Episode 93: How Hit Songs Actually Happen (Inside A&R with Pete Ganbarg)

Hits don’t happen by accident. They happen when the right singer meets the right song and a focused team executes without ego. That’s the throughline of my conversation with Pete Ganbarg—a two-time Grammy-winning A&R leader whose fingerprints are on era-defining records and publishing wins—spanning artist development, writer mentorship, and the power of aligned campaigns.

We start with the essentials: what makes an artist investable today. Pete is blunt about work ethic, output, and urgency in a short attention span world. From there, we bridge the recorded and publishing sides. He treats writers like artists, investing patience and guidance until they can “ride the bike” solo. That approach has generated heavyweight copyrights and resilient careers, supported by smart admin partnerships and precise registrations across ASCAP, BMI, and global sub-publishers.

As the landscape shifts—piracy, social feeds, streaming, and now AI—Pete’s stance is steady. A&R doesn’t change: great songs plus great voices. He sees AI as a tool, like sampling or synths, provided provenance is trackable and creators are paid. The public cares about what they feel, not how a track was made. To show what execution looks like, Pete breaks down the Daughtry debut: five people, six weeks, crystal roles, seven million albums. That’s what happens when a team plays its positions and the music lands seamlessly with listeners.

We also dig into Pete’s path from chart-obsessed fan to A&R chief, the advice he’d give his 18-year-old self, and the “invisible fingerprints” philosophy—do the work so well no one knows your name, only the artist’s. Finally, we explore Rock and Roll High School, the podcast he launched to teach music history to young teams that has grown into a living archive of first-person stories from the creators behind the songs we love. Context sharpens ears; literacy in the past fuels better signings and smarter strategies today.

If you care about building a durable music career—artist or writer—this is a masterclass in development, royalties, rights, teamwork, and taste. Subscribe, share with a creative friend, and leave a review telling us the biggest lesson you’re taking into your next release.

Transcript

Welcome And Pete’s Track Record

SPEAKER_02 0:16

Hello and welcome to the music business buddy with me, Johnny Amos, podcasting out of Birmingham in England. I am the author of the book, The Music Business for Music Creators, available in hardback, paperback, and ebook format. I'm a music producer, I'm an industry consultant, an artist manager, and a senior lecturer in both music business and music creation. Wherever you are, whatever you do, consider yourself welcome to this podcast and to a part of the community around it. My goal is simple to try and educate and inspire music creators from all over the world in their quest to achieving their goals by gaining a greater understanding of the business of music. Okay, so in this week's episode, I am joined by, and I'm gonna say it, I don't say this word very often, but an AR legend in Pete Ganbarg. Now, for anybody that's not familiar with Pete, um, and why would you be, right? He says it himself in the interview today. If you're aware of him, that means he hasn't done his job properly. It's a very, very humble and noble approach from such a fantastic person in the music industry. Uh his career is full of amazing accolades. He's a two-time Grammy winner. He's recognized as the uh, you know, as senior AR, he's worked at Epic, uh, he was at Atlantic for many, many years. He worked as senior AR at Arista, uh, working with Clive Davis. Just imagine how good you've got to be, right? If Clive Davis, widely regarded as the greatest AR, greatest record man of all time, appoints you as his senior uh head of AR, uh, that's how good Pete is. During his time as president of AR at Atlantic Records, he oversaw the careers of the likes of 21 pilots, Hailstorm, Santana, and many, many more. He's also uh the director of Pure Tone Music, which is a music publishing company that's also found huge success uh where he works with songwriters who create hit songs for numerous artists. He also runs a podcast which I absolutely love. It's called Rock and Roll High School, uh, where he talks to kind of huge key contemporary figures and artists of the contemporary music world to help people to understand the history of it. In fact, in the podcast today, he will talk about why he created it, what it's turned into. Uh, it's a fascinating interview. Um, I hope you enjoy it. Here it comes. Um Pete, welcome to the music business, buddy. How are you? I'm good, Johnny. Thanks for having me. Good. It's a pleasure, an absolute pleasure. Um, Pete, I've got to start by saying this. I I really, really mean this wholeheartedly as well. I really wish to congratulate you for all that you've achieved, right, and all that you continue to achieve because it's inspiring, right, to see the legacy that you've created throughout your career, and you've witnessed all of this, you know, huge interruptions in the music industry over the years, technological changes and all the rest of it, and you're still here and you're still doing it. Big respect. It's uh it's it's good to have you have you here. I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 3:18

No, I appreciate I appreciate that. It's you know, like we were just talking about before we went live. It's you know, if you're a lifer, it's what you do. I I'm not really qualified to do anything else. So uh fingers crossed, we can continue. Yeah, yeah.

