Russell Emanuel TALKS ExtremeMusic.com the BEST Music Library in the business

Russell Emanuel — co‑founder and CEO of Extreme Music — joins Film Hustlers to unpack how he turned a dusty music library into a global, tech‑driven powerhouse that lets filmmakers instantly find, customize, and license premium cues without the Hollywood price tag. He explains the company’s radical focus on real composers, remixable tracks, and bespoke scoring through Bleeding Fingers, how the platform fills gaps for every genre worldwide, and why this modern library is now essential for producers who need high‑quality, affordable music fast.

Transcript

Trailer Voice 0:00

Okay, one of the most famous in the world, where writers, directors, producers, and actors are all fighting to get their films made. Comes a podcast that gets into it like no other podcast has ever gotten into it before. So this summer, heading on to your laptops. Because this time, there's no rewrite. Storm Mark Ice Robbers. Ready to mark. Under 17, not permitted without a parent.

Mark Roberts 0:33

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Film Hustlers. Today we're gonna get into it.

Rod Rinks 0:38

We already kind of got into it a little bit before the show. We've been into it for like an hour. Yeah. But um, but what's really cool is that I get to come back to my own show about today is that I get to welcome you back to your own show.

Mark Roberts 0:50

Welcome back. I know you had to work. We explained to everybody that you actually have a real job.

Rod Rinks 0:54

And I gotta leave I gotta actually split in like about five minutes. You gotta leave in five minutes. Seriously.

Mark Roberts 0:58

I was thinking about how cool it is to get into conversations about how to get your movie made. Yeah. This podcast was put together by you.

Rod Rinks 1:07

You wanted to uh uh talk about film. It just started off. You and I talked about the same thing for over a decade, and I was like, you have a wealth of knowledge that somebody like me could use, or other people out there like me could use, and you weren't into it. You're like, ah nah, nah, and then next thing you can know, you're like a host now. You're like a podcast without you. I know you're making it told me today.

Mark Roberts 1:28

Well, look how exciting this is. You we started the podcast, you started your 10,000 hour movie. Yeah, Clay Epsilon is a uh film distributor at film mode. Yeah, he came in, he's giving you advice about your movie. Yep. I mean, these are all like mini meetings, yeah, right? You're having little meetings with people and you're enrolling them and getting excited about what you're doing.

Rod Rinks 1:50

With Nahara on Monday, we're gonna be doing something. You're doing something with Nahara.

Mark Roberts 1:53

He was on the podcast. So I guess what I'm trying to say, it's about realizing that you're having people here we're meeting with them. Yeah, they're little meetings where you're discussing your movie and getting them excited about your movie, and out of this comes a relationship that may benefit you and your movie, and it may benefit them.

Rod Rinks 2:10

And we're all in the same boat. Like what I've noticed is we're all like Clay was a filmmaker, I'm a filmmaker, you're a filmmaker. You know, all there's there's a creative force behind everything we're talking about. And we're all kind of like, you know, we're all we branch off into different areas. I'm a makeup artist by trade. I gotta go do Lopez's makeup in about five minutes. Right. He's gonna be breaking my balls any minute or where are you, Toody, on the phone?

Mark Roberts 2:30

I just want to say if you're thinking about maybe I should or shouldn't, do it. Yeah, have that conversation. Enroll someone, get people excited about what you're doing, and they may turn around and like in Tootie's case, end up working with you to make your little film better. Yeah. It could happen. It's happening here.

Rod Rinks 2:47

Yeah, it is. But actually, like in real time. But none of those guys said anything other uh I had to show him something. Like Joel read the script and then he got back to me. He didn't say right away, I'll do that. You know what I mean? He said, Well, let me read the script if it's something I'm I'm not saying it's just because of the podcast.

Mark Roberts 3:01

I'm saying that it is a very good way to meet people. Yeah, and and it's a good thing that you're a good pitcher because they're getting excited about what you're doing. Thank you for this, right? They read well, you're welcome. They believe that there's talent there and they're uh ending up working with you. So I think something to be learned from this podcast.

Rod Rinks 3:16

I got I go back to Montley Career. I told you this in the beginning. When we started this band, all we needed was a laugh. Years gone by, I say we kick some ass. Bam! There we go, Nick! Crazy. Well, it is. Is that what they call it? I don't even know. Is that a bridge? Yeah.

Davie Davie 3:34

All right. The reviews are pouring in too. A new one today. These guys are the real deal. Five star, yeah. What's this right? We got five stars, player. The reviews are coming in on iTunes. Just people loving it. Thanks, Dave. Appreciate it. They're casual, sometimes hilarious. No, that's bullshit. That's always come on. Come on.

Mark Roberts 3:55

Dave, thanks for being here. Um, I want to talk about Extreme Music. Yes. This is very exciting. We have um co-founder, CEO of Extreme Music, Russell Emmanuel.

