The Andrew Bilak Show
The Andrew Bilak Show
Ep. 03 | Nick & Eric Henriques: The Music Industry and Family
'Plan A Is Too Big For Plan B To Exist' - Nick Henriques
Who Is Nick & Eric Henriques:
Nick and Eric Henriques are two very talented brothers, who have carved out their own respective paths in the music industry.
Eric, the older brother is an Artist Manager. He manages some amazing talent in the music industry, which also happens to include his younger brother Nick.
Nick is a Multi-Platinum producer and songwriter who just won his first Juno Award for Dance Recording of the Year for the song 'Body.'
Eric used his confirmation money to buy his first set of turntables at 16 to start DJing and soon after he started producing his own music and fell in love with it. His brother Nick, almost a decade younger always looked up to Eric and naturally became intrigued in what his older brother was doing. He soon started sneaking into Eric's room and began to teach himself how to DJ and picked up how to produce music from his older brother. Fast forward to 2019 and Nick and Eric have made a name for themselves in the music industry's biggest stage and there's no slowing them down:
What We Talk About On This Episode of The Andrew Bilak Show:
- How Eric inspired Nick to start his music career
- How to make family and business work together
- What's the best way for an aspiring artist to get started in the music industry
- The in's and out's of the music industry
- How they define success
- What's on the horizon for this dynamic duo
Resources:
Listen to Body Here (Spotify)
Connect with them on Instagram
Eric - @eric89h
Nick - @nickhenriques
andrewbilak.com
If you enjoyed today’s episode, please subscribe, rate and review The Andrew Bilak Show on apple podcasts :)
I always try and give the artist what they want, but it's not what they asked for. It's what they really want, what they really mean. Welcome to the Andrew Bill ax show. I'm your host, Andrew[inaudible], and my goal is to bring me the best resources, the best people, and the best information to help you maximize and elevate your potential to live an awesome life. So I want to thank you for stopping by and welcome to the[inaudible]
Speaker 2:podcast.
Speaker 1:Yes, welcome to the podcast everybody. My name is Andrew Bilek and today I have the pleasure of interviewing nick and Eric Henriquez as these guys are two brothers in the music industry that are doing unreal things. Eric is the older brother, he's the artist manager and nick is the younger brother. He's a multi-platinum producer and songwriter. And these guys, there's no ceiling for what these guys can do in the music industry. In fact, while we were recording this at the time, Nick was nominated for two Juno awards, and if you don't know what the Junos are, they're essentially the grammys. But for Canada and after we recorded it, uh, the Juno's released and nick actually won a Juno for dance recording of the year for the song body by loud luxury. And if you guys haven't heard it, I'll link it in the show notes below. But it's been around for, I don't want, I don't know, I want to say over a year, but it, it's super popular song, very catchy. Um, so big congrats. And uh, these guys, we cover so much information, you know, they peel back the layers of the music industry and you know, the relationship, you know, Eric manages his younger brother and what that looks like and it's, it was really fun. It was really fresh, really dynamic. And uh, I hope you guys enjoy the podcast and for any of you who are enjoying, you know, all of the podcasts so far, I love for you guys to subscribe and to review on iTunes. And if you're liking the content, you know, please let me know. Shoot me a DM on Instagram and at Andrew Bill Aq and let me know that you're enjoying the content and let me know what you guys want to hear about in the future or if there's any specific people you want me to try and bring on, I'd love to hear from you so I can bring you the content and the people that you want to hear. So hope you guys enjoy today's episode.
Speaker 2:[inaudible]
Speaker 3:all right, I'm here with nick and Eric on[inaudible]. Eric is an artist manager. He's also the owner of greater than management and Nick is a multi-platinum record producer and songwriter currently nominated for two Junos for song of the year and dance recording of the year. It'll be our first podcast ever. So I think we're excited to like talk a little bit about the journey. It's been like some stuff's rent up recently, so we're just now I feel like we have something to share. So you guys have a really interesting story. Um, Eric, you were, I mean both of you are super passionate about music, but you're the big brother and you kind of started the journey with music at a young age and they kind of followed. So why don't you kind of jump into it and let us know how that kind of started and, and what that looked like for you. Yeah, it was a,
Speaker 4:I was just, I use my confirmation money to buy turntables to date, how old we might be and uh, and there wasn't even CD player decks back then and I was just like, you know, too the same records mixing back and forth. I knew I loved it. I knew something about the music was like, you know, there was some there, but we don't come from a musical family. Our family loves music. We grew up listening to a lot of cool music, but definitely none of us were musically inclined, naturally skilled. I didn't grow up playing piano or anything, but I tried and tried and deejayed I DJ for the, I had a couple of different like, Dude da DJ duo partners along the way. Tried it on my own. Um, and just, you know, started trying to dive into producing, cause I knew to make it yet to be a producer. Uh, I that was the end of the line there. Deejaying I think was like my, my, my peak, uh, played a lot of cool shows in Toronto, but you know, somewhere along that way, um, you know, nick started to pick up my computer, I'd be out partying, he'd be, you know, 12 years old at home and then I'd come home and there'd be like, may fully made songs on my computer. I was like, I didn't do this. Who did this? Like this is awesome. Like it that's pretty recorded. Yeah, exactly. I was, well, let's see. He's got hits built into it. Um, so you know, nick, then I would, I would actually fight with him about this. We would, we would, I would, I would, I was getting angry with him. I was like, stop taking my computer, stop using my, you know, and then I, I think at a certain point I realized that like, who was going to get the tape the computer for the weekend if I was one of the cottage and he was staying in Toronto and I wanted to make music that weekend but he wanted to make music on the weekend and there was just this whole thing. Cause you know, obviously we had one shitty old laptop from my mom's work that was already breaking down, but we at work and, but we made it work. Finally he gave up and I just started to produce more and I, you know, learned on youtube like every single other person does and eventually got good enough at it that we were able to release our first couple of songs. So that's super interesting. So just to give some context here, Eric, you're, you're 30 now. Yeah, thanks. Actually I don't care. I'm totally joking. I think I'm like the youngest of the 30 year olds. You just turned 21 right? I turned 21 in August.