What Makes Artists Investment Ready

SPEAKER_02 3:32

Good for you. Well, you know, there's many things, of course, that we could I could talk about to you, but let's let's start off with artist development, right? It's a subject that, you know, you know more than a thing or two about. Um, and whilst trends come and go and technologies change, that that sort of true grit and determination that it takes for an artist to find their audience, you know, it's one of the most important aspects of the record business. You know, are you able to kind of um summarize any of the key attributes that an artist needs to kind of exhibit before they're ready for investment?

SPEAKER_00 4:09

Yeah, I think that the work ethic is really important. It's a 24-7 business. And the the biggest pet peeve that we had at the labels when I was running AR for Atlantic Records uh for 16 years was we don't want to feel like we're working harder than the artists are. Um and sometimes, you know, artists are incredibly talented, but they don't have a drive that is just as important. Um, there are artists now who, if they're not uh writing or recording, they're shooting content, they're posting content, they're touring, you know, there really shouldn't be time for anything else because if you stop, someone else is going to take your place. It's short attention span uh theater out there, and and people, you know, aren't going to be waiting for you forever.

A&R For Records Versus Publishing

SPEAKER_02 5:07

Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah. Uh work rate, absolutely. Um let's compare um like the sort of the AR processes between recorded music um and then the publishing side, right? Because you found huge success in both sectors. From an AR perspective, are they different roles? You know, are you looking at catalogue differently? Are you looking for, let's say, on the recorded side, maybe you're looking for the hits on the publishing side, you're looking for songs that aid visuals. Is it as simple as that? Or is it, or there are a lot of crossovers?

SPEAKER_00 5:40

I don't really look at a huge difference. I I think that one of the reasons that we've been successful on the publishing is because we approach the writers on the publishing side the way that we would approach artists on the label side, meaning long-term patient artist development, or in the case of the publishing, writer development. So if I, you know, I'm lucky that I'm 35 years in now, I've trained my ears, you know, over those decades of, you know, this could work, this could connect with people. And it's the same on the publishing side as it is on the artist side. The publishing side, it's the writers are just doing it with songs. If you're a non-performing songwriter, it doesn't make you any less viable or any less valuable. So what I've tried to do on the publishing side, comparable to what we've always done on the record side, is to find really promising young talent that just needs the patience and the support and the mentorship. And I sometimes compare it to teaching a child how to ride a bicycle, because for the first year or two with a young writer, um, I'm running them around the parking lot metaphorically with the training wheels on. Um, after a year or two, when the training wheels come off, they're on their own. They can bike around the neighborhood and I'm off to train the next kid. And we've been very, very lucky where that's worked for us. And the development on the writer side has led to some really, really big copyrights for the publishing catalog.

SPEAKER_02 7:15

Very interesting. Okay. Actually, I I I particularly like that analogy, Pete, because um my four-year-old is learning to ride a bike at the minute.

SPEAKER_00 7:24

So well, maybe you should teach them to write songs at the same time. You can kill two birds with one stone.

SPEAKER_02 7:30

That's good. I like that. Yeah, I'll tell him you said that, he'll appreciate it. Voice of authority rather than me.

SPEAKER_00 7:36

Tell them I want half, though.

unknown 7:37

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 7:38

Okay. I'll pass that on. Um, so let's let's stay in the publishing side for a minute, right? So let me try and understand this um uh accurately. Please feel free to correct me. So there's kind of there's there's two publishing companies that fall under your realm, right? So your remit. So Songs the Pure Tone and Margaret, Margaret's Road. Um they're separate companies, and you have sub-publishing partners on a major level with those two. Is that right?