Russel Emanuel 4:09

Did I say that right? Did I say that right? You said it right. Okay, yeah.

Mark Roberts 4:17

I doubt empty wallet. I've read the bio. Apparently, you sold this company for quite a bit of dough.

Rod Rinks 4:23

I saw the Rolex. It's nice. I'm curious.

Mark Roberts 4:26

Did um once you once you sold it and then it sold to Sony, did it sell for lots of money to Sony? Yes, it did. Yeah. More than what it originally sold for? Yes. Allegedly. Allegedly, that's a good way to put it. What we're here to talk about today is I have really believed in music libraries for a long time as a producer. I've used them. I used them on Mexico's Next Top Model. The entire thing was from Extreme Music Library. Uh, I just did a documentary called Love and Betrayal. It's a true crime thing. Every song in there, even my title song, is from Extreme Music. Am I paying for this?

Russel Emanuel 5:03

Yeah.

Mark Roberts 5:05

And uh and the exciting thing is that they do lots of stuff. But before I get into all of the things that Extreme Music uh does, I want to get into Russell Emmanuel's life because you had a very interesting life, and honestly, you really are providing a service that's super valuable to television, uh film, and all sorts of media. And um, and we're gonna get into how even now you're you know you guys are composing with Hans Zimmer for huge shows and huge movies. So uh tell me about how you got started.

Russel Emanuel 5:39

You know, uh back a long time ago when dogs were still fish, uh you know, uh had this kind of dream to play guitar. And uh that was kind of frowned upon at British boarding schools. Uh I left very early at 15, uh, no real qualifications. Um spent a short period of time in the military and then was a sound engineer. Um various studios in London, including Abbey Road and You were a sound engineer at Abbey. Who was going through there at the time? Oh, I mean, you know, the usual suspects, I mean George Martin, you know, all those guys. Yeah. I mean it was the seven I was sixteen years old, so that was back in the seventies, so it was a great time.

Mark Roberts 6:22

Yeah, a good time for music.

Russel Emanuel 6:23

It was a great time for music, and it was an amazing place to be. Um, but unlike the all of the other people starting around me at that time, I quickly realized that being locked away in a studio wasn't what I wanted to do.

Mark Roberts 6:35

Right. Which a lot of people is what they wanted.

Russel Emanuel 6:37

Yeah, absolutely. And I'm very good at it. I probably wasn't that great at it.

Mark Roberts 6:41

Right.

Russel Emanuel 6:41

Um and I did it really to sort of support my love of playing guitar and and wanting to be a musician.

Mark Roberts 6:48

Right. So when you left there, I know that you spent a long uh time as a band manager.

Russel Emanuel 6:56

Yeah. I did everything really. I was just hustling. I think in all honesty, I I was a proficient musician, not a great musician. Uh still play. Um but uh, you know, it probably dawned on me very quickly that these kind of people playing around me were incredible.

Mark Roberts 7:13

Did you ever sit in with a band that you were on tour with?

Russel Emanuel 7:16

Oh yeah, and um all the time. Um and I toured with some bands that I had absolutely no business being involved with as well. Oh yeah. Because I was kinda you know, I a friend of mine was w was a drummer and a fixer at the time, and I remember um the stylistics were coming through to do a a Air Force Base tour of the UK and they needed a bass player. And crazily enough, he goes, Hey, you can do this. I I'm too Jewish to play with the stylistics. Um but I do remember rehearsing really hard, practicing, practicing uh for a few weeks, and I thought, okay, I can just hold this down. And then they came into rehearsal, the band actually arrived from America, and they came into rehearsal and the singers were all face facing us for the first day of rehearsal. And I remember doing the playing the first numbers, the big intro, and just as they were about to start singing, they did the spin. Oh they spun and I just lost it, completely lost it, laughing and and uh it I couldn't hold it, but you know, I needed to take five. And then so that hadn't started very well, and then ten minutes later we're playing the song, and they start to go, and on drums, and they introduce the drum, he does an incredible solo, and on keyboards, and he's you know, riff, you know, shredding this great solo. I go, shit, it's coming, it's gonna want me to do a bass solo and Russell and bass. And Russell Mann bass. I said, I can I'm only just about holding this song down. Um did you did you solo? Uh I don't think solo is the word. Yeah. Solo so they couldn't hear you, right? It was solo. Yeah. And uh and I was fired. And that was, you know.

Mark Roberts 9:02

And that was the end of your um that was the end of my soul career. Well, uh you know, music is a big part of everyone's life, you know, whether you listen to it or you play guitar or you in choir, like you know, we're all sort of connected to one way or the other. That's really cool that you spent some time mixing and and and being an engineer, and then you went on the road with some pretty cool bands. Yeah. And you know, one thing that I remember, we would rent facilities to to edit our movies or our TV shows, and you'd go into those facilities and there was a wall of CDs. And you would go to that wall and it'd be like comedy CD or drama CD or action CD. Right.

