The Europe In Synch Podcast

EP12: Act In Synch 2024, Athens Special - The Music Talk with Daryl Bamonte & Kid Moxie.

• Europe In Synch • Season 1 • Episode 12

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Join us in Athens, Greece, where the Act in Synch Summit is fostering cross-industry collaborations and sparking discussions about climate change, sustainability, cultural impacts, and urban transformation. The summit's vibrant setting at the Impact Hub provides an ideal backdrop for exploring how music intersects and acts with advertising, urban development, tech, and global challenges. We highlight insights from influential speakers & delegates who emphasize the importance of community and collaboration in overcoming industry obstacles and forging a positive future in a post-pandemic, AI-driven world.

Technology has reshaped how musicians create and share music, offering greater freedom while presenting new challenges for artists navigating the digital landscape.

Kid Moxie (Elena Charbila) describes her music as "neon noir" and explains why she prefers working solo over being in bands. Daryl Bamonte (Archangelo Music) shares insights from his 25-year career working with Depeche Mode and The Cure, and looks at the music industry's evolution over the years since he started.
Both guests discuss how they discover new music in the streaming era, with Daryl missing human curation and Kid Moxie finding inspiration in film soundtracks.
We hear how creating music with minimal equipment can increase productivity by reducing "noodling" and decision fatigue and how technology has enabled significant international collaboration, helping bands like Hence create music despite members living in different countries from each other.
Kid Moxie shares the sweet story of her unexpected collaboration with Depeche Mode after they discovered her cover of Radiohead's "Creep" and invited her to be part of their recording process.
Daryl also talks about how music licensing for sync opportunities has become more acceptable as advertising has evolved and traditional revenue streams have diminished.
The panel summarises that technology has helped marginalized voices bypass traditional industry gatekeepers and that focus on building genuine connections and putting yourself in circumstances where opportunities can find you, rather than trying to follow a specific formula for success, should be the goal for everyone.

The discussion is expertly moderated by musician and journalist, Alex Maiolo.

Europe In Synch is created, managed, promoted, and driven by several European organizations and companies and is a truly cross-border collaboration.
The goals are to bring together professionals from the music sector with decision-makers from film & advertising to provide a real-life, hands-on, learning experience, and to promote European music in the complex field of synchronization, through communication, knowledge-building and networking via focused mentoring and peer training sessions.


Follow Europe In Synch:

Intro/Outro music is an instrumental edit of "Gimme" by Daffodils.
They're on Soundcloud.

Europe In Synch is co-funded by the European Commission.

This podcast is a SuperSwell production.

Introduction and Meeting the Panel

Speaker 1

Good morning everyone. Thanks for being here. My name is Alex Mello and I'm here from the United States. I'm a journalist and I write for various outlets about recording and gear. I write for Tape Op and Reverbcom and some punk rock magazines like Louder Than War, and I've contributed to the Quietest, and we're here today to talk about how technology has shaped some things and where things are headed right now, and I'm joined by kid Moxie hi everyone a producer, a musician who's worked on music for films and video games, which some of you may know as Sync, and her music is described as neon noir, which I really, really love as a descriptor.

Speaker 1

What else would you like to say about yourself today?

Speaker 2

I very, very early on discovered that I could not be in bands. I just couldn't filter things through other people. I really tried. Uh, but I'm really into collaborations, because collaborations are basically people you're inviting into your creative home and then you know they come and they go, that you're not stuck with them, you're not married to them. So very early on I discovered I couldn't be in a band. I was going to do do my own thing, and I also started being a little pragmatic about music and taking the risk of saying that what I ultimately would love to do is put music to image. That was always my dream. I just didn't think I fit the mold. I thought that was gonna be like an older man, maestro with an orchestra. It was not gonna be like me. I'm really into electronic music and I kind of started having my own path as a composer and believing in myself as such. So I play, write my own stuff and, you know, sync it or not.

Speaker 1

Fantastic. Daryl Bamanti, aka my bruv, started his life in the music world, I think somewhat unexpectedly, because a high school band in his town known as Depeche Mode needed a little help and you knew these guys. In fact, you ended up working with them for 25 years and also working with the Cure, doing a little stint playing keyboards with Depeche Mode and being on the back end of things, leading up to you being in publishing right now and also a musician in the bands Permafrost and Hence. And you also are part of why we're all here today in a way, because you are a founder ambassador, et cetera, of Europe in Sync correct.

Speaker 3

Yeah, I was an original founder, but unfortunately I couldn't become a partner because I don't live in the EU. I didn't move. The country I live in didn't move. Yeah, they left you. Yes, so, uh. So the guys graciously found a way to bring me, keep me on side as an ambassador.

Speaker 1

I love it from a third party country you're already emeritus. I love it. It's fantastic. First question I have for both of you, and we'll start with you, elena, is uh, how do you discover music right now?

Speaker 2

how do I discover new music? Yeah, um, I'm really into soundtracks, so usually these days I will watch a film and then look up a soundtrack. Then there's always things that I go back to, that I re-listen to and it just feels different. For example, it's about rediscovering some things. Like I always say, blade Runner is the Bible for many things for me, and listening to it throughout the years feels different. So sometimes I'm in an era that I'm rediscovering more than discovering new things and kind of listening with new ears, which have to do with where I'm at in my life musically, what I'm appreciating these days.

Discovering Music in the Digital Age

Speaker 1

It's a great time for rediscovery, I think, like a lot of lost classics can come your way now, because things that couldn't find their audience earlier now can, and I'm oftentimes the audience for some of these things that were left for dead in 1977 and uh, that you know we finally have a creative musical relationship together. Daryl, how are you finding music these days?

Speaker 3

I, I miss curation, uh, because I know playlists are curation, but I sit in front of streaming services and I just have too much choice. And it might sound a bit old-fashioned, but I am gravitating more back towards radio and because you can pick up so many radio stations online and I listened to KEXP in Seattle, which obviously years ago I couldn't and I like the recommendations from a person telling me I really think that you should listen to this. It's good, but that's not always practical. But I do get submitted so much music that I really enjoy listening to new music.

Speaker 3

You know, this morning I was sent demos from a Spanish artist called uh Nadia Shake, and, and when I get that, I find that really I get the. Was it called the dopamine? Yeah, the dopamine, and and that's so. I'm fortunate that I can discover new music before it's even released. Released, true, yeah, but I have really found myself listening to cardi b and I've gone off on a bit of a kind of female rap uh thing lately, but it comes in waves like that. It's just I don't know, it's just.