Global Publishing And Collections

SPEAKER_00 8:07

Kind of correct. Yeah. We don't have to bore the listeners with the minutiae, but basically the two different companies that you mentioned are specific to PROs here in America. So one is our ASCAP company, one is our BMI company. If the writers want to affiliate with one or the other, we have companies uh set up to register their works properly.

SPEAKER_02 8:30

Ah, okay. Okay, that makes sense. Um, so so there's no kind of particularly key creative or strategic differences between the two. It's just a PRO thing.

SPEAKER_00 8:42

Yeah, for those companies. There's a third company that's starting, that's a partnership with one of my songwriters, and we're going to start signing um young writers together in partnership. That's going to be a separate entity from the ones that you mentioned. But, you know, when you're signing to one of our companies, you get us, and you get that, you know, that experience and, you know, the decades of training that we've had to help you navigate, you know, a life in trying to connect your art with the public.

SPEAKER_02 9:15

Okay. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Thank you for clarifying. Um, you know, a few months ago, I was talking to uh Ralph W. Peer from Peer Music Group, um, and he was talking about some of the differences in nuances of collection around the world and the advantages of having kind of boots on the ground and partnership work. I mean, it's quite a it can be quite a complex thing, right? To kind of have um, you know, worldwide collection. Um, so your partnership is presumably a key to your collections.

SPEAKER_00 9:47

Yeah, we partnered with some of the bigger um companies out there, whether it's either as a traditional joint venture or a traditional uh administration partnership, um, where they have boots on the ground in these companies like Ralph W. Pierre was mentioning to you. Um, we don't. So it's a pennies business. You know, they're the pennies add up and they're pennies all over the world. So you want to make sure that there are local collection agencies to make sure that the writers are um being accounted to as best as, you know, as best as we can globally.

Tech Shifts, Streaming, And The Constant

SPEAKER_02 10:24

Yeah, yeah, sure. Um, I mean, you've spent if we just leap to the recorded side just for a moment, because it's, you know, you spent a significant amount of time throughout your career um in the AR uh field at major labels on the recorded side. Um, you know, you've gone through all of these different eras, right? The piracy battles, the introduction of social media, the beginning of uh, you know, the advent of AI, the streaming boom, all the rest of it, you know. But throughout all those times, music, good music just seems to kind of find a way to win somehow, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_00 11:04

It's um you have to not be distracted. And the reason that I got into this was because of a great singer and a great song. So, you know, the great song is the R, the great singer is the A. That will never change. So A and R will never change. The way that music is recorded, the way that music is distributed, the way that, you know, physical goods have given way to an amorphous format for the first time in recorded music history, um, you know, an actual format that's not physical. Um, that all changes, but you can get distracted by that if you focus on making sure that the music that you're working on is music that combines the great performer with the great song, then that's all the public cares about. The public doesn't care, you know, who created it. Was a thousand-piece orchestra behind the creation, or was it somebody on an AI platform like Suno? If it's a great song, that's all they care about. Yeah, good point. Okay.

Pete’s Path From Fan To A&R Leader

SPEAKER_02 12:10

Um, I mean, going back there to earlier on, what what was your starting point like in the music business, Pete? How did it all start for you?

SPEAKER_00 12:19

Well, I started as a fan, as somebody who was just listening to the radio here when I was a teenager in America and really enjoying not only what I heard, but why I heard what I heard. So, why is this popular and this isn't? And I was always fascinated by that, specifically with music. So I started following trends and charts and trying to buy records that weren't on the radio here in New York at the time in the 70s and 80s, and trying to understand, okay, maybe if this song was constructed a little differently, maybe the bridge would have been better as a pre-chorus, and maybe there could have been a better bridge. Teaching myself the fundamentals of song structure and arrangement and production just from a from a listener standpoint when I was a teenager before realizing that that could actually turn into a job. And then when I graduated college, I met somebody who introduced me to a guy who was starting a record label. And I found out that, oh, there's actually a job that would pay you to listen to music. Okay, let me let me try that. And 35 years later, you know, I'm I'm still doing it. And luckily they haven't, you know, they haven't found me out yet, and they're still paying me, you know?