Rod Rinks 9:40

That's old school Robert.

Mark Roberts 9:42

That's that's yeah, but this is where it began, right? You would go there and I'd say that, and I remember talking to the post house and saying, like, can I is it okay if I use this for my my project? Sure, yeah, it's it's we've already bought it. Right. So in some cases it will work, in some cases it would not. It was very difficult because you had to find the tracks, you had to listen to all of them, and it was labor-intensive because you had to grab the CD, pull out the CD, put the C D in, right? Then ingest the CD. Like all this stuff was not easy to do back then. No, right?

Speaker 4 10:13

And think about how it was when it was vinyl and and quarter-inch tape. Yeah, I mean, that was nuts.

Mark Roberts 10:19

So, did they do libraries like that on vinyl? Yeah, oh, absolutely. Wow, you had to, right? When did it start this whole library of music thing?

Speaker 4 10:30

Reportedly in the 40s. I wasn't so you could a lot of people think I was around, but you're a young man.

Mark Roberts 10:37

You're a young man. So in the 40s, you could ri you could buy an album and use those tracks before your show.

Speaker 4 10:43

Yeah, at the time it was in answer to you the you know, people wanted to re-license hit just like they do now. Right. They wanted the hit of the day, and it was unaffordable. You know, for the at that time I think it was sheet music that you were renting and paying for the rights for. And then you would go record that. You'd go record that, exactly. There's still a publisher and a writer at the end of the day, nothing's changed there. Right. Um you know, my experience was when I was again when I was working in the mailroom of this um library that was producing on vinyl, um what would happen was we would send the vinyl out to all these post-production houses back in the UK. They would audition tracks, and then they would phone us and order that track once they'd selected it on quarter inch tape, because they needed it to transfer it then onto Mag or whatever they were doing. What a pain. It was a you know, the the whole process would take a week. Right.

Rod Rinks 11:36

That was cinema. Like that was like the that was the that's the art that like Scorsese and those guys talk about. Now you just go go on your computer, you it's so easy. I do it on my iPhone when I do little videos and stuff like that. Try this, try that, try that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like the iPhone, you have the um iMovie. Uh do you know the little videos I do for the I do like Instagram sure me combing my hair, but it's so easy. You can do it like that.

Mark Roberts 11:59

And you put and you put nice music on it.

Rod Rinks 12:01

I do, but it's so I mean just pick, plug and play. So here's the here's You know what, though, Roberts? I gotta go. All right, but we back in change. Davey Dave, sit in. What'd you do? I know, but yeah, give it in here.

Mark Roberts 12:12

Um all right, we'll see you later. Take care, Mario. Now we can really get down to business. Yeah, we would just wait until you now we're gonna talk about the goods. We're gonna start over.

Rod Rinks 12:21

Yes. Thanks, buddy. I appreciate it.

Mark Roberts 12:24

Now we're gonna get into the really interesting part about it. So the libraries we're gonna make libraries really interesting. This is this is actually fascinating. Uh maybe just to me. But um the the you had the library on vinyl, that was complicated. People had to pick them, then order them, then you had to deliver it a week later. Right. Um, then the CDs came out, which were you know, I don't know that they were considered top quality music.

Speaker 4 12:50

Yeah.

Mark Roberts 12:51

I think they were just sort of something that you can use to temp your product in the 90s and early 2000s. It wasn't really like this is quality, this is high-level stuff.

Speaker 4 13:03

No, because I think that library music has kind of suffered from this um reputation of it's where composers go to die. And or alternatively, it's where composers that couldn't quite make it, you know, went to have a career. Right. Um thankfully the industry has changed dramatically. Yeah, dude. We and gosh, you know, I don't want to sound arrogant at all about this, but we were very lucky with our timing. It was it you know, it sounds like some master plan, but we came in with a mission to create a production music library at the same values as any commercial lay label and used and used the real deal composers.

Mark Roberts 13:45

Yeah, and you did. Um just to keep the timeline straight. So in the 90s there was CDs, in the 2000s, there was still CD. Um it would come out every quarter. You could buy like the new whatever it was, right? It was it every quarter.

Speaker 4 13:59

Right, it was different for us in the UK, but I know about this model. It was yeah, yeah.

Mark Roberts 14:03

Subscription kind of yeah, they'd send you like your new uh drama tracks, your new comedy tracks, and they even had they it even went as far as to be like your new slapstick comedy tracks, right? So it was always like a certain kind of music, and they were interesting and you could use them and they were fine, but they weren't high quality. When did you decide to get into the business of extreme music?

