all your friends over. So you're always.
- [34:00]
Host 1
People.
- [34:00]
Host 2
People legitimately live in closets. Yeah. It's crazy.
- [34:03]
Steve Gardigan
Yeah, yeah. So, so it's interesting. So we do that and then, and then it's all the organic content from that point. So it's like, all right, I'm posting a carousel post in our classic VHS style carousel info on the event. Sometimes it's surprise lineups. If we can't get clearance for the artist, if they're playing like a festival in that same market in the next six months or something like that. Or if we just want it to be like the. It's worked for us. Like these, These secret lineups have worked because people kind of trust us to curate a lineup that is good. Yeah. And so you never know who's going to show up.
- [34:39]
Host 2
Say, the surprise lineup is interesting because people are just trusting your brand. And that's the power of the curator. Right. Like, at this point, they have an expectation for what kind of vibe you're going to bring, you know?
- [34:48]
Steve Gardigan
Yes. Yeah. And people, People, they. They sometimes just like, you know, finding out who it is. So we will. We'll typically post day of like, or we'll post like, a poster at the physical event who's playing, and people be like, oh, wow, this person's playing. So we, you know, and we. We do our best to. To. To deliver on that.
- [35:03]
Host 2
Are brands trying to activate with you at these events? Like, probably in a big way.
- [35:07]
Steve Gardigan
Right?
- [35:07]
Host 2
I mean, it's a really nice audience to reach, I would imagine.
- [35:10]
Steve Gardigan
Yeah, yeah, for sure. We do a lot of, like, CPU company, they want cans in hands. So a lot of na Bev companies, Your.
- [35:20]
Host 2
Your madre is doing sober at the coffee stuff.
- [35:23]
Steve Gardigan
Typically for a while they were. Because we were at coffee shops for a long time. And then once we am radio 8 was our last coffee shop that we did, except for we did the Starbucks reserve in Chicago for Lollapalooza. That was like. And that's the biggest coffee shop in the world. But other than that, we've. We've exited coffee shops. But yeah, for a while we were just like, all right, this is the menu at the shop. Like, it's matcha, flat whites, whatever.
- [35:48]
Host 2
Yeah, Stop being a degenerate. Yeah, yeah, Cappuccino.
- [35:51]
Steve Gardigan
And so it was like, people were like, confusing us with, like, a sober party, which is like, kind of what it was, but we were kind of just like, hey, like, first of all, there's way less liability for you to put on event with. Second of all, it's 10:00am Yeah, 10. And then it's 10:00am yeah, yeah. Maybe Bloody Mary's. But now, I mean, now we do people. People drink at our events. Like, espresso martinis are flowing. Oh, yeah. Like, people are people.
- [36:13]
Host 2
Day drinking is kind of the wave right now. I feel like. Yeah, a lot of people. I mean, that's a great way to like, you know, get the day started.
- [36:19]
Steve Gardigan
Yeah, like we'll. We'll do like anywhere from 15 to 25k at the bar. Wow. Yeah.
- [36:25]
Host 2
And you split that with the venue.
- [36:27]
Steve Gardigan
Rev share with the venue typically. So if my favorite model is typically like no fee for the rental of the space, but you just do a bar share. A rev. A rev share at the bar.
- [36:37]
Host 1
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- [37:10]
Host 2
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- [37:11]
Host 1
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- [37:22]
Host 2
How's booking artists? Like, I feel like booking artists is one of the crazier ranges of prices that you've anyone's ever seen.
- [37:29]
Steve Gardigan
It is. It is. It depends on the market. It depends on if it's a surprise lineup or not. Right. And it also depends on what value you're giving to the artists. Right. If we're giving them all this media and a slot on our YouTube page that has 33, 33,000 subscribers, and then we're getting these three cut downs on our pages. And maybe I'm going to make a video for you like I did for collect 200. And I, you know, like, I've made videos for artists that have played AM radio and they get booked by UTA like, like the next week. And so there's value of these artists are seeing in this content because not every artist can make all the content all the time. So they lean on curators and other events to kind of get their, their name out. And the content just is. Is a value. So we can typically like, get good prices for artists. But we were like the cute coffee shop party for a couple months and then agents were like, okay, like you guys are pulling in a Thousand people. You guys are obviously making money. Like, we gotta, you know, so now we gotta charge it. Now we're just like trying to, you know, we, we work with a lot of agents now.
- [38:26]
Host 2
Back to tomorrow's event. So 1200 people, rooftop venue. They approached you, right? They wanted you to work with them.