SPEAKER_02 13:40

That's brilliant. Wow. Uh good summary. So was that that starting point there where you came out of college and found, oh wow, there is this kind of path for this thing that I am interested in and the way that you listen to music and how useful and resourceful you could be for other people. Um, was that starting, was that a re at a record company to begin with?

SPEAKER_00 14:01

Yeah, I was training myself um pre-all that while I was still in school. And then I got lucky where I met a friend at school whose um childhood friend from home had a dad who was in the music business, and I met him uh around a year after graduating school, and we hit it off, and he hired me, and it turns out he was a pretty legendary guy in the business, and he trained me, he mentored me, he was also a music publisher. So not only was I learning about the AR um skill set from a record recorded music standpoint, but I was also learning about the strength of copyright and the viability of music publishing. Very good. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 14:44

Um look time jumping then from then to now to beyond here, um, and I know it's very difficult sometimes to try and, you know, get the crystal ball out and look ahead, but um, instead of kind of thinking what the 2030s um might be like, uh, what changes would you like to see in the music industry moving forward into the 2030s?

SPEAKER_00 15:10

I think as long as there is a focus on what got us here in the first place, meaning the, you know, the strength of the artist and the strength of the writing. I think everything else is just, you know, cherries on the Sunday, for good or for bad, you know. Um, people are concerned about AI. I'm not so concerned about AI, because I think AI to me is just another tool in the creative toolbox, uh, the way that sampling was, the way that synthesizers were, the way that interpolation was. Um, and even if you look at distribution, the way that file sharing, you know, with with Napster freaked everybody out and upended it, um, we're still here. We're still talking about it. We figured out a way to use it for good. And I'm optimistic that we will do the same with uh with AI as well.

SPEAKER_02 16:02

Peter, I absolutely love that outlook. Um, and I share it. And one of the things that I find myself regularly doing in this current era um of this decade is trying to calm people uh when it comes to AI because there's a lot of fear out there, and I genuinely share your sentiment there. Um, I mean, if you think about it, you know, on the song side, if we forget arrangement and recording for a minute, copyright lies in the expression, right? Um it it always has, it always will. Where that source material originated from, or the point of ideation, or the piece of technology that contributed towards it, you know. Um it's still, if we could if we think about ideas that are created, right? Songwriters have to kind of absorb all those ideas, whether they came from their own mind or a collaborator, and then ultimately decide on the pieces that they keep, right? That creates the copyright that binds itself into that song. AI hasn't really changed that as such, it just generates more ideas before that stage.

SPEAKER_00 17:07

Yes, and as long as those ideas are being properly accredited and properly um, you know, compensating those creators, you know, the way that samples did in the beginning. Um, you know, samples weren't cleared and it was the wild, wild west. Eventually, samples got cleared and it became a, you know, just another tool towards creativity. This hopefully will be the same thing.

SPEAKER_02 17:34

Yeah, yeah. Actually, it's quite interesting to compare it to sampling because if we think about how big technology companies kind of harvest data, it is effectively a kind of multi multi-dimensional complex version of sampling, right? You know. Correct.

SPEAKER_00 17:50

Yeah. And hopefully, the um, you know, the creators who created these originals to begin with, similar to, you know, a a a Clyde Stubblefield who is playing drums for James Brown in the 1960s and comes up with a drum fill, he should be credited uh as he is for the work that he did that's sampled. Similar, if it's chopped up and now becomes, you know, something that AI has trained on, he should be uh he should be accounted to as well, as as well as all the other legal owners of that copyright.

Advice To Young Creators And Regrets

SPEAKER_02 18:27

Yeah, and that's a good point. It's it's the subject of provenance, isn't it, really, within the data that's the key aspect there. Because if we were to find a way to be able to remunerate every segment of a rights holder's contribution, then um it's kind of fair game, isn't it, really? It's difficult to argue with if something's been uh like for example, if a model like Suno that you mentioned earlier, um if that was a remunerative model and everybody was being remunerated, it it would actually be quite a decent system, wouldn't it?