Speaker 4 14:29

Um it was late 96, early 97. Um myself and my then partner Dolph Taylor, who was the drummer in Stiff Little Fingers who I was managing at the time. Oh, nice. We we you know that it was time. We needed a real job, essentially. Um and because we'd kind of had a history with library music a long detached history, but nevertheless the checks had to keep coming. Um said, okay, well let's go and look at that. And and um you know it wasn't some master plan, it was just the fact that we decided to do production music and all our friends were really out there doing it.

Mark Roberts 15:06

Did you see an opportunity? Did you see a game?

Speaker 4 15:08

I don't know yet, I think we did. Like you know, I remembering it now is such a blur. It was a lot of work and you know, crazy bootstrapping of a company, but but you know, I remember Dave Stewart did one of our first albums, produce that, and Chucho Machan from the Rhythmics and um you know the guys behind Massive Attack.

Mark Roberts 15:28

So you started thinking bigger, you started thinking let's do these tracks, but let's make them really great.

Speaker 4 15:33

Well, it was just our world. We didn't know how to do it the other way around. Right. And and it seemed obvious, well, you know, if you've got a composer who's just emulating styles, he's one day doing jazz and the next day he's doing heavy metal, that can't be good. So, you know, when we when we attack a style of music, we'll go to the guys that are really doing it. Um and you know, it does it it so doesn't sound like rocket science when you talk about it now. But at the time it was an industry born out of a few guys, uh stable of composers that would get all of the work. Right. Therefore, it ended up sounding l not authentic.

Mark Roberts 16:10

Well, we'll get into what an enormous business it is now, but um but let's continue here because I think my ex-wife might be listening.

Speaker 4 16:18

Let's listen.

Mark Roberts 16:20

Uh how you started this uh was very indie of you. Um you started small, it wasn't like you started with millions of dollars. No, right? So you started with a small investment with someone who believed in you and what you were up to and that the future of this was actually much brighter. You because apparently you did not know that it was like uh going to turn into this big thing. I had no idea. Yeah, tell me about the beginnings.

Speaker 4 16:43

Um well we were introduced to um Mark Levinson back in the UK, and he was a VC slash lover of music. Um he started a publishing company called Palan Music back back then. It was a small company based in Camden Town, the old stiff records building. It was super cool, very grungy. You know, if you like your heroin pure, you're in the right area. Um and I remember and he owned some clothing brands, Kango, and he had a big part of the success of Pokemon cards, and he was very diverse.

Mark Roberts 17:19

How far into extreme music were you at this point? One day. Well, okay, well, good, we'll give one day. One day. One day you were conceiving like this.

Speaker 4 17:26

We were conceiving with it's you know, uh with real guys, and you've got a bunch of friends. And a friend of mine said, You've got to meet this guy, he's cool. Right. So he sent me up to his office, and I remember going up there, and he goes, I tell him the the 30-second pitch, which was literally all I had, which is what I just gave you. Right. And he said, How much do you need? And I go, Oh shit, I have no idea. And um I went into his boardroom, he gave me, I think, an hour to kind of work it out. Figure it out. I remember, you know, well, we need a phone and uh we need a DAP machine and a cassette player, and can we get a computer and let's slide a salary in there? And uh, oh yes, can we get a salary? I'm not sure. And um, I remember going in and and giving him the number, and I was like, we're never gonna get this. I said, uh, we're gonna need about a hundred thousand dollars for the first year. And he couldn't write that check fast enough, I'm sure. Can you start Monday? I think this was Friday. Can you start Monday? Um and uh so Mark became your partner. He became a partner and was an amazing, amazing partner, super supportive. Yeah, he knew what he had. You know, we was we were clearly naive. Yeah, um, had you know, apart from hustling on the road, zero business experience.

Mark Roberts 18:43

Right, but that's uh that's very indie, right? That's how you start businesses. You think uh, you know, if you haven't raised millions of dollars, you're always thinking, like, you know, what's the smallest amount of money that that would uh that would get me going here? And obviously you guys were destined for big things with extreme music. Um, but what was more uh fascinating is that you know your partner Mark eventually had to invest more money. Oh I think he knew that.

Speaker 4 19:10

Oh, I think he knew that.

Mark Roberts 19:12

Yeah, yeah. So so because to grow, this was gonna have to be an investment that continued to give.

Speaker 4 19:18

Yeah, and he was extreme I mean, gosh, you know, to to luckily meet someone that believed in you a hundred percent. Yeah. And you know, I don't think I I would always go in and say, hey, I've got this crazy idea here, I need another three hundred thousand. He would it was never a problem. And I don't think I ever wrote a business plan, never wrote a proposal. Right. Never nothing on paper.