Speaker 3:So, uh, going back to what Eric said about, you know, he'd, he'd be coming home and there'd be tracks being produced on his laptop and you were 12 years old at the time. Tell me a little bit more about like how you got into music. Great. Like you guys weren't necessarily musically inclined, right? But you know, it was there. Where did you pull that inspiration from? Was it seeing Eric do it? Like tell, tell me a little bit more about how that kind of came about. Started about, I guess I was about eight years old and there goes, like you said, 16
Speaker 4:confirmation by a little later than confirmation. But, um, I would, you know, whenever he was out of the house, I wanted to be my big brother and deep learn how to DJ. So I would sneak into the, where he hit his turntables and teach myself how to use them and got pretty good at it. And then he started producing. So I'm like, I don't want to start producing now. I had nothing else to do. I have no one else to like grasp on my parents. You know, my dad never watched sports so I had like no sports that I really wanted to play. You know, there was nothing else we had. It just had like snowboarding on the weekends cause my parents forced me to go to the cottage, which now I regret not going all the time. And then I had, you know, making music after school cause I didn't have any extracurriculars and have nothing. There's TV, homework, music, family guy. He's in a huge family that Dan, he knows every episode of family guy. You have to have your, your checks and balances and see. Yeah. The guy was, what's the balance for you? Yes. Um, so yeah, that was it. I'll just take all the free time I had and not doing anything. It jumped in and jumped. It was like a quick, within like a six month period. I noticed the difference and that's kind of at that time I was working at the bank. I was at Scotia and wealth management, the nine to five school at night. We didn't really know what was coming. I was still having some fun deejaying and kind of figuring that whole thing out. Nick was starting to make music that we thought maybe we could release. And I actually remember the day, you probably don't even know this story. I remember the day I was in the car on the way to night school. I was working uh, Scotia at this point. I was all in the car on the way to night school and I get a call from this guy, Mark Mendez, who owned at the time, you know, a pretty great dance music label. And he called me saying like, Hey, I want to put out your brother's release. And I was all, we still lived. Um, we're in a Tobego and I was driving by the Queensway theater and I was like, I have to pull over. It was like a moment to me that I was like, it was my dream to have a release and I was never good enough. And then all of a sudden my like 14 year old brother's going to get a release or 15 at the time, 1415 January, 2014 however old you are, 14th 24th 2014 and I remember pulling over into the parking lot filled at snow and just getting this like rush like okay, like now you know someone's going to have to look after him. So I was like, I can either continue to go down the artists route and I still did for a bit. Or like I got put on the big brother slash big brother hat slash learn a little bit about this stuff. So I started to take online courses, read just different books about artists manager. If he kept producing and didn't become a manager, I would be in, I would be in the worst deal still. Yeah, we've been offered something. Yeah, we've been offered terrible deals. I like, as a young kid, you get excited and you want to accept it. Not going to name any names. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're young and you get excited. You want to take a deal and you're like, oh my God, 10 years, this person is gonna support me and help me tour the world for 10 years. And I would've still been stuck in that deal. Yeah. And things would have been very different. So, you know, I'm through the motions. We started to learn. I had always had a little bit of involvement in the scene and knew people in the scene in Toronto. So I just started to like try and leverage those connections. You do the whole thing, sneaking into a sneaking into different um, venues to meet with artists and building relationships. And I thought that was like what I brought a value to the table. I didn't know how to manage an artist per se or like run a release, but I knew how to build relationships. So that was my, that was all I could bring to the table at that point. But I knew it was better than him getting stuck with someone that I didn't know or didn't trust. So
Speaker 3:it seems like that that Mendez a deal was kind of like a, a popping off and made it real for us. Yeah. They made it real. So in terms of leading up to that point, I mean, you know, growing up, everyone has these dreams, right? Everyone's like, oh, I want to do this, I want to do this. And for you guys, it seemed like you were kind of, uh, exposed to the music scene because of your brother, right? Yeah. So at what point for, I guess as a question for both of you guys, at what point did you realize the talent that nick had and at what point did you kind of say to yourself, wow, maybe like this is something that I could potentially do for the rest of my life?