Speaker 1

Sometimes it's hard to define exactly how you discovered something because there's so many ways to discover it what's the most unconventional way music has gotten to your ears, what was the least expected way, where a song got in your orbit and stayed in it for a while?

Speaker 3

I think, well, I don't know, it's not weird, but I mean something that's not necessarily open to many people apart from us in this room is seeing someone at a showcase that you didn't intentionally go and see, but you get dragged along. Or you just saw that the door was open and the bar was there, so you go in and then you're just like wow, and that's a fantastic way to the discover new music. For me, and and.

Speaker 2

For you is what is like the least expected way a song that really really got you know, stuck in your brain, got to you in la, we drive a lot, so I guess, um, listening it, listening to something I like in somebody's car, is, I think, many, many times what happens that you're taking a drive and somebody's playing something and you're like, what is this? Um, also, you know, you know, speaking of KXP, like we are KCRW sort of central over there, so that is a very eclectic sort of mix of music that happens there for better or for worse.

Speaker 1

I believe you have a song called the morning becomes eclectic.

Speaker 2

Morning becomes eclectic.

Speaker 1

Yeah, that's right, exactly, that's wonderful. Now, obviously, you know we've seen a lot of paradigm shifts in the last 50 years and it's my assumption that you've you've only ever been a creator in the paradigm we're in right now the kind of post streaming world and things like that. Do you ever wish that you had competed with your music under the old paradigm? Are you nostalgic for a period that maybe you didn't ever work in?

Speaker 2

Hell yeah, hell yeah. I'm very nostalgic, are you Southern? Too I'm not Southern European.

Speaker 1

Southern European. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2

I'm very nostalgic, and I'm usually nostalgic for things I've never lived through.

Speaker 1

Right.

Nostalgia and Modern Music Creation

Speaker 2

Because I feel like that's a very unattainable feeling, like you'll never. I'll never live the eighties the way I. You know, I would want to live the eighties.

Speaker 1

Oh, so it's the eighties. Yeah, I can tell by your music. My music is very eighties.

Speaker 2

It's very synthy. I mentioned, you know, vangel, that sound, which for me is great in pop as well, like those sort of retro, futuristic, warm yet icy soundscapes. I just love that kind of sound so.

Speaker 2

I'm very nostalgic for things I was never a part of Right and these days I'm even like I'm so scared of AI not in music, that's the least of my worries but I'm so scared of it that I'm like I am sacrificing my cell phone, if that's what it takes. I'm sacrificing everything to go back to a place and an era that you know, in my head is very, very pure and very human, and I'm sounding like the you know the two old men at the Muppet Show right now, and but that's truly who I am at heart. I am those old men at the Muppet Show right now, but that's truly who I am at heart. I am those old men at the Muppet Show.

Speaker 1

Isn't it nice that you can take inspiration from a period that you can idealize, that you know you can just sort of pluck the best from it and use that as an inspiration.

Speaker 2

It gives me great joy. Speaking of joy, I'm a massive Joy Division fan, of course, like that, whole sound of England, especially in the early 80s, late 70s, is something that I have, I always carry in my heart and I really gravitate towards as a sound and as a feeling.

Speaker 1

What are some positives that you feel you know you're benefiting from from being a music creator in this day and age?

Speaker 2

I mean the power of having a laptop, taking it anywhere and making anything. Um is really. As an example, two years ago I I I was given the task by MGM studios to compose the music for their newest logo for Orion Studios, and it took a year and a half for those 15 seconds to be completed, and I was in Greece, on an island, for three months of that and that's where I actually finished it. And they were asking me are you using an orchestra, Are you using? And I was embarrassed to say that it was just me and a laptop Right, and it was just me and a laptop Right, and it was very freeing and I love that kind of sustainability, Just less things.

Speaker 1

I think that was one of the things that I really enjoyed seeing a couple years ago. On Fortet's Instagram, there was this picture and it said how I made the new record. There was this picture and it said how I made the new record. There's a laptop and a little Akai 49 key controller and two monitors and then like the view out his bedroom.

Speaker 2

Moby did a very similar post. Yeah, and that's really what was inspiring to me and made it okay. I'm like if Moby is cool with this, I'm cool with it.

Speaker 1

Sure Sure.

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Speaker 1

He's he's been a little successful A little, yeah, yeah, this, yeah, I'm cool with it, sure, sure, yeah, he's, he's been a little successful a little, yeah, yeah. So, daryl, you've lived through, basically, three major paradigms in music. You have, yeah, as your biographer. I'm uh, I'm uh here to tell you that and some other things about my biographer.

Speaker 3

Officially, officially.

Speaker 1

Yeah, what do you miss about what we would consider I really, really hesitate to call it the golden age of music, because it sort of implies that things are behind us now, but you know what era we're all talking about, you know, with big budgets and giant videos and all that kind of stuff, what do you miss from that?

Speaker 3

Well, what do I miss? I don't know. I think the income from record sales was.

Speaker 3

There's that I don't mean necessarily from a personal point of view, but making things manageable, being in a band and being able to make records. But I'm in two bands One, the other guy's norwegian, and even they don't live in the same city. Two are in oslo, one's in trondheim, and I'm also in a band called hence, with the guy in the orange hat over there. And what I don't miss is the, the fact that it was impossible, or at least impractical, to collaborate, and we wouldn't be able to without technology. We wouldn't be able to be in a band and to make music. So we were.

Speaker 3

So I don't miss the days of having to get a vhs and put it in a jiffy bag and call a bike courier and send it down to robert smith, and then he would have to watch it. And no, I like the technology and I actually, getting back to what uh elena said at the beginning I I like being in a band because it challenges me personally to navigate diplomacy and and taking on board other than not always getting your own way. And I'm not saying one way is right and one way is wrong, but I think the, the art of collaboration is very, very important, imperative in fact, and that wouldn't work without uh technology. So I mean, this is only the second time I've seen canute since september of last year, and we put out three singles this year already and that would not have happened. Uh, so that's the part I don't miss about the 80s is the laborious process of trying to get make money, but on the other hand, it was easier to have the budgets to do that. Right, right, right. Is that a contradiction?

Speaker 1

not at all, okay I think it's a great answer. So what you're saying is you don't like to show up to things.