Mark Roberts 19:39

People raise money, business plans do not. So, Mark, you, your partner, start creating incredibly cool tracks. Right. I mean, I have to go to now because the jump between what we're talking about and what extreme music is now is pretty amazing. And I'll say it because of you know from from from where I sit. I go to Extreme Music, which is this really cool library online, and you get there and it's got you know your homepage got like these featured composers, it's got uh new tracks, action tracks, uh Latino tracks, all kinds of cool, any kind of music. And when I got there, I was a little uh uh confused because I was like, How do I do this? And then there was a search, so I started to think, well, maybe if I punch in dance music, it'll you know, give me what I'm looking for. So I pushed in dance and like thousands of songs would would show up. Right suggestions, and you can listen to them and you can grab them, put them in your list, right, so that you can come back to them later, or you make your list of songs that you want your editor to work from, and you say go to my list, and then he can just download them from there. Right now, that's not the end of it. This gets better, right? This is like an info.

Davie Davie 20:55

That's already convenient.

Mark Roberts 20:55

That's already convenient, right? You get in there, you decide what kind of music, Latin, action, uh drama. I remember there was this one scene where it was like people falling in love, it was the beginning of a romance. Uh-huh. Like they just met, and I was like, how am I gonna do this? So I literally went to the search engine and punched in new romance. Oh hundreds of songs came up, right?

Speaker 4 21:18

So deeply into that.

Mark Roberts 21:20

Yeah, so I started moving, I started moving all my choices for the romantic songs so that the editor, when he was cutting that sequence, had a bunch of choices. I didn't choose the songs for him, I just chose the types of songs I liked, and then he went to my list and then decided what worked for the scene best. Wow, that's great. Uh yeah, it was amazing. So then you do that, you pick from whatever style, whatever it is, and then it says you want more strings, you want more drums, like whatever whatever you feel like the scene needs or the music needs, you can add that to it, and then it gives you songs with those choices. Now, as if that wasn't enough, then you get into like, let's say I pick a song and I'm I'm watching it in a scene, I'm like, oh man, if it just wasn't as driving, because you know, you have different choices. It gives you, it gives you a vocal track version, it gives you a no vocal track version, it gives you a no strings version, it gives you a no drums, no drums version. But if you want more automation, if you decide you want it to sound a certain beat or be a certain length, which by the way is really important in our business to have it match the end of a sequence, right? To take the end and have it end a scene. Right, you could mix it, pick the pick the length of the thing, punch it in, and it remixes it for you and puts it together. Yeah. Did I get any of that wrong? Holy shit. What an interest. Did I get any that wrong?

Speaker 4 22:46

There is the end of our habit. No, but it's incredi you know, first of all, you picked up on something very important to me on the other side of this, which is talking to our composers. I'm constantly saying, focus on the end of this song. It's the most important thing. How am I gonna get out? How am I gonna finish this? And they'll discount the song that they love if it's not great. So I'm glad that you you picked that up. Um look, innovation is so important for us. You know, the this world is moving at a crazy speed. And for us, we need to be plugged into our users, the people that are you using the music and how they want to use it. So, you know, maybe five years ago we started to develop this kind of online tool where you can remix the tracks, um, you can change the arrangement, and you can manipulate and essentially customize a piece of music. Um and the reaction was crazy. Um we're we're super lucky we've got people working within Extreme that just love the mission. Um and because of that, what comes out of it is this kind of innovative company that uh you know, I I I luckily get to be at the forefront and take all the glory, but there's some incredible minds behind it. We're the only ones that do that, we're putting leaps ahead in that technology, you know, and very proud of it.

Mark Roberts 24:04

Well, that's not an easy thing to do. If you decided to go mix your own song, create a link to it yourself, it would be impossible.

Davie Davie 24:12

Because people who are putting the projects together already have enough on their hands. Right. Yeah. Something like this makes it, you know, so so great.

Mark Roberts 24:19

But it's true. If a song doesn't have an end, I don't I don't choose it. Yeah. Because how am I gonna I can't write an end? Yeah, you can't resolve it. No, I have to have it end properly so that then you can put it into your system, say I'd like it to be 98 seconds or whatever it's gonna be, 60 seconds, whatever, and then it ends it properly, and then you you know you could fuss around with it, which I like.

Speaker 4 24:42

And the challenge is doing that and still have it feel natural. You know, uh fundamentally at the start of all these tracks is talent. And it's a big reason why we feature our talent, and I think it sets us apart. And you know, I like to think of ourselves as a label more of a than a production music library. But you know, when you're briefing these guys that aren't used to working to those rules, yeah. You know, pop producers just you know, well, fade a track out and the fade can last for 15 seconds, 30 seconds, and that's not useful to us.

Mark Roberts 25:14

No, so so many projects now have wall-to-wall music. Yeah, people are used to it. I remember a time when you, as a producer, they'd be like, wait, there's way too much music, and now you can literally start a project and end a project and never have a gap.

