Name: Jakob Dylan on "The Record Business"
Uploaded: 2021-07-07T18:01:28.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Jakob Dylan on "The Record Business"' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2021-07-07. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Jakob Dylan on "The Record Business"' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2021-07-07. Transcript available.

the Joe Rogan experience. There's always been that situation too where you have
these really
hungry talented artists and they get taken advantage of by whether it's
executives or
whoever is the money people that figure out how to lock these people into some
long-term contract
where the lion's share of all their work and creativity is going to be enjoyed
by the company
and not by the artists themselves. You always have these crazy... That part of
the models,
I mean hopefully there's enough pie to go around. Everybody is kind of okay
with that. I mean
there's a certain number you get to where you probably don't care anymore how
much they're
making because you're making so much also. But that model, that's not a mystery
especially
if you're coming up the times when I came up, we already knew all that. If you
got locked
into a bad record contract where somebody screwed you over, it's kind of on you
a little bit.
It wasn't like... It's not the 50s or the 60s where we stepped into things and
didn't know.
And it has nothing with my background. I never got screwed over though. The
worst people I've ever
met in this business were in the bands. They were not the labels because you
know who they are. You
know what they're doing. They don't really change. You won't be fooled. It's
the people that you have
camaraderie with that you think are in the trenches with you that you find out.
Those are the people
that let you down more, that you get hoodwinked by. The business people, there's
no secret what they're doing.
Have you been hoodwinked by other artists? Well, everybody has.
Really? Yeah, I just... I'm not making a
point about artists are shitty. I'm just saying the big bad record business,
like not for me,
not my days. I've worked with some great people. You know, some really
supportive,
positive people who've been a great part of my career. You know, I actually can't...
I can only name,
like I can name out of 30 years maybe like one or two people I came across who
I hope
I never see again in that end of the business. Otherwise, that's a pretty good
ratio.
That is a very good ratio. So essentially, there's always going to be people
that take
advantage of people that don't really understand or are too eager and accept a
bad contract.
Yeah, but there's no excuses for not reading that. We're just too far along.
Yeah.
It shouldn't be that easy to fool someone today.
I've been offered a lot of bad contracts, but I didn't sign them either.
You know, it's that same kind of situation.
And I've been in situations where I've looked at a contract and it's, that's
the nature of most
business deals is someone's going to do better than somebody else.
Right.
So when you look at that and you realize it looks like you're, no matter what,
going to
do better. This isn't a good situation. Like, I don't take that as like a
personal attacker.
It's like, okay, well, this isn't good for me. It's not good. I'll go find
somewhere else to do this.
They're just establishing shitty rules for the game for you.
But there's no connect. Yeah.
Right.
But they're in business.
Right.
You know, it's like, again, Prince, what was his, what did he say?
They owned his name, right?
I think it was something that they, I'm going to get the quote wrong, but
somewhere around
the time where he changed his, just the symbol. And they said something about,
somebody said
something about the record business. He said, no, I'm not in the record
business. You're in
the record business. I make music, you know, and that's, that's kind of it. It's
that, it's true.
But they're not, there's no, there's no similarities to them. There's no reason
that you're a great
talent that you should also have a great understanding of the business side of
things. They're not really
interconnected for most people, but we are far enough along now where hopefully
you have somebody
with you and things are more transparent that you shouldn't get locked into
these horrible deals
anymore.
Do you remember when Courtney Love wrote that piece where she was explaining
the music, I think it was
in Spin Magazine, where she was explaining the music business in terms of like
where the money goes
and how they fuck over artists. Do you remember that?
I don't remember that, but then don't get in the music business.
That's not new. I mean, it's not, is that a revelation? Did you, did you read
that? You're
like, wow, like it was shocking to me because I'm not in the music business. So
to me, I was like,
wow, so that's how they do it. Yeah. I was, I was confused. Like when it went
into like,
you know, if you're a band, people, bands don't do this anymore. If your band
sells 2 million
records, everybody in that band is probably making a lot of money buying houses.