Speaker 3

I do because I love his company and the boys in Permafrost and all of my clients. But the way that I kind of justify it in my head is that we're making much greener music because our carbon footprint is zero.

Speaker 1

I love that idea. That's something that I'm very in favour of, because a lot of the records that I've been buying, like we were just talking about, there's music that was made that was so niche or somebody took a bet on the wrong band for mass consumption, but it was a great record. Everybody lost their mind over people like Rodriguez and Shiggy Otis and the Pretty Things and all these records that everybody now is losing their mind over. Joy Division has gotten big and they were very much a niche band in the US, you know, when I was growing up.

Speaker 1

So most of my records that I buy when I find them online are cutouts, if everybody remembers what those are like records that were snipped and kind of put in the dollar bin and left for dead. You know, now I'm paying like $50 for them because everybody wants them, but I'm regularly reminded as I go through my record collection that like that little cut in the side means nobody wanted this record and it's one of my favorite records that I paid way too much for, you know. And so that discovery thing has just been really, really fantastic. I really am into that, and one of the other things I think of when I see a cutout is think of all the labor and materials and transport money, the carbon footprint, which is something we didn't talk about in 1978. You know that went into making this record. That didn't, that nobody cared about until 50 years later yeah, well, I.

Speaker 3

Something that really irked me recently was when daniel eck from spotify said Spotify said that it cost close to nothing to to make. He called it content, and that made it even worse. Yeah, yeah, and it's about making money, but if you, if you look at a painting, you're not thinking the artist needs to recoup for the frame and the canvas and the paint and I also need to recoup for their time you're paying for a piece of art. Yeah, so it's not just about being able to buy a laptop and make content and it's not just about the hours the musician puts in there. You're buying the right to listen to something they've created. Sure, and that's something that I've got.

Speaker 1

Nothing against spotify, I support streaming, but that really irked me massively I'm net positive on on streaming too, yeah, and as a musician also, um, most of my opportunities have happened in the streaming world. Um, I came up through the age of four track recording and I knew, you know, in 1992, when we were all making cassette tapes and passing them around, that we were the coolest people on earth because we didn't need the music industry. We'd just do this stuff at home and go on tour and sleep on floors and stuff like that. But obviously, you know being able to compete, as you say, you know being able to make a good sounding record on a laptop on an island and then uploading it, and instantly. Even if it's just your demo tape, you know it's accessible all over the world and I think it's a really great time.

Speaker 1

I think the best thing Daniel Ek could do is not talk, because he says things that are basically true and that is like it's cheap to make a record, it's cheap to put it up there, you can get it out all over the world in a way that is so much easier than it was 30 years ago. But every single time, without fail, he says it in a way where the optics are rotten. You know, I have to be this kind of person who's like. Well, what I think he was trying to say was this and that's not so bad, but damn man, you need a PR person. Yeah, all right.

Marginalised in Music

Speaker 1

So one of the things that streaming has also done, I think, is it's allowed the marginalized to move into new spaces. I don't need to tell you that this thing used to be quite the boys club, and I have a theory that one of the reasons we're hearing more music by queer artists, by women who don't fit into some man's idea of what a female artist should be, and by music from other countries other than the US and Britain, I think that's an indication that we've smashed a bottleneck, in a way. Now I understand the irony of me asking a man about this first, when I have a woman who is probably going to be able to give a very informed opinion on that. But I'm going to ask you first, daryl Do you think that that is true, and are we celebrating this?

Speaker 3

Yes, of course.

Speaker 1

Yes, I'm glad you say yes, of course, of course we're celebrating that.

Speaker 3

I was in a conference in Spain last week or the week before and there was a conversation like this on the panel and somebody spoke up and said there's lots of straight white old men who should go somewhere to die. And I wasn't offended by it, I thought it was funny and it was provocative, but not in a nasty way. So I brought it up in a panel later and said I'm still trying to decide where to take myself to end my life. So if anyone's got any suggestions and I ruffled the feathers of someone, but I thought it was an interesting point because we are all striving for it. But also at the same panel I spoke about a band called Debti Pan that I work for.

Speaker 3

It's two uh, there's a female duo, 24 years old, absolutely brilliant people, brilliant musicians and and we get frustrated about how you know it's not the 1970s we've made a lot of progress, but there's still a long way to go that that they walked into a rehearsal room a couple of years ago carrying their instruments and the guys running the studio who were only in their 20s or early 30s themselves said, hey, where's the band? And they said, oh, we're the band. And the guys said, oh, we thought you were the girlfriends, and for people to have that mindset is unbelievable. When I get infuriated the girls sort of try to shrug it off, but I know it gets to them because it's we think we're living in times where that has all gone behind and it hasn't, and so. But I take what you're saying is that there are kind of marginalized groups that are becoming more kind of free from the gatekeepers, and that is a positive thing. Yeah, but it still infuriates me when there's attitudes like that.

Speaker 1

I'm glad it infuriates you. Oh, thank you. In 2017, when I did my end of year list for fashion music style, I picked my top ten songs and I realized that nine of them were I'm sorry that only one of them was from the United States and none of them were from Britain. I had bands on there from Russia, from Hungary where else? Denmark and France, and staring at that list, I realized that I was so happy that I was able to hear music from other corners of the world, and that's that's where I sort of had this epiphany that streaming has changed the way I get music and from where it's from. It really appeals to my global nature, I guess. So part of the reason I asked Dararyl the question first is because he obviously came up through that boys club and things have changed pretty dramatically in his lifetime, so you have some nostalgia for the 80s.

Speaker 2

Not in this regard. That was the loaded question I mean, if I was in the 80s I would want to be in the boys club.

Speaker 2

You know, right but I mean speaking of identity and all that. I, when I make music, I don't think I'm not. I'm not a woman making music, I'm just making something. I don't really. I don't really think of identity or politics or whether I'm marginalized or anything. I'm just making something and then after I've made it, I see that others are saying a woman has made this. What has been a bit infuriating at times was being classified as a singer.

Speaker 1

Right.

Speaker 2

You know they're like oh, you're the singer.

Speaker 1

Right.

Speaker 2

You know. So that felt a little bit. I guess it is sexist that everybody was predisposed that I was going to be the singer and I sing, because who's going to sing my stuff? I made something. I'm going to be the one that says it. I wrote these words. I'm going to be the one that sings them. I never started out to become a singer. In fact I was a bass player in an old dude band in San Francisco. I was very happy doing that up until I actually wanted to start writing and that's when I figured out that constant collaboration was not for me. But I just and also my name, kid Moxie, is a very much of a genderless name and that was kind of by design.