Speaker 4:It was, it was, those are two very different moments because at the beginning it was, I still don't feel like this is, I do first and my life. You do feel like you have to do, I'll be like, I'm good enough. A lot of the times. Yeah. Okay. What are you[inaudible] like? We did the first release and went number seven and I was like, oh my God. Like we on Beatport at the time, that was a good sign for release. We had like three djs playing it, which yeah, it was like baby. And then, then we released another one a few months later leading up to Miami and p Pour, put it on, there's a list of 10 tracks, the biggest tracks for, for Miami that year. And then his song got included amongst like the biggest dance labels were like, holy, this might be it. So we brought him down. He played a couple of ultras at, you know, the years leading up to that. Those are really good friends. Charlie's always looked after us and Vinny, um, and, and you know, then it started to like progress and progress and he was putting out records and I was building bigger relationships to the point where I was like, all right, he's at a point where there's, we're at a turning point and this could be, and that's why the moment of like the identifying the skill versus a moment that we could do this were two very different moments because I knew he was skilled when his first three, six months after releasing music for the first time, bunch of accolades came in real quick. And then it was like, okay, few months later down, few, few years later down the line, I was like, I have to, you know, there were some people that were talking to me about like, you know, to take this seriously, for anybody to take you seriously, you can't be working and I to five, you've done it up to this point, you've done the side hustle. You need to now take it and double down and just go all in. And at that point he, you know, growing up he wasn't tempted by like partying and stuff and I was gone. I never went to parties or anything. I thought I, I'm mostly just kept myself distance from it and stayed at home as soon. It wasn't for any fact that I was like, okay, can't party or else I'm going to get distracted. It was just more like I enjoy making music more than I enjoyed and when I'm ready and follows, NFL is going out doing anything else. I, all I would be thinking of is I need to get home before it's too late. And my parents didn't let me go into the studio. Yeah. Cause it's so loud. When I would see that type of commitment at the age of like 1516 and 17 it's hard not to like be drawn to that even as an older brother. But even if you're just a manager of a client in general, like that dedication you, that calls you, you know? And so it called me. So the point I was like, all right, I'm gonna pull this trigger. My parents thought I was nuts. You probably remember the dinner I came home, sat down at table, and I was like, I'm, I'm going to quit my job. I painted in my two weeks. I ended up giving them a month and, uh, and then I, then I was like, I'm going to move away. Parents were pissed, pissed. I was pissed. Yeah. Um, and that's very traditional in the sense of like, you know, he would always ask this cool, like, cool hobby, glad you guys are having fun, you're playing shows and all that stuff and it looks real nice. But like, you know, it's going to hit you one day, you're gonna have to get a real job in the south. And then we always told them plan is too big for plan beater exists at. And that's a line of wisdom and yeah, and you know, it's, and we've always made sure that he stuck with that. And now like, just like last year we finally like, he's like[inaudible] and he's like, okay, maybe. I think Bobby, I think if we were, if we were like quit today and they would be the most devastated out of anyone because they've seen the work that's gone into it from both of our ends and the sacrifice and there's tons of sacrifice, you know, you have to be ready for that. That's like starting any business. Right? And you have to look at this a little bit. There's a big creative element to it that drives it a lot of emotion. But there's also a side of, this is very much about running a business, even though you're talking about a person, we look at it as a business and there's opportunity there to grow brands and all that stuff. So you know, fast forward, you know, now, four years since I've just over four years since I left the bank and you know, since then he made the change from wanting to be an artist to, you know, deciding that he wants to be dreaming. The dream that fueled up until a couple of years ago was you would see these big massive djs on stages in front of 50,000 people. And that was the dream. That was the end goal. That's why I made music. I wanted to be in front on the stage, jumping off the decks with the fireworks and the this and that. You know, that was the massive dream. And now the dream has totally shifted. And you know, goals obviously change and, and goals evolve. But uh, now it's just about making the best music because I, you know, can kind of fly creative being an artist and he felt too pigeonholed. Yeah, no, the artist thing now is much different and like I always tell people, I got into this cause I like to make music and now being an artist is 30% about making music and everything else is social media and all that shit. And I, I give it out to the people who kill it at that game. You don't put out stuff, become not just a viral sensation, but really build a brand and a business off of it. For, for long term. And that sense of gatekeeping in the business, those walls have been softened. You know, you're no longer this, these executives at the music companies and publishers