- [38:32]
Steve Gardigan
Yeah, we're in Miami for music Week and one of the, the one of the guys who's connected with the rooftop, he's like, hey, for every New York we have this rooftop. We're like, hey, kind of, we want to go there in May. That was like on our kind of roadmap for the year. He's like, cool. This is the rooftop. And he showed it to us. We're like, all right, this is kind of cool. And so, yeah, we did that and all the content has been. I mean, I can pull it up. It's like we did like the Carousel slideshow.
- [38:58]
Host 2
Yeah, we'll put it up on the screen for sure.
- [39:00]
Steve Gardigan
Yeah. Then we did the Carousel slideshow. Then I made a video about New York rooftop culture and how it's better than LA's because, like, that's why we're doing this rooftop at sunset. Because these sunset rooftop parties in New York are great. And that culture in New York is really, really good. For obvious reasons. Right. There's not much real estate that's open air on top of building.
- [39:21]
Host 2
Yeah, whole deal.
- [39:22]
Steve Gardigan
And then I did a video on collect 200, who's our headliner, announcing them as our headliner. And that was. That was a collab post with AIM Radio and my page. And then we did a carousel slideshow for collect 200 that is like, I made like a wheat paste there in New York vibe with their lyrics on it. It says, Brooklyn, we got Love, me and you. And like their biggest song, the opening line is we got Love, me and you. So I did that slideshow and then we did. What was this one? Oh yeah. Then I did a video for our second artist that we announced, Mizos from Texas, and kind of talked about how their cosign in the industry, they have a bunch of support from artists and they have like now a top 10 B port song. So like there's like credibility there. Like that's why you should. Thing is, is crazy is, dude, I'm telling you, artists will celebrate a B port number one more than like any other blade.
- [40:13]
Host 2
Like it just shows. You're going to get into the matrix, you know, you're going to get into the network effect.
- [40:17]
Steve Gardigan
Like they would rather get a B port number one. Than a million streams on Spotify and now like that's crazy. On their new song. So.
- [40:24]
Host 2
So how many views total across. What was that, seven posts?
- [40:27]
Steve Gardigan
Yeah. 55,000, 90,000, 36,000, 28,000. So whatever that math is.
- [40:35]
Host 2
Public, public math. I'm going to guesstimate 230. 230,000 somewhere around there.
- [40:39]
Steve Gardigan
Yeah. And then all of it is a comment, right? Comment to get the invite and then boom, we do the many chat. It goes into their DMS and then it's a ticket that sent to their phone basically.
- [40:49]
Host 2
I mean all of it is really top of funnel as well.
- [40:51]
Steve Gardigan
Yes.
- [40:52]
Host 2
I think what's really smart about just poking into like your content strategies There is like I remember when you made the collect 200 video. NYC rooftop culture. Those are two things that can both just go completely broad. Right. They don't have to narrow into like are you a house music fan? Like show up to our rooftop. You know it's like NYC rooftop culture. Like that's gonna get people that aren't house music fans. It's gonna get people who are just looking for stuff to do. Maybe I've been feeding for a rooftop, you know, everyone in.
- [41:18]
Steve Gardigan
When we're booking artists we know too. Like we knew clock 200 was big in New York. Like they're a newer project. They have like 1.5 million monthly listings on Spotify. They haven't grown that much on social but they kind of. They're doing their thing on social. But we knew their market for New York is really good. And you can see in the comments of other posts when you come to New York, when you come to New York and this is their first New York show. They play the Spotify event after us. So we're first and so there's like the first time Spotify event they have like a showcase.
- [41:46]
Host 2
Okay. Like yeah, yeah, I went to this John Summit. LinkedIn Spotify.
- [41:52]
Steve Gardigan
Did you go to that?
- [41:53]
Host 2
Yeah, yeah. That was crazy. Yeah, it was actually really smart. They had an activation where it was like you know, photo booth. John dressed up in like a tie. Like the whole thing was kind of like LinkedIn like nerdy and obviously got a bunch of content for it. Like you know, cool activation for like their backstage like LinkedIn people. I mean LinkedIn influencers are a unique type of.
- [42:16]
Steve Gardigan
If you, if you ask a dj, some of their favorite gigs that get booked at because of the money is really good. Is like corporate tech events like they
- [42:23]
Host 2
crush people were turning up in there. It was the craziest crowd ever because it was John Summit's top 1% of fans on Spotify in New York, raffle style.
- [42:31]
Steve Gardigan
Oh, very cool.
- [42:31]
Host 2
And then 20 was like LinkedIn influencers.
- [42:34]
Steve Gardigan
Yeah.
- [42:34]
Host 2
It's like what that Venn diagram does not exist. Yeah, like that doesn't exist at all.