Speaker 2

Yeah, I actually liked that. People maybe would be surprised that maybe I was going to be a dude, you know, but then I showed up right so I liked playing with it in that way, but I just never think of myself as a woman creating or you know my, my sexuality, or you know any of that stuff right, right and and you, others do, others do, others do.

Speaker 1

Yeah, how do you address that? Like when that comes up.

Speaker 2

I don't I mean, there's nothing you just ignore it, or I feel it's like black history month, Like it's like. I guess it is a sense, it is essential to have it, but I think the more you address something, the more you're separating yourself the more the more I'm talking about me being a woman in the industry, the more I'm separating myself for being a woman in the industry.

Speaker 1

I understand. So basically, what you're saying is, the best way to handle the question is just to reject the premise of it entirely.

Speaker 2

In a way, not not, but at the same time I'm not saying there's not good reason, because there has been a struggle and women have been marginalized or certain groups that of course have been marginalized. But I feel like we're in an era that it's great to I'm going to use the word seamless for some things that has been. There has been a lot of struggle, there has been a lot of suffering. It's about time that some of these things actually become seamless. So let's find suffering somewhere else, you know.

Speaker 1

Yeah, and you find that the tools that you have available to you today just at worst, just allows you to circumvent some of this stuff, like you don't have to deal as much as you might've had to in the past.

Unconventional Promotion

Speaker 2

Definitely. And also when I create, I'm usually hidden. You know, I feel like I'm in a cave and I like that. I like that feeling of being tucked away where there's no gender, there's nobody looking at me. You know, I'm not classified as anything.

Speaker 1

We're going to talk about cave creation in a little bit and I'm going to want a little bit more from you on that one Cave creation. Creating in caves. Yeah, can I ask a question?

Speaker 3

You most certainly can. Yeah, can I ask a question? You know that's very unorthodox, but this is unorthodox, let's go. Okay. Elena, do you find that if technology wasn't as advanced as it was, that you would be in a band, and do you think that technology has led to the sort of rolling back of the band format that used to exist?

Speaker 2

yes, at the same time, I feel like it's given me the tools to do it how I ultimately would want to do it anyways. So that would.

Speaker 1

That's like technology is giving me first choice, you know, for how I like creating things, so, but yes, it's enabling me but we can move on to the elephant in the room, and that is how are artists getting their music heard these days?

Speaker 3

start with you um, uh, okay, so I could go through the checklist of the and speak of the platitudes, but I think um one of the bands I work with, I met their family the first or second time. I saw them and one of the family members said to me what's the plan? And I said I don't have one. And she was a bit taken aback. But I don't pull out a dossier when I just say this is the secret to success we do this, this and this and it's not.

Speaker 3

I think the word reactive has become badly um get got given a bad press, because I think it is important to be proactive and to get on the front foot and to get the?

Speaker 3

Um wheels turning. But it's also important to be reactive because you don't know when the black swan is coming from somewhere and you have to deal with it unexpectedly. So there is a kind of obvious plan of how to do things, but I think you have to be on your front foot all the time, reacting to what's around you. Like one of the talks at the recent conference Brian, I can't remember his surname from Canada he said he put together a brilliant campaign for a release and it was really successful, and then he tried exactly the same thing for subsequent releases and it didn't work in the same way. So you can't really second guess how the audience are going to react. So you have to navigate in a way and look for opportunities and then see what comes up and then navigate that and push those opportunities. But I wouldn't say that for me personally there's not a one-size-fits-all blueprint, otherwise, you know, everyone would have huge success all the time.

Speaker 1

Sounds like something that would introduce a lot of stress hormone.

Speaker 3

For me. No, oh sorry, Nodding to our opening. Okay.

Speaker 1

What are some unconventional marketing campaigns that you admire, that, like? You've seen how music has been marketed in some way, where you thought, like man, I wish I had done that. That was really, really cool. It could actually be, you know, now to think about it, it could be something that you were involved in too.

Speaker 2

I mean, whenever I would see something that I thought might lead me to what I wanted, I would do it. I was the kind of person that I was just going to send 200 emails and get no response, and it was more like a. I was on survival mode.

Speaker 2

I was I was in LA and I was trying to actually get a green card and I I knew that if I didn't make something out of myself I was gonna be sent back so I tried everything that I could, from physically distributing stickers to my band and website in silver lake, to um, sending 200 emails getting no response, to going to mixers and doing things that um I I just couldn't live with the. What if I had done this?

Speaker 1

Right.

Speaker 2

I'm that kind that that's. My biggest anxiety is not doing it and failing. It was like, well, what if I had done it? Right, right A couple of those times really worked and sparked, and sparked whatever I did afterwards actually.

Speaker 1

What worked?

Speaker 2

I mean, there's a story I love to tell is when I was a kid in Greece, I was obsessed with David Lynch. I would always watch Twin Peaks and, you know, lost Highway and all those movies and the world they created. A it made me obsessed with LA and I was like I got to get there someday, you know. And then two, I was like how get there someday, you know? And then two, I was like how do I become part of this world? And I was thinking musically how amazing would it be to contribute to do something like that. When I moved to LA, I became part of the David Lynch Foundation for meditation, slowly trying to weave myself into that universe.

Speaker 2

Uh, getting Angela Badalamenti's email who's the composer that's done all those Twin Peaks and Blue Velvet and all that and I said I just want to send. I asked somebody, one of the supervisors at the foundation. I said I just want his email. He's probably not going to respond, but I just want to send him an email with this one track I think maybe would touch him because it actually comes from me being influenced by his work. So I send it and he's an Aries like me. He responded in 30 seconds and he actually asked for my phone number and said hey, can I call you? He said you gave me an idea and he called me. And he said are you going to be in New York next week? And I said yes, I'm going to be in New York next week.

Speaker 1

It just so happens, it just so happens, it just so happens.

Creative Spaces & Personal Identity

Speaker 2

and I got a plane ticket, I met him and we ended up working together and david lynch producing a video for this song, which was a rendition for mysteries of love, the love theme from blue velvet. So it was one of those things that it's it was. It was the odds were not in my favor. I sent a cold email to somebody and this happened. I had sent 400,000 cold emails before and nothing happened, but it worked once. And then that brings the next thing. I don't have a formula. I just know that you've got to be daring and you've got to have a thick skin, and I mean especially in LA.