SPEAKER_00 19:01

It will be fantastic, and I'm you know cautiously optimistic and crossing my fingers that that is where we're heading.

SPEAKER_02 19:08

Yeah, me too. I do I do hope we uh we get to get to that point. You know, I mean uh you know, technology just moves so fast, right? You know, it moves at a at such a rate. Um and it's difficult to kind of I suppose the the book lands with the music industry, doesn't it really? You've got let technology, you've got legislation, you've got in the middle, you've got the music industry. But I guess um it's about being as proactive as possible, isn't it, as opposed to kind of trying to be reactive, right? I think so.

SPEAKER_00 19:41

I I think that the creators need to create, and that the um the people that the models are learning from need to be uh need to be compensated. And you know, that is where we hopefully are heading.

SPEAKER_02 19:59

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Okay. Um Pete, may I ask you this? If you were to um spend 15 minutes with the 18-year-old version of you, right? They've just come out of high school um and you'd got, you know, these ideas that you've been working on, this ability to kind of, you know, draw pattern analysis in songs and look at structures and the things that you were alluding to earlier, um, I mean, it's safe to say things have uh things have worked out well for you, right? Because you've put the you've put the work into it, you've worked hard. Um, but if you could spend 15 minutes with that 18-year-old Pete, what would you tell him?

SPEAKER_00 20:38

I would probably say, don't worry and just stay the course. You know, believe in what you believe in and know that there is a there there and just be patient.

SPEAKER_02 20:48

Yeah, that's nice. Okay. And um any regrets? Anything that any kind of things over the years that you've thought, oh, I wish that hadn't happened, or I wish I hadn't done this this way. Is there anything like that?

SPEAKER_00 21:00

I mean, you can say, like, oh, I should have done this, I should have done that, but then, you know, certain doors wouldn't have opened that opened. You know, there are some things um vocationally, career-wise, that, you know, should I have um taken this opportunity when I could have? Maybe, but then, you know, then the future would have been different. Uh, should I have signed this artist who went on to um, you know, superstardom and fame and fortune uh when I could have, and I I didn't for whatever reason it was? Sure. But I think if you spend all the time um, you know, what if, coulda, woulda, shoulda, you know, what what's the point?

Building A Winning Campaign: Daughtry Case

SPEAKER_02 21:43

Well, yeah, that's true. Um finally, I know this is probably quite a big question, but I'll m I I'd love to ask you about kind of campaign rollouts. You've seen so many campaigns over the years where our an artist has um, you know, recorded uh You know, uh let's say a product like an album, for example, and the songs have come together, you've been involved with piecing everything together and looking over the processes, making sure everything can be as good as it can be. Um, have there any been any cases over the years where you've thought, wow, that's a great example of like how to get it right, you know, in terms of everything from like kind of the recorded side, the record company side, the AR side, the marketing side, the artist, the artist management, where everything's just moved the way you wanted it to. Is there anything like that that springs to mind everything?

SPEAKER_00 22:28

Yeah, I mean several. Usually the most successful projects um are the ones where, like a championship sports team, everybody is playing their role. Right. So when you try to do everything yourself, um, you're probably going to be less successful than when you know to kind of play your role on a team. There's an album that I was involved in around 20 years ago in America. I don't know how well this artist did outside of America, but he came off of the television show American Idol, and his name was Chris Daughtry, and he was a rock singer. He went under the name Daughtry, similar to John Bon Jovi is Bon Jovi, right? Oh, yeah, I'm familiar with him. I remember him. Yeah. And um we had around six weeks to make a something out of nothing, because back then, you know, you still had physical product that's sold at Christmas time, and the show didn't end until the summer. And you basically had from the summer through um October to get all the songs, record the album, get it into the record stores when record stores were still meaningful. And um, unfortunately, these singers, as part of the popularity of the television show, needed to spend 80% of that available time on tour going and you know, contractually obligating um them to spending time, you know, market to market, um, kind of seizing on the popularity of that season of the show. So we had around six weeks to make an entire album from nothing. And I think if it were just all on one person, um, it wouldn't have worked. But there were five of us. There was myself, the record producer, the artist, uh, his manager, and another AR who uh I partnered with. And the five of us were kind of like, you know, to use the American basketball analogy, we were like the starting five. And my job was as a um as a point guard, like the guy who's calling the play, going out and finding the songs. And then you had the artist who was the center and the producer who was the forward and all of these um positions, and everybody played them exactly right. And the record was right. We made the right record with the right songs, the right players, and the right singer for the right audience. And we ended up selling seven million copies of that album, uh, an album that we made in six weeks. And that like made me realize, huh, no wonder, you know, when you see these championship teams win year after year after year, it's because everybody is playing their position. And when you do it right, you know, again, it works for the public because it's seamless for the public. They don't want to know what goes on behind the curtain. But when it gets to them, it's right, it feels right, and they, you know, they vote with their their dollars at the time to go out and and buy the uh buy the records, or now, you know, with their time equity of being able to spend time streaming it, or go out and buy a ticket or a t-shirt.