Right. And that CD costs $18. Like you're
making your money. You're pretty happy. It's only down the road where someone
says, okay,
you guys, you did buy a house. Did you see how much that they made? And you are
shocked for a
second to realize you take that CD and divide it up between yourselves, your
band and what the record,
yeah, they make a lot more than you. That's why they're in the record business.
That's what's great. And there, you know, some of them are too smart to be in
the bands.
Or not smart enough. Well, it depends on what you can handle. If you can handle,
I couldn't handle that kind of lifestyle myself. I don't, I don't want, I'm, I
invent things out of
nothing. I don't want to be somebody who I have to, my whole livelihood is
reactionary to other people
creating something that I can now work with. Right. I want to make it from
scratch.
Yeah. That's a weird situation to be in relying upon other people's creativity
for you to make a living.
Yeah. And, but you know, you can do that when you don't have a, you don't have
a, a creative bone in your body.
Some people are really good at numbers and math. Some people are really
creative, you know,
and if you recognize early on, well, I would like to be, I mean, that's a lot
of the great people
who work outside of bands once wanted to be in a band, but realized like, I don't
have it.
I love music, but I want to be a part of it anyway. I want to help someone else
do great things,
you know, but I, I'm not the guy to be in the band or the girl.
If you have your own music and you own your music, what is, what does a record
label do for you in 2021?
Well, what do you mean? If you own your own music?
If you like, if you create your own music, right. You say you hire.
What could a record label do for you? Yeah.
They have money that you don't have to promote and spend and put you on tour.
You know, young bands need, they can't, you know, van or no van, it costs money
to tour a lot,
you know, so, so they basically loan you the money.
Yeah. That's what, that's how they can be good for a young band, really, or any
band, any,
you know, it's like, otherwise you, you don't have the tools, the assets to get
your music in lots
of places. I mean, there's more opportunities with social media, of course. And
it's, you know, look,
the good news is anybody can do it now. And the bad news is anybody can do it
now. Just means it's
crowded and there's just like, it's hard to know what anybody's up to, you know,
but record labels,
they can still have a great, they have a great purpose. Of course, you know,
they're,
you know, some people say they're banks. They're just funding your trip and you
have,
you have a big bill at the end.
And they have a connection to streaming services.
Yeah. They have all those contacts that, that you, uh, that you wouldn't have
on your own.
Now, when a person is like, say if you're a new band and you get signed by a
record company,
how does someone find out about you? I mean, what is the primary way they find
out about you?
If it's not the radio, which it always used to be, do they find out about you
through streaming services?
Like, are there channels that are sponsored that people get excited about
because they know that
this channel is where new interesting music gets broken?
We're both going to do some, we're going to do some homework after this. And if
I find out,
I'll let you know.
I mean, really, that's the, well, that's the question. I don't know. I mean,
because there's, it's just jammed up everywhere, you know? So a lot of great
things about the way things
work now. The models that we had before were really effective too. And at least
you could put yourself
on a path that if you did X, Y, and Z, maybe your band would get a shot, you
know, play your clubs,
get your demo tape together. Maybe a rec company wants to work with you and
they're going to give
you some money to practice. You know, you make that record, you make a video
and you go and they
give you some money to go on tour. Like this was a path to maybe being a band
that was successful.
So you take that away, you know, it is just every man for them, every man and
woman for themselves,
just, you know, trying to find a way to quote unquote, kind of get lucky. You
know,
if you're an established act, you got up, you got opportunities. If you're
doing it the other way,
you're just, it's really, everybody's trying to get lucky. And then by the, and
when someone sees
what that person did, by the time you figure it out, it's too late. It's gotta
do something else.
Everyone, that's what it is. I mean, as far as I know, you know, but I'm also
not brand new.
Like if I was 21 years old, I probably understand this better than I do.
You know, I, the way I came up was just a different, I mean, it was just a
different model.
And that's okay that a lot of that's gone. I mean, it's changed so drastically.
I mean,
you remember in the late like nineties, you know what the diamond award was?
No.
That's when they had to invent it. There was the gold record, platinum record.