Speaker 1

Right right. Fortune favors the bold, I guess, is what they say and it's a bold move to move to Los Angeles. We have this image of somebody getting off the bus with a suitcase and looking around like this from the movie or the rock video from the 80s movie or the rock video from the 80s, and uh, and you know the whole broken dreams thing and it and it, it's. It takes quite a lot of guts, I think, to move to los angeles and think I'm gonna make it, you know I wasn't thinking you weren't thought thinking was gonna be my enemy.

Speaker 2

It was not like a thought process a lot, it was logical. Thinking was not gonna get me there. It was really passion and it was really going there on a trip and saying I've always wanted to see what happens here. Right. And LA's biggest export is the illusion of dreams.

Speaker 1

Right.

Speaker 2

And sustaining that.

Speaker 1

Right.

Speaker 2

You know and damn, they do a great job.

Speaker 1

Sure, sure, sure. It's what gets people there. In a way, it's an allegory for the american dream. You know, like you, which?

Speaker 2

I not wanting to sound like maga or anything right but I really believe in the american dream because I'm an immigrant right so in that sense I really believe in it. It gave me things that I don't think I would have had by staying here in greece and still to this day. I really like what america stands for used to stand for yeah, again I'm sounding like mega, I hate it?

Speaker 1

no, no, you're not, you're actually sounding quite positive at a time when we need positivity, and I appreciate it quite a lot. So, no, um, uh, what are some, daryl, what are some ways artists have benefited from being able to work in their own creative spaces where budgets are no longer so much the consideration and uh, I mean, you know exactly what we were talking about where people can work at their own pace?

Speaker 3

um, yeah, but the actual working pro process I don't know. But the the obvious thing is that technology killed us over the last 25 years because the revenues disappeared from recorded music. But now I saw it since Napster as a 25-year rocky road and I actually see it now as really positive. I'm really excited about what's coming up, because collaboration is totally necessary in my opinion. But when you have the tools to make the music, the content, you can do that and you can also. You know, like we said a little bit earlier, you can get round certain gatekeepers. You can do promotion yourself.

Speaker 3

Elena is a brilliant hustler and I mean that in a really positive way, that she will go full throttle and do it herself and and did uh, I know we're coming up to this to talk about that um, the way Elena did a, an amazing cover version and it kind of escalated into so many positive things, and that's because Elena has the tools to do that herself, whereas if she had gone the old route, like we used to in the 80s and 90s, maybe whoever elena's representatives would have been wouldn't have done things the same way. So the diy approach is really, really good. But I still think that, you know, with permafrost, with hence, and, and the artists that, um, I represent. Uh, getting into a studio is still hugely beneficial, and not just because of improved audio quality, but just that vibe and working together. It's something, I think, that's been missed, because people can't afford studios anymore, that they think, ok, well, I make everything in a silver box, I don't need a producer anymore, and I think that is a big mistake, because even if you're making music in your bedroom, a producer is absolutely essential, absolutely, because they're not just somebody who engineers and makes it sound better.

Speaker 3

They are, you know, they are a kind of they, people manage. They manage the moods of the musicians and bring out the best of them. They, you know, apart from arrangements, bring out the best of them. They, uh, you know, apart from arrangements and and picking the best songs to um work with and a really good friend of mine he's a well-known singer.

Speaker 3

He said that he was making an album years ago and before dinner, uh, that he would play tennis with the producer and the producer kept winning and then they would go to dinner and then they go to the evening session and then, after a while, the singer started winning and it was great, and then, uh, years later the producer said that he was throwing the games and he was letting the singer win, and the singer was telling me and laughing about it he wasn't sort of like annoyed about it, but he said. The producer said I've got so much more out of you productively and that's not a bad trait and not want to lose, I think it. You know, all musicians are inherently competitive and it's just little way, or you're, to be a record producer, you have to be a psychologist as well as anything else yeah, yeah no, no, no, I don't think that's the important part of it.

Speaker 3

No, and it's probably not who you think it is. So, yeah, that's why a producer has multiple roles to play rather than just creating a great sound of a record.

Speaker 1

Right and I think it's interesting. When we talk about maybe what has been lost is that producers oftentimes fit the project. You had somebody like Steve Albini, who wouldn't even call himself a producer. What he liked to be was more like an active engineer. Then you have somebody like my hero, tony Visconti, who you know know he could play bass on your record, he could do the string arrangements, he could be the psychologist he can make sure that david bowie doesn't do a bunch of drugs on that particular day, you know he didn't do very well there, then.

Speaker 3

He did not no, I'm talking about later but in a band sometimes you get a leader, but often you get out of, say, four or five people. You'll get two dominant people, Right, and they love each other and they work together, but of course there's a competitive edge and the producer sits in the middle of that and brokers not necessarily the piece, but brokers a more harmonious productive relationship, and that is a job that nobody would envy, Right, Because you are responsible for, perhaps, the continuation of that band, Absolutely. I think that's undervalued.

Speaker 1

Yeah, yeah, the spirit guide psychologist, but also the fifth or sixth band member. Talking about collaborations, you know, george Martin was effectively a Beatle, wasn't he? And I think some of those things. I talk to the producer, michael Beinhorn, a lot. We've become friends over the years and he often laments.

Speaker 1

He's net positive on how things are right now and that guy's worked on some massive, massive records, michael, and when I bring up how things have changed, he's like yeah, you know, it was an ugly business and there are lots of things that I really like about where we are now. He's like I just wish we could get artist development back into things. I just wish that we could, you know, somehow have a boot camp with an artist and we could kind of say like you know, don't focus on that so much, or maybe a little bit more of this. Or, you know, the whole idea of producer as editor I think is the type of thing which brings me to my next question. How do we introduce that into music when you have the burden of choice, as the buddhists say, you know?

Speaker 2

are we talking about in terms of artist identity?

Speaker 1

no, I'm talking about when you're. I mean, we can. We can make that question, go any way you want, but what I'm specifically talking about is when you flip open your laptop and every plate reverb in the history of plate reverbs is right in front of you and every snare drum sound can be replaced with whatever you like and you can flange everything on the way out and you can put all these great delay lines on things that you can't afford to buy. But they're right there and there, I know, when I'm making music sometimes. The 1176 is probably my favorite compressor of all time and I can put one on any track I want. I don't own one because I can't afford one. So how do we deal with the burden of choice and things like artist development when the artist tends to be creating in a cave these days?