SPEAKER_02 25:43

Yeah, well put. Yeah, yeah. Uh uh teamwork makes the dream work. Um, and uh if people don't notice the teamwork, that means the team's working, right?

SPEAKER_00 25:53

Yeah, 100%. I mean, my my whole the way that I describe AR is that if I do my job really, really, really well, you will never know my name. You'll know the projects that I worked with, and you'll know the artist whose name is on the cover of the music, but you will never know my name. It's kind of the invisible fingerprints theory. Like my fingerprints are all over these records, but you will never know. And then that's the way we like it, because I can walk down the street with an artist, he gets mobbed, and you know, I can go off about my business and nobody cares.

SPEAKER_01 26:26

Yeah.

Invisible Fingerprints Of Great A&R

SPEAKER_02 26:28

That's very appealing. Um, that's a great way to finish. I really appreciate it, Pete. I really appreciate your time, your openness about this. Um, I uh I I mentioned this before I hit record, but I love your podcast as well, Rock and Roll High School. Um, are you going to be carrying that on going forward? Have you got lots of plans there as well?

SPEAKER_00 26:48

Yeah, we already have uh the next 10 or 15 episodes in the can ready to go. Um, this season should take us to our first 100 episodes, which is a nice um benchmark to have. We started the podcast as a way to educate our um employees inside of Atlantic Records and the Warner Music Group about the history of music. And then we realized it was bigger than that because who doesn't want to know how the this music and these songs were created, and who better to tell those stories than the artists themselves in their own words. So to be able to talk to the people who have literally been responsible for the music that we've all grown up listening to, it's it's an honor.

SPEAKER_02 27:33

Wow. I'm glad you mentioned that because I did read that um uh somewhere online of how the how the podcast started. Well, its original purpose, you know, that you mentioned there. Um wow. I I can't think of any other podcast that ever started for that purpose. But yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:52

I mean, it's it's enjoyable because it's something that I personally have always liked, the stories behind the songs and the stories behind the music. And it gives me an opportunity for every episode that you know that I prepare for to really deep dive, go back to the music, remember why we all fell in love with this stuff in the first place. It's great.

Rock And Roll High School: Origin And Mission

SPEAKER_02 28:14

Yeah, yeah. And that makes a lot of sense to do it like that as well, because you know, there's a certain expectation, let's say, for example, on music creators, whether they're composers, producers, writers, etc., uh, on understanding the kind of the mechanics of the business behind music, but then we we expect everybody at the record companies, the music publishers, to have a good grasp of everything that's happened the last 70 years, right? And that's pretty hard if you haven't been introduced to it before. So it's a great concept for stars and the city.