labels, you know, even big managers, they're not held behind these big steel doors anymore. You know, it's, it's one really good email phone call, you know, bump in and you literally are our building friends in this business. If you're a good person, if you're humble and aggressive, shout out to our dad. That's always been his thing for us. Be Humbly aggressive. I think we do. I think we've taken that on as like a model for ourselves and how we conduct ourselves because a, you know, we've never wanted to come off like we're, you know, here for any other reason other than just he's very talented. I believe in him. We're building a cool story and we want to share that within, you know, my business, but also just within like everything we do that goes above and beyond just being a music producer and a manager. Uh, you know, we have this, this thing about us that we've always wanted everything we do to have a greater purpose and everything is always greater than just the music and greater than just, you know, managing. Right. And that was where I came up with my company name, which is greater than management, is that everything has a little bit of a bigger purpose. Um, you know, that's what sort of his future's about his right now. Yeah. We're have some really cool opportunities on the go for some amazing music that's about to be coming out to some amazing music that has come out that's taught us a lot. Uh, you know, in some of the best lessons that you can ever get that will, you'll never find in a textbook we've been privy to within our first year since he's had something that's really drawn some interest. Right. He was a part of, you know, uh, a massive record around the world. And that involvement, you know, has opened up so many doors, taught us so many lessons. So let's stop, jump a little deeper into that for, for people who might not know who you are or they want to explore some of your stuff, you know, what has been some of the music that you know you're most proud of are some of the biggest hits that you've put out to date in your very short and young career so far? Um, I think some of the music that I'm most proud of is yet to come out and it's stuff that a true that, that unfortunately isn't in the market for like massive success. And some of my favorite stuff that I've done is a very weird kind of awkward music that is just, it's, it's good to me cause I'm proud of it and it's very forward thinking, different and whatever. But unfortunately it's just a little left of center for, for a lot of artists to put up nowadays. But in terms of releases that he's been a part of or had some involvement in, obviously, uh, the first one that really opened doors was he did a remix under his last artist project, Galloway, which was
Speaker 3:a Josten Allis remix. And I'm looking at some slots on the wall right here at this beautiful plaque has long John's Alice is a
Speaker 4:Jocelyn analysis is a very, very close friend. She's an amazing human being and funny enough, she was the turning point for me from artists to songwriter. Yeah. And she was my first ever session that I got put into from a friend of ours who's now my publisher and dress from ultra music and um, he said, listen to her, I'm going to put you in the studio with this girl a couple of hours. You guys just make a track, have fun, whatever. Did that. I had no idea what we were doing. I didn't know that like producers got in the studio with the singer. I thought like, you know, in my world there was like, you send the song singer sentence of vocals, songs done, put the song. I didn't know all different the in between
Speaker 3:did that cement your, your focus and being a producer even more knowing that that was,
Speaker 4:but that was, that was the moment. That was the day when Jocelyn came over to my place in La. That was the day where I was like, I'm not going to do as heavily into the artists world. Now I'm going to be 15, 18, I'm going to 50, 50 at that point. And that's where the Galloway project came along, which was this pre-mix, um, that we had lots of success together on. But after that remix was kind of, I called it quits. That was my last release as an artist and now just producing for songwriting and song writing.
Speaker 3:Now there's been a, a very cool progression. Uh, you obviously went from artists to produce her. Um, you know, you've had numerous aliases that have been really cool to see evolve, uh, over the years that you want to share what some of what that progression was.[inaudible] everyone. So we have the joke amongst like our close friend group and I would says, I'll bring back Max of this next maximum set at this nod. Maximum was the first, you know, Eric's got the tattoo on him that says Max a, there's a start of your journey. It was a start of our journey and we uh,
Speaker 4:you know, had lots of fun playing shows with friends and this and that and it was so much fun. That was like the living of my first dream, you know, being able to play the show, did a bus tour and have the love of the crowd and people, you know, their phones, recording and shit. That was the best feeling for me. That was the same, to be in a club with a hundred people doing that was the same as playing in front of 50,000 people. For me, that was the same. It was so much love. I, I, I loved it so much. And after that was the Galloway project, like I said, was just three, three remixes we put out. One of them happened to have amazing success on Spotify, completely organic. It was something that a lot of people never really seek. It's no point, no one put like a lot of money. No one's in that. I don't put my secret marketing campaign that took it off. It was just organic good vibe song. Yeah.