- [42:39]
Steve Gardigan
Yeah. You're creating new Venn diagrams. Yeah, yeah.
- [42:41]
Host 2
And I want to talk about people enjoying themselves, just dead sober, you know, losing their minds.
- [42:46]
Steve Gardigan
Yeah, yeah, yeah. People are into that kind of stuff and it's. Yeah. So now, fast forward to now. We have the event tomorrow. It's going to be a sellout, which is awesome. It's just out today if it hasn't already. And that's all through. We did 300 bucks in ads, but we picked the best video that I did because my talking head videos and my storytelling videos are the best converters for ads that co brand sees, right? He's like, yo, your cost per click versus you versus like a poster campaign that don't put up is like, like, it's like crazy. He like loves them. So we pick like in other markets we'll do like a couple hundred bucks on ads on like the best creative that we have that's performing and then that is, it really, really helps. Now we've done 1200.
- [43:28]
Host 2
That's so. Okay, so dom dollar poster ad. Like people, like artists are obviously running ads to their shows. Like they're trying to run TikTok, they're
- [43:35]
Steve Gardigan
trying to run meta.
- [43:36]
Host 2
Like, what do they see in terms of like roas? Like, do you know, like, I wonder what that arbitrage looks like. Because I mean, obviously it's like, okay, you want to sell out a, you know, 15,000 person menu. Maybe you've got 11,000 tickets sold, you're trying to sell the last 4,000. And then there's probably a lot of other dynamics because, you know, there's a rev share on the booze.
- [43:55]
Steve Gardigan
Like, like cost per click, 6 cents. But this is like a really early one. It was, he showed me like the data that he actually ran over the wrong ad. It was a DOM dollar ad on our account accidentally because you like, it was just like somebody like DOM dollar radio. Yeah, everybody's like, you're getting dom. We're like, no, like, wow, you're not
- [44:14]
Host 2
really independent music anymore, are you?
- [44:16]
Steve Gardigan
But it was like, yeah, like CPM, $10 cost per click, $0.06, 25 clicks. Like it was, you know, that maybe not the best data set, but there's. Yeah, it's, it's this content, the shares that these ads get. Like that was the one thing like a content piece that I would make. The amount of shares that it gets on an ad is like blows the mind of co brand. I've never seen so many shares on an ad before because think about it like we're going to share an ad as much very rare. So like it's very rare. So yeah, it's, that does lower what the CPM is.
- [44:50]
Host 2
So like when you have a ton of shares and like engagement, like that's like the most natural way to lower cpm. Like we do with that, with every
- [44:57]
Steve Gardigan
client free reach after that.
- [44:58]
Host 2
Yeah, it's like how do you get like some engagement bait in the ad account just to like lower the overall CPM and like get more eyeballs?
- [45:04]
Steve Gardigan
Yep, exactly. So that's what's worked for us. And it's always stressful. Like we're always like, how are we going to sell these tickets? My tickets weren't moving that fast in the beginning either. But again it's like you have to know like week of sales are always really big because everybody's like, what do you, what they don't know what I'm doing, I don't know what I'm doing for lunch, I don't know what I'm doing in two weeks. Right. So yeah, we've, we scaled it perfectly I think and, and yeah, it's, I
- [45:29]
Host 2
mean that's a pretty repeatable playbook too across like new venues and locations.
- [45:32]
Steve Gardigan
So people are always like, how do I, you know, going back to even the coffee shop days for AIM Radio, who, you know, a lot of people can say we pioneered these morning coffee shop DJ sets, right? And then once this blew up. Now everybody over the world does it, but people are like, how do I get people to mine? Right? Everybody can put a DJ into a coffee shop. But like how do you scale an event company? It's, you know, if you do the content talking head content, you know, that's the best way to do it. But it took me five years to do it. So now we have a five year head start on anybody who wants to start today. If they want to start a morning coffee party, it's going to take five years of them building an audience in music to be able to like have that kind of lift off. Maybe not in five years because I
- [46:13]
Host 2
mean they can do brand equity, takes a long time to build and like also done a lot of trust, you know. And like, I mean there's just like a roll of, I mean people call it a binge bank where if I discover AM radio or Steve, like you can just go back and check the tape and it's like, oh, this is actually something I really want.
- [46:28]
Steve Gardigan
And they'll get fed old videos. The algorithm will like stuff. But it took me, it took me so long to get to 100,000 on Instagram. I just got there in March, just got there. And there's curators and people in music who are like music tastemakers that have millions of followers. And I just got to 100k after like all this stuff. My, like my growth has been like this. But I think those people are sticking
- [46:49]
Host 2
around, which is good. Yeah, I mean that's, that's huge. Like a lot of. I mean it seems like the new meta is really niching into like going deep with an audience.