Speaker 4 25:28

Right.

Mark Roberts 25:29

That wasn't um that wasn't something that can happen in the past. Right. But um but the other thing I really like about what you guys are doing is you're working with real com like there's real composers that are working on very, very big projects, writing music on extreme music for anybody, for any project, right? We're very lucky. Yeah, how did you do that? We care very deeply about it.

Speaker 4 25:53

Um you know, these the this these talented people are trusting us with their copyrights, and it's important to us that we only bring other material into the catalogue that is of a certain level. Right. Um, you know, and and you know, big names are you know, Hans obviously Hans Zimmer, um uh Cracky Snoop Dogg, Ronnie Jerkins, George Sir George sadly passed away, but Sir George Martin, um God, the list goes on.

Mark Roberts 26:23

So if I if I'm a young producer doing a small project, I could literally go to Extreme Music and get Han Zimmer's music on my You can, absolutely, yes. And not for insane amounts of money, which it would cost me to hire someone like that. That's right. But I can license a track that works for me.

Speaker 4 26:41

Yeah, and I think our model as well is is is is non-exclusivity. So so you know, our goal is yes, it's affordable, but from the composer side, that track, rather than being used on one project, it would be used on hundreds of projects, therefore you know uh everyone's gonna live, everyone's gonna pay the rent. And and and again, that's that's something else which is important to us that we share revenue with our composers. And I don't know if you know a lot of a lot of companies don't. They they buy out the composers and that's it. For us, every dollar that comes in the door we share with our with our talent. And it was important for us to do that. Right. Um you know, without it sounding like a hippie commune, because it is a business, right? You can't continue to get existing talent to give you material and them to because they're the they're our biggest AR resource. They'll recommend it to their friends and um uh you know, if if if no one's making any money, that quickly stops. Yeah.

Mark Roberts 27:41

Are you are you a worldwide company? We are a worldwide company. Like anywhere in the world, go online, you can get extremely project. That's pretty amazing.

Speaker 4 27:49

Yeah. We have um Crikey, what is it now? Seven, eight international offices, and then um and then the online service means you can license it. Wow.

Mark Roberts 28:01

Why wasn't it why wasn't I why didn't I know about this? I should have gotten into a different business. You should have.

Speaker 4 28:05

You can still exist. Yeah, I mean you can clearly sell it. So now you know, there you go.

Mark Roberts 28:10

Well, I I can only sell it because I use I've used it numerous times. Um so let me ask you this on the other side. Let's say there's a young composer out there, 16-year-old kid who's in his garage with all of his equipment and can play every instrument. Could that kid compose music for extreme? Yes. Really? Absolutely. Wow, we didn't expect that answer. Well, no, here's how. If if they're super talented.

Speaker 4 28:35

If they're super talented and they for a young composer coming out, he's really got to look at the gap in the catalogue. He's got to look at what we do and then find out what we don't have, and that's where it becomes attractive. We don't need, you know, another Hansimmer. You know, so much stuff comes in that's just a clone of Hans or Harry Gregs and Williams or John Powell, or you know, these big guys. Those guys are already doing it and doing it brilliantly. Yeah. But you know, occasionally we'll come across someone will send some stuff in that's so crazy or weird or different or exciting. Yeah. And and we love to be brave. I think that's something that we've always done is we love to take risks.

Mark Roberts 29:16

Yeah.

Speaker 4 29:17

Um and and I think for any composer starting out, they should want to do that anyway. They should want to have that sound. Create a new sound. Yeah, I mean, I know it sounds I mean, gosh, you know, how do you create a new sound? But what you can do is specialize in something and become spectacular at it. Right. So many people will contact us or call us and go, you know, we'll say, Well, what you know, what what do you do? And they'll go, Well, you know, I can do anything. Right. That's the problem. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it would be. Or do it all. Yeah, okay, great. Well, um, but uh fortunately, we do get the occasional you know, super talent diamond in the rough, super talented people have never ceased to amaze what what they can do.

Mark Roberts 30:01

Well, considering you're worldwide, I would imagine there's a lot of talent uh that wouldn't otherwise have an opportunity. So that's cool. Um about a couple years ago, I went on the site to look for Mariachi music.

Speaker 4 30:12

Right.

Mark Roberts 30:13

And I think only two things came up. Yes. It was like two selections. I was like, wow. So all you music makers are.

Speaker 4 30:18

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, exactly gap. Yeah, well, you know, there wasn't a lot of Latin music in London, right? And uh it was just not in our consciousness. Right. And then I landed here, I was like, whoa, this this there might be something in this Latin. And and we have a new label that we've recently started called El Dorado, which just specializes in that and then everything from Latin pop, Latin hip-hop to traditional mariachi and stuff, and it's all authentic, we won't take anything.