Speaker 3:I remember we were a, you guys were, we're in la at the time and Andy and you guys were working with different artists there and uh, we had a conversation, you're like, Yo, we gotta we gotta get some more exposure around that.[inaudible] and I ran, I ran some Facebook ads, you guys. And that
Speaker 4:was really fun because it was super interesting to see like the fitness crowd and then the team. Yeah. And so it's been really interesting to see, you know, I wanted to see your guys' reaction because also it's been fun to watch you guys, you know, grow from maximum to Galloway and to see how the rest of it unfolds. It was nice being in La because as much as it sucked because the truth was, you know, it's so expensive to live there. He was under age, he couldn't go anywhere except for the studio, which was fine for him cause that's where he spends a lot of his time. But it was just different. I wasn't making a ton of money back then. And so it was very hard to do anything above and beyond just your like bottom line. And so we didn't, we weren't really getting the most out of it. So we both kind of started our PR, our journey in La on the back foot and we'd both decided after he finished school to leave and come back home, set up shop here, go to La as we see fit, you know, since then, you know, Nick had involvement in that val luxury record body and that involvement obviously with the global success of that record and what those boys have been able to do to take that record to where it is, you know, it's opened up a lot of doors and now we're going la more often. We're going to La, you know, there's a high record involved and nicks, you know, has, has it opened the doors for me to open the doors to bigger people that I can finally get in the room with just to show I am good. Trust me. You know, I had nothing before that song and, and, and, and no one trusted me enough. I had no, uh, I've improved. I have, you didn't have a club. Like it's a big part of the business now I can go in and I say, you know, we don't need to, you know, that song is not, is not what I do. It's not like that's all I am. Just that song like, yeah, now let me prove myself to you. Yeah. Let me show you all of the different avenues that we can go down and the police show you that there isn't just like one John[inaudible] involved in this and the people that we're getting in with now or Nick's getting in with now, this is goes so far and above sort of what, you know, we knew, I always knew he was capable of in terms of like his ability, but yet until you have that cloud, you're not there. So people get discouraged about that a lot and we're having that opportunity to have to be a part of a record that big a so early on. And I say early on, like obviously you've heard there's been years behind this, but it feels early on because he's only 21 and it feels early on because I'm just getting my feet wet as what a manager is like for years you fake it till you make it, you know, you'd just to try and do the best job and treat everyone with respect and do things correctly like you would do in any business line. I took that from what I learned in school, what I learned in wealth management, brought that to the table until I learn or beginning to learn about what actually involved in management, building brands, you know, giving back to people, finding ways to like really bring value to other people versus just bring value to your client. Right. Yeah. And so I'm starting to about that every day we're learning and he's also in the same thing. He's being able to jump outside of dance music. For years. He was the dance music kid. Now he's not just a dance music kid. He's that kid that you know, goes into a room, he can, he'll sit down with a songwriter, build a level of comfort and trust with them by delivering what they want to be hearing and then breaking them outside of their shell. And I've seen him do this time and time and time again and now that's sort of becoming part of what he's, you know, his brand is as a producer is he, you know, there's a level of trust there with when Nick Henriquez is on a project, you know, you're getting a really high level of quality, you're getting a high level of creativity to just try and give, give the artists what they want, but it's not what they asked for. It's what they really want and what they really mean. Cause a lot of people don't know a how to describe. It's hard to describe, you know, creativity and like, what do you want? Oh I want a dance song, but kind of hip hop buys. But with a full key twist and whether this twists when people try and classify it as that. So we try and give them what they want. So they're comfortable and they're happy. Yes. Perfect. This guy gave me exactly what I need and then we flip it on them and we say, okay, now we're gonna change it or do something a little different with it and see how you like it now and you know we've had a good success rate in that sense of like when we do change it, they're always like, yeah, that's exactly what it needed. You sick. So like I love, I like that sentence on that. Yeah, because they all have, the managers are on the flip side, the communication that I'm getting is people like when can we get them back in the room? When can we get him back in room? So right now, ever since we came back, we've been going to la on these like every three months and then it starts to become every six weeks and now it's like once a month we're down there for like a week of intensity and I'm watching him go in for like five days, 70 80 hours. In those five days he gives it everything and then he's depleted for like two, three days. He needs like a recovery time. So more and more I'm trying to have the conversation with him to say like we need a semipermanent thing down there because Nick's shaking his head right now because we need them with some more seminar permanent thing where we're not just doing things intensely like as intense as we normally do. Cause when I say to someone, hey, next coming down for a week, boom, we book up the week like this, everyone wants to get in, which is a such an amazing feeling and, and very humbling. Uh, but I just, you know, there's, there's value in being somewhere like la when you're having a moment and now is, we're in the middle of that moment and I'm down there. I was supposed to be down there for seven days. I ended up staying for 22 and nick can attest to this, what happened by be staying there is just a testament to what could happen is of the, as y'all go down for a week and you can just stay there for free.