Speaker 2

So I am going to bring it back to identity.

Speaker 1

Let's go.

Speaker 2

Because identity makes you make choices in terms of choosing what reverb, choosing how you want to be photographed, choosing how you want to be, you know, choosing what genre represents you Like. When you mentioned neo-noir in the beginning, I was like thinking that I want to label myself. It's a good thing to label myself. It gives me an identity for how I'm going to make this music, which and I love being in this box I love cinematic pop, I love the neo-noir, I love the synth world I'm not really interested in. I love listening to jazz. I'm not interested in making jazz.

Speaker 2

So I feel like making concrete choices and, for me, staying in a very specific lane actually has helped me, rather than saying I can do anything in terms of composing, I don't want to do anything. Nobody should hire me for their sports comedy. I'm not going to be good enough for something like that. But so I feel like everything comes down to the choice you made about how you want to sound really and how you want to be perceived and what kind of world you want to create. That's going to shape your snare. It's going to shape create. That's going to shape your snare. It's going to shape your reverb. It's going to shape, the lights that you want to be photographed under and, ultimately, the persona you want to craft for yourself. So I see them all as one.

Emerging Technologies & New Artistic Mindsets

Speaker 1

What I'm hearing is that you have to be disciplined in a way, and, as we know, musicians pop musicians have traditionally been very disciplined people who take good care of themselves and show up on time and don't need hand holders or anything like that.

Speaker 3

No, Can I talk about identity? I'd love for you to. I think the sort of godparents of the reimagining of the traditional band, like bass player, drummer, guitarist I think the godparents of that are Kraftwerk and I think that's an obvious thing to say. But it's because it's true in my opinion, and I think they broke the convention of what they do in the band. But it wouldn't have been that band without those people. That was their identity.

Speaker 3

You can't say that they were just four keyboard players either. It was like four ideas, people, and that was such a strong identity, like with the red shirts and the black tie, the four of them, the visual identity, but also the creation of the music, and they completely deconstructed and reconstructed the traditional make-up of a band and I think for me that was a turning. I'm not going off topic, but it is to do with identity and I think that the bands that followed on from them were For me personally it was Depeche Mode. You can't say that those four guys were drama guitarists, bass players, etc. And what happened is that in the early 80s people started narrowing it down to duos like Eurythmics, yazoo, soft Sail, pet Shop Boys, because it would be the music person and the vocal person, and I think I love all those bands I just mentioned.

Speaker 3

But I think something was lost in the dynamic of having several members of a band, even if they didn't have a specific job. De Passamore didn't have a drummer on stage until the 90s. It was a tape machine, so there wasn't those traditional roles, but every single one of them, like every single one of Kraftwerk, were absolutely essential to the line-up and the success of that band. And I think what it proved is that technology didn't mean doing away with bands altogether. It just meant the band members sort of activated themselves in a different way than they'd gone, you know, since the 50s well, you had me at Kraftwerk.

Speaker 1

That was easy then. Yeah, one of my favorite bands of all time, and I've long maintained that they're probably the second most influential group in the history of music.

Speaker 3

Okay, so can you say who the first? Do I need to oh them?

The Age of Collaboration

Speaker 1

Yeah them Oasis. Yeah, exactly Right, right right, Oasis 1.0, I think is probably the best way to think of them. No, but you're right, what a revolutionary thing to come out and do what they did when they did. And how many genres did they launch? I mean, directly or indirectly influence the music you make, and me too, and I remain a giant fan of them. On the subject of Kraftwerk, how have some of the emerging technologies recently changed how you make music? We all know that the DAW and plug-ins and all of those things changed everything. What's something that's come around in the last year or so that's changed your workflow, for lack of a better word.

Speaker 2

I hate to give it to the machine. But AI mastering, oh, for certain things, sure, mastering, you know, for certain things, ai mastering for certain things has been a tool that I just, you know, I used and I figured it really works in making things sound pumped the way I've thought maybe they could. And again, it doesn't apply to everything and I feel like once we take one thing and say this applies to everything, that's kind of a danger. And I'm not saying I have found the way to apply it, but in certain things it sounded good to me and it was very liberating that I could use that tool. But I'm equally ashamed to admit it. Maybe I shouldn't be, but you know.

Speaker 1

Okay, I'm not, it is what it is.

Speaker 3

The machine's never going to tell you that your're side chaining too hard, you know. So, um, yeah, um, how do you keep technology? Or did you want to chime in on that? Uh, no, I was just wondering if we should um, I should prompt you for the videos. Yeah, I think, not now, but just soon.

Speaker 1

Yeah, pretty soon I think we, we should be good for that in a couple of minutes. Um, how do you keep technology from bogging you down to the point where you can't work? You know like what I mean. How do you keep from falling down a hole?

Speaker 2

By not having a lot of equipment actually Ah, okay. For me it's just been counterproductive. I don't like a lot of things around me. In general, I don't like a lot of clothes.

Speaker 2

I don't like a lot of things around me. In general, I don't like a lot of clothes. I don't like a lot of shoes, I don't like a lot of anything. I feel it's clutter and it takes my focus away. I am quite OCD, but, for example, when I buy clothes, if I buy something, I have to give something, so always the same numbers. That's my problem.

Speaker 1

Right.

Speaker 2

But with music it's kind of the same thing. I don't like having a lot of gear. When I've had gear, I actually sold most of it. Oh right, yeah, it was taking me away from making music. Sure, I was noodling. Mm-hmm. And I'm not a big fan of noodling. I like experimenting, but I felt it led, it lent itself, to a stress of having to use those things, or else, yep, because I paid for them. Right.

Speaker 2

So I find it very liberating. So I feel like that's what can hinder my creativity was too many things that I could potentially use and having stress from them calling me.

Speaker 1

Minimalism is the one. Yeah, minimalism. And that's hard because I came up through the era where you could buy a Juno 60 for $75, and I have a lot of that stuff and I cannot get rid of it and I have a little bit of OCD. So I look at these things and I'm like I should be, using them more.

Speaker 2

Yeah, they call you.

Speaker 1

Or, as I like to say, I have CDO, which is OCD in alphabetical order, and so you know, it really is one of those things that, you know, I'm struggling with when it comes to creativity too. Now I'm going to ask you are we in the age of collaborations?