It wasn't enough.
People are going like 12 times platinum. So they invented the diamond award,
which was 10 million.
Whoa.
The diamond award. Yeah. That's how much money was going around in those days
before
the internet really.
How many people buy CDs today?
Do they still sell?
I don't know where you buy one.
Online, I guess?
I guess.
Amazon?
Yeah. There's still, I mean, yeah, I mean, I guess you, where are you going to
play it?
I mean, let's find it.
Laptops aren't even going to have hard drives.
I think vinyl sells more than CDs right now, but I'm going to get a breakdown
real quick.
That's interesting.
What is it?
Oh, for sure. No, no, it actually flopped.
They don't, it was for a while, like a bonus. If your company want to spend
some money,
make vinyl with you. Now it's kind of like, you can throw in CDs, but the
production of that is like,
you know, it's the cardboard you put around it.
It's cool now to have vinyl.
Yeah.
CDs don't, they don't seem cool.
But why would you have CDs? I mean, streaming is one thing. I mean, CDs are, uh-oh.
Wow. Streaming's 83% of music industry venue. Wow.
Sync. What is sync?
That's getting your songs and TV and commercials and you get licenses.
That's 2%.
Physical, 9% is physical. So that's live performances?
No, physical is a combination of CDs and LPs and vinyl.
Oh, physical things. Yeah.
Oh, I get it. And then digital downloads are 6%. So physical copies are just 9%.
So it's taking up the bulk of that pie right there.
And then that breaks down here.
Streaming. Streaming takes up the bulk of the pie. So, yeah. Oh, interesting.
So CDs and it's kind of, uh, in 2020.
What is happening in 2020, it says what?
Uh, it's more vinyl than it is, uh, CD and other physical-
What are we looking at? That's the, the green and the blue, that's, oh, CD
vinyl.
The green is vinyl, which is the largest-
Yeah.
But you know, vinyl's not like blowing up.
Anybody who tells you it's back, it's not like it, it's not, it's not, you know,
not buying Kiss records, not like Kiss records in those days.
Right.
It's for, it's a boutique-y kind of thing. It's cool.
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Jakob Dylan on "The Record Business"

the Joe Rogan experience. There's always been that situation too where you have
these really
hungry talented artists and they get taken advantage of by whether it's
executives or
whoever is the money people that figure out how to lock these people into some
long-term contract
where the lion's share of all their work and creativity is going to be enjoyed
by the company
and not by the artists themselves. You always have these crazy... That part of
the models,
I mean hopefully there's enough pie to go around. Everybody is kind of okay
with that. I mean
there's a certain number you get to where you probably don't care anymore how
much they're
making because you're making so much also. But that model, that's not a mystery
especially
if you're coming up the times when I came up, we already knew all that. If you
got locked
into a bad record contract where somebody screwed you over, it's kind of on you
a little bit.
It wasn't like... It's not the 50s or the 60s where we stepped into things and
didn't know.
And it has nothing with my background. I never got screwed over though. The
worst people I've ever
met in this business were in the bands. They were not the labels because you
know who they are. You
know what they're doing. They don't really change. You won't be fooled. It's
the people that you have
camaraderie with that you think are in the trenches with you that you find out.
Those are the people
that let you down more, that you get hoodwinked by. The business people, there's
no secret what they're doing.
Have you been hoodwinked by other artists? Well, everybody has.
Really? Yeah, I just... I'm not making a
point about artists are shitty. I'm just saying the big bad record business,
like not for me,
not my days. I've worked with some great people. You know, some really
supportive,
positive people who've been a great part of my career. You know, I actually can't...
I can only name,
like I can name out of 30 years maybe like one or two people I came across who
I hope
I never see again in that end of the business. Otherwise, that's a pretty good
ratio.
That is a very good ratio. So essentially, there's always going to be people
that take
advantage of people that don't really understand or are too eager and accept a
bad contract.
Yeah, but there's no excuses for not reading that. We're just too far along.
Yeah.
It shouldn't be that easy to fool someone today.
I've been offered a lot of bad contracts, but I didn't sign them either.