[inaudible] does it work down, back and down with it because people are like goes leaving town. I got something for him and I'm like, Oh damn. Like this is, this is, this is really how it is. Like I'm able to kick down those doors in here. We're so happy here. You know, in a beautiful studio right now in your like in the basement and a, it's like, it's absolutely gorgeous and it's, I know, I know you've produced a lot of of music with a lot of very talented people that come through here. So it's, it's, it's very interesting to see how, you know, your, you had this apprehensiveness about you to, to kind of move that to la. I'm just curious as to like what your main pushback is for that. My main push back is, is you, no, I like to work a lot and I don't like hang out with a lot of friends. I hang out with, I go to hang out with my parents. I go to hang out with my cousins, you know, I got my girlfriend here and she's also a songwriter. I, if I go to La, I'm missing out on a lot of things I don't like. I love I, the people in La I love, the people I work with are all very nice. I don't like a lot of the way I feel when I'm in La. When there's like you just, you constantly feel a judgment towards you. When you're out about in the city doing your own thing, you feel like everyone in their head is looking at you going, I'm probably, I'm probably better or more famous than that person. Like whenever they look at you and you're like, Huh, you feel a sense of like, fuck, I feel like people are putting, I feel put down without anyone saying anything and any to me and that's me in my own head. But it's, I've got 10 minutes hours. It's just me and my own head. But because it's not, but it's, but it's just, I, I just don't like that. I don't know. You asked me, I'm trying to call with an excuse because I just don't like it there. So[inaudible] or die that there's opportunity there 100% and you can't deny that if we were there for three months, what I'm my abilities in your abilities put together. We would do leaps in battle because they do their drain need mentally and I wouldn't work as well cause I'm not comfortable being there. This is really interesting because how long ago podcast, cause if we can keep going talking about Eric. Eric was shaking his head when you were speaking, you were shaking your head when the air, when Eric was speaking and so, and that's what leads me to this next question is it's a very unique thing you guys have here, right? Manager, producer brothers. How do you guys manage that best friends? How do you, how do you manage that? How do you balance that thing? It lovers, I think it works so well for the simple fact that you're not going to trust anyone more than your own family. There's a level he would never like. I can't imagine. I've had people come in here, artists, community that are looking for management or just lost their management and they want to find new management and they always come to me to go to him because they're like, oh, your brother seems great, but I always hear this like, oh, I've got to find a manager. I'd gone to find a manager and I can't imagine having to go through that being like, fuck, is this person going to screw me over like I'm meeting, I'm meeting with this random manager. Are they just trying to like screw me into some deal, take some money and then they're out in a year. Do you think has also translated into the success and your focus in your work and knowing that on the back end it's always going to be rock solid? I have nothing else to think about other than the music that's that's special right there. Very race. How to get them down to la. Yeah, I didn't got density. You're going to leave for your trip. You guys are leaving for Sweden today in a couple of years are first of all, my first trip to Sweden with them. He did at candorous Sweden two years ago. Um, but I love it there. It's like another Canada. Yeah, it is. It's like she loves it. Uh, it's like what's called good. I'm excited to go, like, you know, break down some walls there and do what I do. I had some really good friends who are from Sweden who like set me up with some amazing meetings, so I'm happy to do all that. It's usually our writing trips are to la and we're like, ah, we only need to bring two sweaters and no jacket. We're like, we're packing, we're powering. I mean, are we ever winter jackets? I got long Johns in my leg and yeah, like I'm not as stoked. I just came back from la two days ago, so I'm not stoked on going. I don't think there's a lot of sunlight this time of year either. No, no, no. I think there's like a few hours. I mean, like we're gonna be in the studio like 12 hours a day. Yeah, it's going to be good. But it's, it's, it's uh, honestly this travel thing and being able to travel with his sibling with like see the world with my brother, see the world and meet all these amazing people who like finally are starting to feel what I felt for years about his talent, you know what I mean? And have that reciprocated back to us and then just be able to like take that, be humble about it, be proud about it and then say like, how can we now give back? Like our biggest thing is just working. Like both of us are workaholics. We just want to be able to help people. We always say this, we definitely don't want to just work with everybody. We want to work with people. Like we want to work with our friends, we want to help our friends. So like when, you know, there was a moment a few months ago where we had to start working with the lawyer. You know, it's important that when you get to certain part of your career, this is a really good piece of advice. Your lawyer should be like one of the first thing you have your homie and our lawyers, the coolest and our, and we love, the only thing I cared about with our lawyer was someone that you know, understood this dynamic because this brother dynamic is very unique as you said. And it's very family vibe. Everything we do is very transparent. There's a 100% transparency here, there's nothing to hide behind. I don't protect him against anything. I give them all the facts and give him the realness. So the lawyer has to be the same. And our lawyer, thank God he's just, he's, he's a maintenance, he's becoming like a brother. He's got our back through everything and he's a rock solid human being and he's got a reputation like ours that you know to for the most part, we don't do anything to upset anyone. We're not, you know, unfair to people. So you know, he's got that same reputation is very important. And then same thing when we were looking for a publisher, we were speaking to many different publishers to publish night. My brother Jerry, he's been our, even my like day, like he's like the first like Eric obviously the first guy believe. But like I, this is one of the first dude though. I was like, okay, this kid's Kinda dope. Yeah. And like, and like I say, he's the guy who put me my first session. He's one of our best friends. He was before he knew that he would ever publish. Now he live, he lives two minutes away. Like he's our homie. He's one of our, one of my best friends. And now it just so happens that he's so my publisher and like another mentor, he's awesome man. The healthy part of the dynamic is that nothing's changed as we've added members to the team as like a team is slowly being built and there's an infrastructure being built around nick and this is the business element to it. There's nothing we've ever had to compromise in terms of the things that matter to us the most. It's just the integrity, you know, the, the humble, the aggressive part, nature that we've had, all those things. Never, we've had to compromise with each member. That's been added and, and um, and I'm telling you that a superstar manager is superstar publisher, superstar agent, whatever anyone looks for in this business or just business partners in general. As soon as you have to compromise the things that mattered to you most, you start to sleep with one eye open. You never know when you're about to get fucked on. And so we've never said that, we've never found that feeling. It's like it's definitely harder to do and you definitely have to, it's a, it's a road that you travel for a lot longer to get to certain pillars of success, but you know that along the way, like it's clean and clear, like the moment that we, the moment that nick