- [46:58]
Host 1
Right.
- [46:58]
Host 2
Because I mean the platforms have made it much more difficult to grow. Like I would, I would guess all those music curators you just mentioned with millions, like, they probably accumulated that in like the 2020 to like 2022, 23 era, because followers were just much easier to obtain at the time. And now it's like the riches are in the niches.
- [47:16]
Steve Gardigan
Right.
- [47:17]
Host 2
Like if you, I mean, tbpn, like John Coogan said famously, he's like, if I have a hundred thousand listeners on an episode, we failed because we don't want people outside of our target demographic to listen to the show because we would have to dumb it down, you know, And I mean, something we go through all the time and this is even kind of like an experiment. Like we want to see if like our audience loves the music stuff. Because I think there is so much spillover between like the music marketing and like the growth loops and like kind of what you have to do organically with. You could apply any of these lessons to a CPG brand.
- [47:50]
Steve Gardigan
Yeah.
- [47:50]
Host 2
Like if you're a beverage company, you should be thinking about like how do I do this content stack. Right. That you kind of just mentioned where it's like, okay, broad topic specific thing about the event, like stack that all together and then drive people to an IRL activation.
- [48:05]
Steve Gardigan
Yeah, exactly. I mean that's, I'm the model. How I always explain. Put you on. Music group as a label is kind of like a creator brand. Right? It's a creator led label where the product is music. It's not gym clothes or cosmetics. It's music. It's streaming and it's now events. So it's, it's, it's that, that's, that's out of that same playbook. Right. It's like what is the audience? What is the built in audience? What is your, how big is your billboard that you created for yourself? Because you know, you've been showing up online and building the audience and, and things like that organically. And then now the event is really great because it's, it's, yeah, it's, it's the tangible version that you can go, you can now people will buy your merch there and they will go there and have a good experience. They can't wait to look, you know, looking forward to it. They bring their friend, they tell their friends about, they become a curator of events if they are in the music club and they can tell their friends, hey, I have a move for us this weekend. I got four tickets. And they're like, oh, I didn't hear about this. Yeah, you didn't because you're not in this music club. I am. So there's a lot of value in that for people, I think. But it's, it's all the same stuff. It's like, how do you, how do you create that moat? And I think the content and showing up and being the, the face of the brand is, is the moat that I think is getting bigger and bigger every year.
- [49:18]
Host 2
Okay, so you're a curator, you know how to direct eyeballs to music. How much of music discovery today is organic versus engineered by this clipping stuff or paid media?
- [49:29]
Steve Gardigan
Yeah, it's a good question. So organic, you just mean non paid media and non clipping pages?
- [49:34]
Host 2
Basically. Yeah, like, I guess, like is there any viral artist that's not leveraging some of these clipping tools? Like, or is it kind of all. Is this the new music marketing?
- [49:44]
Steve Gardigan
Well, Hugo did a really good job of this. Yeah, Hugo's been, he's such a great example of how an artist and he's just, you know, he's found his like I always tell artists to like find a repeatable piece of content, right? You don't want to spend three hours making a piece of content and then it gets a thousand views and you're like, I'm never doing this ever again. It's like, why don't you just sit like we are doing. You set up a camera and you're, you're playing your song on your laptop, right? Like Hugo was doing this really, really well in his like hotel room. He's probably on tour at this hotel room, on a balcony at sunset and he's like doing this stuff and that's really repeatable and that worked really well, really well for him. And you know, the Music has to be really good in these instances. Like you're not. It's typically like, oh, the song is so good and look at the vibe that I'm also seeing while I'm listening to the song. But it's hard. It's hard to say. I mean, Fred again did a really good job with his. His kind of style of content and like doing things as well. That's not just showing your music, right? Like, how do you provide value to these artists or these fans? Because there's a difference between asking a fan for value and listen to my music or come to my show and there between that and also giving them value in like good music, entertaining content. Right? So there's a lot of artists. I mean, Gravur is a good example. And like the. The ones that are doing it really simply, like, those are the ones that are crushing. Because the way that where you know, even me, I'm doing the green screen videos now instead of like setting up my like, like studio shot. Because I think that the Run and Gun style, like thought like, like people want to hear what people are thinking about right now versus, you know, what they're deeply thinking about.
- [51:23]
Host 2
Like a 10 day lead time on it.
- [51:24]
Steve Gardigan
Yeah. So. So a lot of these artists are doing a really, really good job at that because they're. It almost looks like they're not trying, right? It's always like, it looks like this, their Tik Tok page. Like, they're like.