You know, it's that same kind of situation.
And I've been in situations where I've looked at a contract and it's, that's
the nature of most
business deals is someone's going to do better than somebody else.
Right.
So when you look at that and you realize it looks like you're, no matter what,
going to
do better. This isn't a good situation. Like, I don't take that as like a
personal attacker.
It's like, okay, well, this isn't good for me. It's not good. I'll go find
somewhere else to do this.
They're just establishing shitty rules for the game for you.
But there's no connect. Yeah.
Right.
But they're in business.
Right.
You know, it's like, again, Prince, what was his, what did he say?
They owned his name, right?
I think it was something that they, I'm going to get the quote wrong, but
somewhere around
the time where he changed his, just the symbol. And they said something about,
somebody said
something about the record business. He said, no, I'm not in the record
business. You're in
the record business. I make music, you know, and that's, that's kind of it. It's
that, it's true.
But they're not, there's no, there's no similarities to them. There's no reason
that you're a great
talent that you should also have a great understanding of the business side of
things. They're not really
interconnected for most people, but we are far enough along now where hopefully
you have somebody
with you and things are more transparent that you shouldn't get locked into
these horrible deals
anymore.
Do you remember when Courtney Love wrote that piece where she was explaining
the music, I think it was
in Spin Magazine, where she was explaining the music business in terms of like
where the money goes
and how they fuck over artists. Do you remember that?
I don't remember that, but then don't get in the music business.
That's not new. I mean, it's not, is that a revelation? Did you, did you read
that? You're
like, wow, like it was shocking to me because I'm not in the music business. So
to me, I was like,
wow, so that's how they do it. Yeah. I was, I was confused. Like when it went
into like,
you know, if you're a band, people, bands don't do this anymore. If your band
sells 2 million
records, everybody in that band is probably making a lot of money buying houses.
Right. And that CD costs $18. Like you're
making your money. You're pretty happy. It's only down the road where someone
says, okay,
you guys, you did buy a house. Did you see how much that they made? And you are
shocked for a
second to realize you take that CD and divide it up between yourselves, your
band and what the record,
yeah, they make a lot more than you. That's why they're in the record business.
That's what's great. And there, you know, some of them are too smart to be in
the bands.
Or not smart enough. Well, it depends on what you can handle. If you can handle,
I couldn't handle that kind of lifestyle myself. I don't, I don't want, I'm, I
invent things out of
nothing. I don't want to be somebody who I have to, my whole livelihood is
reactionary to other people
creating something that I can now work with. Right. I want to make it from
scratch.
Yeah. That's a weird situation to be in relying upon other people's creativity
for you to make a living.
Yeah. And, but you know, you can do that when you don't have a, you don't have
a, a creative bone in your body.
Some people are really good at numbers and math. Some people are really
creative, you know,
and if you recognize early on, well, I would like to be, I mean, that's a lot
of the great people
who work outside of bands once wanted to be in a band, but realized like, I don't
have it.
I love music, but I want to be a part of it anyway. I want to help someone else
do great things,
you know, but I, I'm not the guy to be in the band or the girl.
If you have your own music and you own your music, what is, what does a record
label do for you in 2021?
Well, what do you mean? If you own your own music?
If you like, if you create your own music, right. You say you hire.
What could a record label do for you? Yeah.
They have money that you don't have to promote and spend and put you on tour.
You know, young bands need, they can't, you know, van or no van, it costs money
to tour a lot,
you know, so, so they basically loan you the money.
Yeah. That's what, that's how they can be good for a young band, really, or any
band, any,
you know, it's like, otherwise you, you don't have the tools, the assets to get
your music in lots
of places. I mean, there's more opportunities with social media, of course. And
it's, you know, look,
the good news is anybody can do it now. And the bad news is anybody can do it
now. Just means it's
crowded and there's just like, it's hard to know what anybody's up to, you know,
but record labels,
they can still have a great, they have a great purpose. Of course, you know,
they're,
you know, some people say they're banks. They're just funding your trip and you
have,
you have a big bill at the end.