has that next moment that you know, just levels him up and that's coming with some of the music that I know is in the pipeline right now. The moment that happens, we're never going to have to be like, all right, who's trying to fuck us? It's just like we're always honest with people. We do no wrong. You know, if people would take things wrong, they take things wrong. It's up to them, but we never say anything or do anything. We're never here to hurt anyone. We're never here to belittle or whenever here to squash someone to get ahead. You know we've always only ever wanted with that really affects him. Yeah. I've had to like have moments where I have to explain to him that like a certain business decision isn't necessarily cause they'll feel really guilty about stuff. I feel bad cause I, all we ever want to do is help people and if we're, you know, if I'm trying to get Eric involved in someone else's release, it may look like, you know, to, to their manager am I look like Eric's trying to steal them as a client or overstep. But to us it's just like I'm a part of the song, which means he's a part of the song I want we successfully in record, which means if the song is better, we do better. Cause if I'm working with you, we believe in you for work. We just want to hell, we don't, we don't work with people just to like run away with a paycheck and we don't do that. I made it very clear to me from day one when he was very young that he's not going to do things that he doesn't 100% believe he can bring value to[inaudible] 15 years old to me and we've had, I was like fuck okay. I guess that's just how it's going to be from now. We've turned out amazing shit. It would turn out really basic which like, you know what could have been great things for me but at the same time I, I knew I couldn't deliver on them cause I didn't believe in it. And I know it sounds kind of like, oh he's picky. Choosy with the has to be, you have to, there's very things that artists actually do to themselves to maintain their level of creativity that's needed to build on Jevity he doesn't ever compromise those things. He said, I never wanted to like on kind of questions cause you've talked so much[inaudible] you guys bring up an interesting point because there's certain things that people that are, you know, grinding away trying to make it in this business, they have to worry about some things that, like for instance, you've never had to worry about, cause you've had Eric, right. For someone who's, let's say starting out in this industry or they're at a point where they, they don't know how to build that infrastructure. What advice do you guys have in terms of who would you book? Who would you add to your team first? Or what would be that progression or lawyer? If you start with that lawyer first, there's a lawyer you can trust. Even before I, I would say before, if your, you don't have a manager, you don't manage your contact. You don't know any managers that you can trust right away. Lawyer first cause lawyer. You're paying them to, to be honest with you and they're not gonna screw you over. It's the best lawyer you can fuck you over. You know what I mean? It's a lawyer. Um, well they can but they can fuck you over. But um, yeah, um, lawyer first and then, I mean it kinda depends. I, it really depends. It also depends what your abilities are and what your focuses are as an ours. If you're, if you're, if you want to be a DJ producer and you're already great at making the music, you already got all the social media down pat, you have all the contacts, doesn't look like you need a manager right away because you, there is, there is, I don't agree with that completely because there is um, like any good CEO of a company and I think when you're an artist or when you're a producer songwriter like nick, you're the stat CEO and I think any good CEO will tell you this, that they'll look there. The reason good CEOs lasts, cause they're able to identify their weaknesses and hire according to sure hire the best people. So if you know that you're not business savvy and you, but you've got all this incredible skill, then you go and you've, you fill those gaps. Don't try to become better at reading contracts. Go hire a lawyer, don't try to become better at, you know, doing marketing releases and timelines for your releases. Go hire someone to do those. Essentially stay in your lane, focus and be self aware of what you're the best[inaudible] around your buddy. But, but also that doesn't mean just like, okay, I'm going to make music. I want to let them handle everything, know everything I've been on of it. Be a part of it. Absolutely. Why it makes sense to spend the x amount of dollars here and on a lawyer being like, man, I don't necessarily have that money, but in the long term it's gonna save me a lot more to me. And Eric have gotten in arguments where I'm like, Yo, what? I need to know that that's going on. And there's just, there's some things that like little shit that like, I'm just like, I want to tell her, I said, I want to know I'm, I'm just being nosy. I just don't. I'm like, oh, I don't ever get excited dude.[inaudible] fucking seconds. I'm like, oh, but um, you know, I think I always say this as a manager, you fail. If God forbid, knock on wood, something ever happens to me and he's left to figure this out on his own. I have failed if he doesn't know where to pick up from the moment that I left. Do you know what I mean? When I said left, I mean like I'm not leaving him and just saying like if anything ever happened to me ever, wasn't a bill able to do the job if he can't pick up and go, I failed along the way. And I think dod level of transparency with your clients is the most important. As a manager, and I'm telling you, I've worked in environments with other managers. That's not the case that there's always a lot, there's, there's managers that always keep aligned because they feel that without that line, they're Lucille. You know, if they teach them everything that they're not going to need that they're not going to have space. Trust me. If you're a good manager, there's something that you bring to the table that your artist's client will always identify the date cannot do. But then being aware of how to do that job is important so that that just builds their trust with you. And right now when I walk into a meeting and sometimes I prematurely agree to things on Nick's behalf, I try not to, but if it's a road la, when I prematurely agree to some stuff, if there's a really big opportunity that comes through, we know we got into a massive fight the other day about this rare, but we got into a pretty big argument on the phone. I was freaking out. I'm like, you know, driving in circles around the fucking block, like ready to, you know, drive the car into a pole and he's calling me every two seconds yelling at me and I'm just like, and deep down inside he knew it was a good opportunity, but I didn't do it the right way. And I knew as a good opportunity, but I didn't want his excuses. I just said like there's moments where we can, it's easy to say, just just do it. Just try. It's easy to say that as a man and it's, and I get it because one time the great, it's a great opportunity. It's so easy to say just do it. Just try. But it's not easy to go into those things as an artist if you're just like, not feeling something, you're not hearing it. You can't just like sit there and all, you know, it was a good song. Wasn't a good opportunity.