Mark Roberts 30:45

This conversation gets more and more exciting because you and Hans have been composing for huge things for the Simpsons, Planet Earth 2.

Speaker 4 30:59

A blue planet. We're working on the I can't talk about it, but then another one at the moment. Uh Mars. We did do the planets, which is uh essentially planet Earth for the solar system, which um did very well recently.

Mark Roberts 31:12

But the Simpsons, that's pretty amazing.

Speaker 4 31:14

That's pretty amazing. It's uh there's uh that's a bit like handling the crown jewels, but yes.

Davie Davie 31:19

You know what I was amazed at? That Hansimmer was at Coachella for filming. Oh yeah, and people loved it. We're going crazy, really?

Mark Roberts 31:29

But that's that's pretty cool. You I mean Extreme music doing whatever it's doing, but then you have like this super exclusive Well, we we started a company about five years ago called Bleeding Fingers, and um unlike Extreme, it's a custom scoring. So if I go to Bleeding Fingers, uh then you guys sit down with me and we discuss and you we show you picture and then you score to picture.

Speaker 4 31:54

Exactly, yeah, that's right. We have a uh a team of very young, exciting um new talent that comes through there. What was happening was I don't know if you know that Hans has a uh a facility with a bunch of studios in Santa Monica.

Mark Roberts 32:07

No, I didn't know that.

Speaker 4 32:07

Um yes, four buildings, now five because Bleeding Fingers has a building. Um there's I think approximately 50 studios in all on the campus.

Mark Roberts 32:15

Wow.

Speaker 4 32:16

That's where Extreme's based as well. And all this great new young talent was coming through and and starting their careers as assistants, working for these composers, and then there was nowhere for them to go, so they were leaving. So we wanted to create a ca a a vehicle to kind of you know harness that talent, accelerate it into the industry, provide support, and it's it's doing incredibly well.

Mark Roberts 32:38

So now you guys are uh now you guys are training them and taking the best of the best and turning them into composers.

Speaker 4 32:47

Yeah, well it's a it's a unique situation where we can spot great talent coming through as these assistants, because they're all kind of co-writing, or we'll you know, we'll we take them on because they're potential new talent. Um and you can see the great ones, and you know, now we've got this great vehicle that they can kind of graduate into. And um and we're providing amazing projects for them to work on.

Mark Roberts 33:08

And uh it's obviously working because to get shows at the level that you're getting shows. Have you been nominated for anything yet?

Speaker 4 33:16

We've got an Emmy nomination this year for Cats. What? For uh for Big Cats for the traditional. This gets I mean and we have two Emmy nominations previously, and we've had a couple of music and sound awards and so that's how that's how much the the world has changed.

Mark Roberts 33:32

That's how much our industry is constantly growing. There are filmmakers out there, there's TV producers out there that don't necessarily know about extreme music, they don't know about these libraries that you can go to to find music online, or like me, I wasn't that interested because I didn't think it was that qual that much quality. I always wanted to use you know someone who actually wrote the music, but you know what? You uh you can't you don't always have the time for that, and the quality of the stuff that's being produced by Extreme Music, by um these other great composers that are coming to Extreme Music that you have uh partnerships with is at the level of Emmy Award winning and nominated music. So you can't, you you're you're not gonna beat that. That's pretty that's pretty cool. I hate to sound like a commercial because this is not a commercial, by the way. No, but you used it and you've seen how it's I used it many, many times. My wife has used it many, many times. My wife's the executive producer of Disney Weddings. There you go. Joel High. Joel Guy. Does Joel Hyde recommend you? I don't know that he does recommend you guys.

Speaker 4 34:33

Oh, really? Yeah, he was amazing. I was listening to the podcast.

Mark Roberts 34:36

He was very say he does not recommend.

Davie Davie 34:43

Let's call him right now.

Mark Roberts 34:44

I'm just kidding. He was very uh he was very uh complimentary of you guys, but I think the um the the um the amount of product being produced every year, uh the amount of uh streaming services and the the availability of networks is huge, and that just means that more music is necessary. More cues are necessary, more composers are necessary. So I don't think I don't think you guys are going anywhere soon. You just keep growing. Um it's fun that Sony is involved. Does that mean that you get so do you get any of their uh library? Did they add anything to Extra Music when they bought you?

Speaker 4 35:21

Um we do have access to some some of the the um the game scores that they do for PlayStation. Okay. Um and we've been able to help out in that area and get bringing those into the licensing. Um but no, you know, pretty much, I mean, they've been a great partner. Um 2008 was was the when we were acquired by Sony, and they've been nothing but lucky you you get acquired during the crash.