- [51:36]
Host 2
I mean, Hugo is a great example. Like, I feel like he's just always
- [51:38]
Steve Gardigan
buying and now he's so big, it's crazy. And he puts a lot of music. But yeah, because, you know, like, he kind of.
- [51:45]
Host 2
He kind of faded me in Miami.
- [51:47]
Steve Gardigan
I hit him up. I was like, hey, I'm.
- [51:49]
Host 2
I'm here for Basil. He just liked the message. I'm not a Latina, so I got it.
- [51:55]
Steve Gardigan
Yeah, but I mean there's. I always say artists are like, how. How do I. I want to. I want to go on tour, right? And they don't have like motion yet. I'm like, why don't you start a party in your city that everybody wants to come to, everybody's talking about and then do it in another city. That's like what we did with AM now. We're like a traveling.
- [52:15]
Host 1
Yeah.
- [52:15]
Host 2
Yeah.
- [52:15]
Steve Gardigan
Artist. Almost like, almost an artist on tour. It's like we're.
- [52:18]
Host 2
I. People send me your to go to. And I was like, oh, no, you don't understand. Like, that's crazy.
- [52:25]
Steve Gardigan
He's coming to Canal Street?
- [52:26]
Host 2
Yeah.
- [52:26]
Steve Gardigan
Right now. Yeah, yeah. So bro hopped off the red eye. Yeah, yeah. So he. The. The thing. The thing that I keep thinking about is, like, when this artist asking me this, it's like, you should go and do something that everybody can't stop talking about and then trying to repeat in other markets rather than like putting out 10 dates at like a soft ticket, which is basically. Soft ticket is when you are booked at a nightclub and people buy tickets to that night at the nightclub, but they're not buying tickets to you. So the soft ticket, right. And instead of doing that and you like, you know, people like playing like empty rooms and things like that. It's like, it's weird. Like, do something that people just start love doing. Like. So I'm gonna give a shout to Country Night. Country Night. I made a video. I've recorded a video on this. Haven't posted it yet. But if you're an artist, pay attention to artists like Country Night, who started throwing country dance parties in la. So they were country music and then they would do like EDM remixes of country songs.
- [53:21]
Host 2
Kind of like that Diplo album Back of the Day, like the Heartless album.
- [53:24]
Steve Gardigan
Well, the thing is now Diplo Honky Tonk at Stagecoach is a stage. Now it's with a Yuma. This year was in the Yuma tent that they kept Yuma tent up from Coachella and now it's Diplo's Honky Tonk. So Country Night are these two guys in LA and they start throwing these parties and then all of a sudden they become an artist project and they start putting out songs and now they're getting good monthly listeners. And then now they're booked at like the best slot of the night at Dibos, Honky Tonk. Because they started a party. It's like, because they became a draw. They became a draw and they became. They fed their audience, their music. They didn't try and bring an audience to the music. They just built the audience first. Right. So they're a really interesting thing to look at as well. And they're. They're great guys and they've done a good job at building organically and do and keeping through themselves. And then now they're playing. I mean, you should have seen their. Stagecoach said it was. It was crazy. Yeah, that's fire.
- [54:15]
Host 2
Well, dude, I mean, I think that was super valuable for a lot of people listening. Where can they support you?
- [54:21]
Steve Gardigan
Yeah, Instagram. Steve Cardigan is like my. My personal. But the label page is putyouon Club. That's where like, we post a lot of our releases, but also just cool content. I'm always like, collab hosting between my page and the put you on page, because it's kind of like the. My editorial, like, put you on started just as a media channel, essentially, and the label is just new, so I keep that. Keep that consistent. AM radio. AM Radio LA is our Instagram for the events. And then the music club is in all three channels. If you look in our.
- [54:52]
Host 2
Yeah, join the music club. That's the one. Music club is cool.
- [54:54]
Steve Gardigan
Yeah, we do the. The new music Fridays, so I have to go and, like, curate this playlist. Girl named Tori from New York City actually helps me curate the playlist now and then. Yeah, that's it. We also do, like, show giveaways, like, if we're in LA and like, an artist that's played AM radio is coming through for, like, their big show at, like, the Shrine will always have their agent or their manager. Hey, can we get like, three tickets for the music club? And then be like, hey, like, we're giving away three tickets. And like, we did that for black coffee. And it was like 500 replies in, like four minutes to get these tickets. We're like, oh, my God. So it's a good place to be if you like music, new music, discovering stuff and come to come to events. Yeah. And not only la, they're like, we come. Yeah, come all around. Cool.
- [55:34]
Host 2
Well, dude, thank you for coming on.
- [55:36]
Steve Gardigan
Yeah, thanks. No, appreciate you.