SPEAKER_00 28:43

And it's a fun thing to share because who doesn't love the music? And that it that's what I found inside of Atlantic Records when I was um running the AR department there is I found that the kids who are a lot younger than I was didn't know this stuff, but it's they didn't know it not because they didn't want to know it, they didn't know it because no one ever taught them. So to be able to sit in a room with them and say, you know, hey, this is this is Chuck Berry, you should know who this is. You know, these are the Everly brothers, you should know who this is. This is James Brown, you should know who this is. And, you know, then all of a sudden they come up to me a few weeks later and they're like, you know, I just spent the last week listening to the entire Motown catalog. Like, and I never listened to it before, and it's amazing, so thank you for that. And then we can follow that up with a conversation with somebody like the late great Lamont Dozier, who came in to the offices of Atlantic, and I was able to interview for an hour and a half and just take questions from the audience, and he was telling these incredible stories of how these songs were written and produced, like the story about how he was um he was doing something he probably shouldn't have done with um somebody who was not his girlfriend at something he referred to as the no-tell motel. And one day his girlfriend found out about it, knocked on the door. And, you know, what does a songwriter do in that situation? Well, I could freak out and I could panic, or this is a great idea for a song. And that's where Stop in the Name of Love came from. So if he hadn't, you know, come and told us this story, you know, we we'd be uh we'd be um, you know, a lot worse off uh just understanding, you know, the context and the color of where these great songs come from.

SPEAKER_02 30:29

Oh, God, absolutely. And then of course, you know, for for for staff members, uh, let's say, for example, Atlantic Records, you know, by becoming more informed on, let's say, certain artists and the history of Motown, et cetera, they then when they listen to Bruno Mars's new music, they're like, okay, we've got a bit more context now.

SPEAKER_00 30:48

This makes more sense. 100%. And that was the whole thing because I was saying to my young AR guys, I was like, if you want to sign a folk singer, like, you know, a modern folk singer, whether it's Boni Vare or Lizzie McAlpine or whoever comes next, you know, Jesse Wills, whoever it is. Um, and they grew up on their grandparents' record collection and the grandparents listen to Phil Oaks, and you don't know who that is, you know, that's a ding on you. Because if they go across the street to another company and the AR person knows that, you know, you've got one strike against you. So you gotta know this stuff.

SPEAKER_02 31:22

Yeah, that's a good point. That's a very, very, very good message. Um, Pete, you're a top guy. I appreciate you. You are, you're a top dude. Um, and uh, you know, good luck with everything you're doing. Um, not that you need it, right? Well, we all need a little bit of luck, no matter where we are and what we're doing, right? But uh always, always. Thank you. Uh but I do, I do. I wish you the best. Uh I hope more hit songs come your way and everything else. And uh, I really appreciate you giving your time here today.

SPEAKER_00 31:51

Thank you, Johnny. I appreciate what you're doing for the business as well with the uh music business buddy podcast, and uh appreciate you having me on.

Teaching Music History To New Teams

SPEAKER_02 31:58

Oh, thank you. Okay, there we go. Wow, what interview. Um, yeah, wow. What a guy, right? You know, humble, right? And uh just to the point about many of the things that he says, and that's that's how he's had to be, right? I mean, the things that he's achieved in his career are are utterly phenomenal. In fact, in many ways, the kind of things that he's done can't really be repeated in the same way because uh his career spans from a time where we know that old industry, right, the sort of pre-digital, and everything that came with that into where he's at now. And like I said to him in the interview, you know, he's still here, he's still doing it, he's still innovating. Uh I mean, he's still got that hunger, he's still got that drive. I mean, it's impossible uh not to be inspired by him. Um I it was a real joy and honour uh for me to spend time uh talking to him. I hope you gained a lot uh from listening to the things that he said and go and read a little bit more about him and understand his work, right? He's a modest guy, he doesn't like the limelight, but my goodness me, if the things that he's achieved in music are legendary. And I think sometimes, you know, in years that go by in the future when people look back and they say, Wow, wasn't that person great? I love the idea of saying to somebody to their face whilst they're here, you're a legend, right? I think Pete that fits that description for multiple reasons. Uh anyway, I hope you enjoyed it. Okay, wherever you are, have a great day. Feel free to reach out to me with questions, with queries. I'm here to help, right? That's the purpose of me being here and doing this is to try and guide people, try and be resourceful if I can be. And I'm learning as well, right? Aren't we? All we never stop learning. There's always new things, always new things to look at, always trends and changes and technological differences between this and that. It never ends. That's why I'm here, right? Okay, have a great day, and may the force be with you.