Speaker 3

um, I think so very much. Yeah, I, I, I understand why people do it themselves, for various reasons for practical reasons, uh, or they, you know, like elena was very honest about it when she said that she prefers not to be in a band and just to do it her way. I, I love collaborating and I love with, as a publisher, with, um, everyone that I sign. They're not just, uh, they're not only songwriters, they're artists, so they're gigging and they're releasing music and I act as a sounding board much more than just the publishing side, and that's a collaboration, isn't it? Even booking shows, which I thought I'd never do.

Speaker 3

I've even been doing that as well, but on a personal level in bands, I'm not somebody that could sit there like Canute and construct songs the way he does and I've got no problem saying that but I'm kind of like the guy sitting at the back of the virtual room and working with Canute, and we do have a very good, hilarious working relationship where Canute gets things rolling and then we bat it back and forward and it's very rewarding and we wouldn't have got anything done if it wasn't both of us doing it seems like that's a good way to, yeah, introduce some of the things that we were talking about that have been lost.

Does Synching Make You A Sell-Out?

Speaker 1

Okay, new version of it, you know, and so you are quite a collaborator, as that's what you're introduced to me as by daryl, as somebody who, who loves doing that, we're getting ready to see a snippet of a film or a video that, um, involved a collaboration of sorts, correct?

Speaker 2

I think we're about to watch a collaboration I had this year with Depeche Mode on their latest album, where I was called in to remix and duet with them on one of their tracks. So we can cue that that's right.

Speaker 1

we can go ahead and watch that if we're ready.

Speaker 5

The, the, the, the, the. You never thought that you could be so perfect. You're a great singer. You're a great singer. You're a great singer. You're a great singer. You're a great singer. You're a great singer. You're a great singer. You're a great singer. You're a great singer. You're a great singer. You're a great singer. You're a great singer.

Speaker 1

I think we're good Renato. Yeah, I love it. Can you give me a very quick explanation about how that came about?

Speaker 2

I don't know, you don't know how it's crazy I got an email I thought it was spam actually uh from uh, the band's representative, saying that they, um, that somebody in the band, martin gore, heard a rendition I did of creep, which I actually did for a netflix show called mastering, and they loved it very much. And they said can she work with us on Wagging Tongue and Dave likes her voice, can she sing it with him? Fantastic, and I was like spam.

Speaker 1

Yeah, yeah, almost.

Speaker 2

Very much ready. Like a Saudi prince offering you yeah a Nigerian prince you treasure and you know in the backyard, you know right that type of vibe. But I ran the names um through my manager, michael, who used to work with depeche mode, and he said, no, that's actually their manager wow, you know one of the reps and and daryl, you have uh an example of a collaboration as well in video form.

Speaker 3

Yeah, do you want the video first?

Speaker 1

Yeah, would you like to go with that first? Yeah, okay, please Go ahead and play the video, then we can get the story.

Speaker 3

Is that it oh?

Speaker 1

yeah, Thank you. Okay, thank you very much. So that's Hence right.

Speaker 3

Yeah, hence was performed last year at the first edition of Acting Sync and Knut and I met and hit it off straight away and over lunch one day he said that he's a big Depeche Mode fan and he said that he'd bought some modular synths and was gonna record some music. And I said if you record something I'll release it. And I said he said well, that's crazy because you haven't heard it. And he said I haven't even written it yet, but I just got a vibe from this faith, isn't it?

Speaker 3

whatever that guy does whether it's painting, advertising strategy, music, parenting he excels and I just had that instinct from him. So we start working on songs, sometimes with a title my kids went out drinking. They're not kids, they're in their 30s. They went out drinking in Soho and my son messaged me and said oh, I met my girlfriend for Valentine's and I forgot to take her present. It would have helped if I didn't drink eight pints with Charlotte last night. That's my daughter. And then Charlotte just wrote I woke up in Northampton, so she, which is a long, long way past her, stop.

Speaker 1

So you collaborated with your kids.

Speaker 3

Yeah, well, we credit them, we credit everyone. So I said to uh, canoe, I've got this amazing title. I woke up in northampton and he went love it. So we made that. And then a guy called morris capaldi in italy, who we've never met, but he's absolutely brilliant, he mastered it.

Audience Question & Outro

Speaker 3

And then I asked j James Chapman from a band called Maps, who signed to Mute Records. I published some of James' stuff. He remixed it and did this fantastic kind of Vangelis vibe to it. And then I remembered that James lives in Northamptonshire. So I said you couldn't pop into Northampton and do some filming? So, talking about collaboration, that's how we got the video made. So my daughter filmed some in Euston in London. James Chapman and his wife Kelly went into Northampton and then I was telling Alex a story about how I went to Northampton in the USA. I thought it was upstate New York. It turns out it was Massachusetts and two friends of mine from Brooklyn took a Sunday afternoon and drove up to Massachusetts and filmed in that Northampton. And that really brings it full circle to how collaborations are so important and how technology enables that.

Speaker 1

Now you have to have the difficult conversation with your kids about points, ah no they'll be fine, don't worry. This is a quick answer, kind of speed dating level answer. Are we past the point that artists think licensing their music is selling out?

Speaker 3

You're asking me first, I'm asking you both. Okay, well, when I was about 15, if the Jam, for example, was the first band I ever saw I mean I saw local bands, but proper band if they put their music in a commercial I would have disowned them. But as time has worn on, people understand that artists need to make revenue and sync is such a big part of that. And also, you know, sync isn't just putting your music in a toothpaste advert, they're very cool commercials, tv shows and as it's gone along it's become more acceptable. And also, you know people my kids age they've grown up going to see. You know I used to go to hammersmith od and they would go to the labats, ap, apollo or the O2. You know sponsorship and naming of places is there, so it's much more acceptable. And I think that's a positive thing because you know artists need to make money to live and to create more art and their fans understand that and appreciate it. So if I was 15 now, I don't think I would be disowned.

Speaker 3

You wouldn't be on your radar? Well no, I wouldn't think I would be disowned on your radar? Well no, I wouldn't fight, I wouldn't criticize for anyone.

Speaker 1

the more people do it, the more acceptable it has become, and I think that's a positive thing my assumption is you want a decent level of control as to where your music ends up, so you're not like selling petrochemicals and things like that, right?