Mark Roberts 35:45

How lucky is that, right? Holy man! I know we're very lucky, and they were great. Yeah, I gotta rub you for luck. Yeah, I gotta rub me for luck, yeah. Yeah, right. Shoot. Um well one of the last things I want to ask you is uh, you know, considering you're growing so much, my my wheels are turning. What if there was a television show, kind of like American Idol, where you know these new composers are writing music for extreme music. I don't know. There's there's got to be a show in there somewhere.

Speaker 4 36:12

Yeah, look, uh, you know, I mean, obviously we do it every day, so we take it for granted. Maybe who knows? Yeah, stranger things have happened.

Mark Roberts 36:20

Yeah. You could have like three guys score the same like clip to see who's better or something. Yeah. Now you're talking that.

Speaker 4 36:26

We did run we ran a contest with SoundCloud um at the start of Bleeding Fingers. Hans wrote a theme, and the SoundCloud community were invited to kind of reimagine it and remix it and re-compose it. And it was great. We found some incredible. And the guy that actually won that contest is now one of our composers. Really?

Mark Roberts 36:45

So can composers on extreme music make a great living? Can they buy houses?

Speaker 4 36:50

Oh, yeah.

Mark Roberts 36:50

I have to be careful here.

Speaker 4 36:52

But no, no, no, absolutely. There are people in the space. I mean, you know, I think you saw there's a there's a Forbes article that says there's a two billion dollar business.

Mark Roberts 37:00

Yeah, it's huge.

Speaker 4 37:01

Yeah.

Mark Roberts 37:01

So so then you get in there and you become someone that fills these gaps and and you're and uh people start. I mean, I'm as a producer, I do favor certain libraries on extreme music. Um but there's so much that I don't look at like there's punk rock. There's a big punk rock sort of contingent on extreme music. There's a big like grunge sort of contingent, which is cool. And I think that's for the skateboarding shows and yeah, and there's I mean there's everything.

Speaker 4 37:31

You know, the there's no s there's no music we won't go near.

Mark Roberts 37:34

Yeah. Um are you are you planning on having are you are you gonna come back and and do music and have your own band someday, or is that over?

Speaker 4 37:43

Um it's a it's very interesting is like that. I mean, I still compose. Obviously, I don't get much time to do it now, but I do still compose for extreme, and the same rules apply, and it's great. I still don't have to have a hit record and I don't have to sleep in the back of the bus. Um which is which is the luxury of it, really. Um we do have a house band, which I'll send you an invite to our next show called Courtesy Flush. Wait a minute. Do you play in this house band? Oh, yes. Oh, okay, good.

Mark Roberts 38:11

I guess I guess that was that was a question. Okay, good. So you are so you are still playing music for yourself.

Speaker 4 38:17

I would invite you to the Halloween party. That's exciting. Full lifel of that.

Mark Roberts 38:21

That's awesome.

Speaker 4 38:22

Yeah, you may need I don't think you can unsee it.

Mark Roberts 38:27

Well, I'm looking forward to it. Uh, I know Joel had some questions. Maybe we'll have you back on one day we can talk more with a music supervisor who knows what he's talking about. But um, is there anything we didn't cover that you want us to know about extreme?

Speaker 4 38:39

I think you're uh this is quite the operation. Yeah. I don't know. I'm gonna take all of this and it's gonna be my new ad. Everyone that works in the marketing department can go home now. That's that's right.

Mark Roberts 38:50

Just cut this one up and turn it into your next year's campaign. That's amazing. Um, I when I had Joel on the show and we talked about it, it was uh organic. It just sort of came out that we talked about extreme music, and then I thought, why don't I send this podcast to Extreme Music and um see what they think? And I literally went to your site and went down to information contact and just sent it to anybody. And the great thing is someone immediately got back to me and goes like, hey, thanks for sending the podcast. Uh, we'll send it over to somebody, we'll uh we'll get back to you. They got it back to me. You know what? We love the podcast, Russell. I'd love to be on. And I was like, Really? Yeah, that was very cool.

Speaker 4 39:29

I love what you're doing. I'm a big fan of podcasts anyway. Yeah, and so you put it in the zone.

Mark Roberts 39:35

Well, look, we're big fans of Extreme Music. I wish you a ton of continued success. I think there's a lot of value in what you're doing, and I think now it's just super obvious that I I know it wasn't when you started, but now where we're headed, the amount of content that the world needs, all that content needs music in all these soundtracks. So uh, you know, continued success. Um, I know that you're going to do extremely well intellectual free down to some of us uh in the example. But uh but would you come back and talk to you? Oh, we'd love to come back as things grow. Yeah, if you get desperate, just call me. Yeah, well, well, we'd love to have you back. I know Tootie would like to talk to you and add you to whatever he's doing. Yeah, of course. Great. Um, all right, well, thanks again. Uh, and we'll see you guys next time on Dome Hustlers.