And they have a connection to streaming services.
Yeah. They have all those contacts that, that you, uh, that you wouldn't have
on your own.
Now, when a person is like, say if you're a new band and you get signed by a
record company,
how does someone find out about you? I mean, what is the primary way they find
out about you?
If it's not the radio, which it always used to be, do they find out about you
through streaming services?
Like, are there channels that are sponsored that people get excited about
because they know that
this channel is where new interesting music gets broken?
We're both going to do some, we're going to do some homework after this. And if
I find out,
I'll let you know.
I mean, really, that's the, well, that's the question. I don't know. I mean,
because there's, it's just jammed up everywhere, you know? So a lot of great
things about the way things
work now. The models that we had before were really effective too. And at least
you could put yourself
on a path that if you did X, Y, and Z, maybe your band would get a shot, you
know, play your clubs,
get your demo tape together. Maybe a rec company wants to work with you and
they're going to give
you some money to practice. You know, you make that record, you make a video
and you go and they
give you some money to go on tour. Like this was a path to maybe being a band
that was successful.
So you take that away, you know, it is just every man for them, every man and
woman for themselves,
just, you know, trying to find a way to quote unquote, kind of get lucky. You
know,
if you're an established act, you got up, you got opportunities. If you're
doing it the other way,
you're just, it's really, everybody's trying to get lucky. And then by the, and
when someone sees
what that person did, by the time you figure it out, it's too late. It's gotta
do something else.
Everyone, that's what it is. I mean, as far as I know, you know, but I'm also
not brand new.
Like if I was 21 years old, I probably understand this better than I do.
You know, I, the way I came up was just a different, I mean, it was just a
different model.
And that's okay that a lot of that's gone. I mean, it's changed so drastically.
I mean,
you remember in the late like nineties, you know what the diamond award was?
No.
That's when they had to invent it. There was the gold record, platinum record.
It wasn't enough.
People are going like 12 times platinum. So they invented the diamond award,
which was 10 million.
Whoa.
The diamond award. Yeah. That's how much money was going around in those days
before
the internet really.
How many people buy CDs today?
Do they still sell?
I don't know where you buy one.
Online, I guess?
I guess.
Amazon?
Yeah. There's still, I mean, yeah, I mean, I guess you, where are you going to
play it?
I mean, let's find it.
Laptops aren't even going to have hard drives.
I think vinyl sells more than CDs right now, but I'm going to get a breakdown
real quick.
That's interesting.
What is it?
Oh, for sure. No, no, it actually flopped.
They don't, it was for a while, like a bonus. If your company want to spend
some money,
make vinyl with you. Now it's kind of like, you can throw in CDs, but the
production of that is like,
you know, it's the cardboard you put around it.
It's cool now to have vinyl.
Yeah.
CDs don't, they don't seem cool.
But why would you have CDs? I mean, streaming is one thing. I mean, CDs are, uh-oh.
Wow. Streaming's 83% of music industry venue. Wow.
Sync. What is sync?
That's getting your songs and TV and commercials and you get licenses.
That's 2%.
Physical, 9% is physical. So that's live performances?
No, physical is a combination of CDs and LPs and vinyl.
Oh, physical things. Yeah.
Oh, I get it. And then digital downloads are 6%. So physical copies are just 9%.
So it's taking up the bulk of that pie right there.
And then that breaks down here.
Streaming. Streaming takes up the bulk of the pie. So, yeah. Oh, interesting.
So CDs and it's kind of, uh, in 2020.
What is happening in 2020, it says what?
Uh, it's more vinyl than it is, uh, CD and other physical-
What are we looking at? That's the, the green and the blue, that's, oh, CD
vinyl.
The green is vinyl, which is the largest-
Yeah.
But you know, vinyl's not like blowing up.
Anybody who tells you it's back, it's not like it, it's not, it's not, you know,
not buying Kiss records, not like Kiss records in those days.
Right.
It's for, it's a boutique-y kind of thing. It's cool.
Catch new episodes of the Joe Rogan Experience for free, only on S