Speaker 2

yeah, some. What moral rights is that? What it is? Yeah, yeah, for sure. I think that's important. Um, at the same time, I completely agree with what daryl said. I feel like also, advertising is in a different era. It's not really just the product, it feels like there's a story around it and it feels like a lot of the ad campaigns are like mini movies.

Speaker 2

The production value is so much higher, that's true and so, and then when you hear really big, big syncs, like big songs, you recognize that gives it validity and you're like, oh, if they did it, you know why wouldn't I do it?

Speaker 1

right. So do you have any advice to any musician as to how to get their music considered for sync?

Speaker 2

uh it's so chaotic. I really, like I said, I didn't have a path. I just, I was just, uh, you know, I just had hours of emailing in the beginning just people till I got this first thing. It's really hard to get noticed if you're not already noticed. I see you know it's really chicken and the egg, and but I feel like you just got to keep working.

Speaker 2

You just got to keep building a catalog and at the end have that for the right moment. Put yourself in circumstances that the right moment are going to exist, but it's really hard to have a formula.

Speaker 1

Right, you have to hustle, you got to hustle. I got in touch with a guy called Lyle Heisen who runs Bank Robber Music out of New York the ironically named Bank Robber Music, who are tied with Rough Trade and I asked him you know, just give me some sort of advice on getting your music synced. And he said he said never write music specifically to get sing. Don't write a song because you want to get it synced. He said never write for crying doctors in the rain. Never write for kids dying with cancer.

Speaker 1

Licenses happen to the best songs that were just written. And he gave the example of one that he licensed. Um, the band spoon from austin texas, and he said when they wrote underdog, they didn't write it for spider-man to get in a subway fight to. You know, he said, um, the song doesn't even say the underdog in in the actual song, it just projects that through the songwriting. And in his opinion, some music supervisor just heard that and said I'm thinking of subway fighting with that. And however, that happened, it happened and that's how a band, a mid-sized band from Austin Texas, ended up in a Spider-Man movie. I thought that was a really nice piece of advice, daryl man movie.

Speaker 3

I thought that was a really nice piece of advice. Daryl, you want to add to that? Um, yeah, I think, um the for bands or artists. I think going to showcase conferences is really important because music supervisors are so inundated with music absolutely their inboxes are full all the time. But if you can get to an event like spot, which is where I first met nis, and actually get on the speed meetings and chat to them, they're you know, of course you need literal face time, yeah, and I think it's really yeah and it's spot does a fantastic every year with the music supervisors like

Speaker 3

the absolute top music supervisors from the Americas and from Europe and many other events as well, and I think that's the way to do it is to go there and just sign up and just get in front of someone. But one of the amusing things I find is when people send me music and say it's good for sync, because I don't think that really exists. For example, in the early days of the cure, there's this guy called Frankie and he was the postman for Robert Smith's mum and dad, and so Robert the cure and Frankie got together and made a song called I'm a cult hero and they put it out on a seven inch and it was a, you know, a lost treasure. And then that was in 79, I think. And then in 2000 we got approached by an american I think it was an online uh job recruitment agency called monster, and they licensed that song for a lot of money kidding and who would have fall when they were putting out pressed 150 copies in 1979.

Speaker 3

So to say something is good for sync is who knows what's good for sync. And that worked perfectly for that particular commercial. And then Frankie got a nice payday years later. Oh yeah, robert divided it all up evenly, of course I love his collaborations.

Speaker 1

I think Robert Smith's a great collaborator. The Glove record is one of my, you know one of those discoveries that came my way much later. So do we have time for questions? We don't. Okay, I guess you can come up and ask us some things later on. I thought we were going to move into that. Anyway, thank you, what's that? Yeah, yeah, yeah, we can take questions. I thought we were going to 30. So does anybody have a question they'd like to? Yes, can I bring you the microphone, would you like that?

Speaker 4

Yeah, it's a question to you. I don't know if you want to be called Kid Moxie or.

Speaker 2

Elena, either Either works, yeah.

Speaker 4

So, because I know that we're pressed for time, I have lots of questions, but I was very impressed with, obviously, your work, ethic and story and how you presented it and it comes across as very authentic. My question is, in the light of the conversation we were having about they were asking you about the nostalgia of the conversation we were having about. They were asking you about like the nostalgia of the 80s, like slightly tongue-in-cheek and stuff. Do you think there's something to be said? I can obviously see a sense of agency in you, in the way that you pursued your career. Do you think there's some validity in saying that? Perhaps it was slightly easier for you because you hadn't gone through what a lot of us have gone through, which is the devaluing of what we do, the object being the music, and so a lot of people had to change their mindset. Oh, now Naps has happened, now this has happened, now there's a devaluation, so it's having to get rid of the habit, whereas you already came into it out of the gate already with these expectations.

Speaker 2

I mean, I feel like I've had to devaluate the process so many times regardless.

Speaker 4

It is. That's the. It's just part of any creative process.

Speaker 2

When there's no set path, there's excitement and fear that walk hand in hand and at the same time, every time there's a change, as we're saying, there's devaluation in order for you to evolve. So there's so many ways that I think, in the music path, you have to let go of a certain, you let go of a band and you say, okay, I cannot be in a band anymore. That's a set of devaluating something At the same time, like I said, I value collaborations immensely and they've given me the highlights of my career so far. So it might not be the same set of things that we have set aside, but you have to in order to keep moving anyways I appreciate that point of view and I agree, but I, more specifically, I was just curious about that sense of agency.

Speaker 4

Do you see yourself talking to people who've had other experiences, where they I guess older people is like kind of not understanding their mindset of why they could be so unhappy with the fact that they used to be able to, let's say, live from music and now can't?

Speaker 2

And it's this constant conversation and now can't, and it's this constant conversation. I I think again. I mean, I would like to think that I'm able to sympathize and even if I haven't gone to the same struggle by having gone through any struggle, you sympathize with struggle. So it doesn't have to be the same thing, but I understand being let down by what you love. So, in that regard, yes, yes, I feel like I can.

Speaker 1

I lost my microphone and one just showed right back up again. That was kind of nice. Do we have time for one more? We don't? Yeah, okay, all right, that's great. Let's do a quick one, though, if anybody has any other questions, and if you don't, we can wrap All right. I think we're good. Thank you, thank you. Yeah. Thank you.

Head Shot

Paul Cheetham

Host