Speaker 3:So 2019 it's, yeah. Yeah. Off to a bang. I mean I was, I was in here before in the studio and I was listening to a lot of unreleased tracks. So you guys don't release it. I took a USB. You guys don't know about it. I'm going to be uploading it to Spotify but, but 2019 is there, are there any tracks that, you know, you guys can talk about that you're super excited.
Speaker 4:We, we've got, we've got one group from Toronto, um, that I've been working with in the development stages and helping them kind of get their feet off the ground. Then I missed flight school and there are these two great fucking dudes from Toronto insanely telling me to sanely television, everything you look for in an artist, they're like men that are aligned, like they've gotten what seen in other people that we've worked with who've gone on to be superstars. I see in these guys before attracts even put out there already at that level. They, they just every like they've got the social media down pack. It looks amazing. They look like superstars. They've got the marketing campaigns, the little uh, uh, what do you call it? Like, not gimmicks, not gimmicks, but like little things that are going to help catch you. And they're amazing at that stuff. The music sounds incredible, but name is flight school. Their first thing that comes out March 14th, um, they're doing it independently, which is great. Uh, independent artists don't rush to sign a deal. Yeah. Doris son. Deal deals don't mean shit could, but if you need to be the right[inaudible] get money faster. It's the only, when you sign a deal with a label publisher, the work starts then you've got to double down your time. No one's gonna do anything for you. Flood school going to be great. March 14th a song called figure it out with this guy named cubs on the features CVB zed. He's awesome. I ended, that's, that's one project that I'm extremely excited about because she you out on the flight couch, really proud of it. They've worked on this for over a year without saying a word to anyone to the point now where I'm in meetings in La taking meetings for him on a general basis and their name is done up and they're being talked about and there's not even music on yet. That level of excitement that built that we've been able to help build for them and along with their team has just been like to see this now popping off. Lawyers are calling me, labels are calling me, publishers are calling me for like links. They want to know the inside scoop. When you start to see that happen, you know you're on the verge of something super special in terms of like artist development from the music production side of things that we sit on and they're there. They're also great djs. Like there, it's Gillam veto and Connor cuts or the guys in flight school and they've been DJ and they'd been open for on Djs for 10 15 years. I still remember seeing Connor cuts when we were in[inaudible] city. Red Bull champion is incredible. Chad visitor's skills are, they're incredible. You know, they have um, Tim, Tim North, a writer from Toronto is writing all of the vocals. I'm helping on the production side. It's just such a, such a Well oiled machine that we've got going right now with proper health. I feel like nothing is going to go wrong with these guys right now. It's really, you know, I'm really excited about that. That's one piece. I think these guys are really going to blow us all. So like an element to Nick's business, which is should we've just taken a liking to. It kinda came naturally, which is just building camps for people. So a lot of times when like an artist is looking for, you know, their next collection of releases, um, they'll go into a writing camp mode where they'll, we'll plan a week in la or whether it be la, Toronto Street in London, wherever, we'll, we'll, you know, we'll work with that artist to hone in on what they want to develop in terms of what they think they want. To my point to the bar. Yeah. And then you what you want. But here's what I think. Yeah. And then, and then we'll, you know, nick using his connections, relationships, everything will curate the perfect like pairs of people to work together. And then, you know, artists will come out of that with like 10 new songs. And of those 10, you know, if you have, I mean all you need is one hit. But if out of those 10 you have two, three, four releasable records that go on to do well for you, they make these camps worth it. So far we've had an amazing success rate in terms of like placing the records. If they don't end up getting used by that artist, we'll go and place them elsewhere. So everyone is still making a little bit of money off it and part of other cool projects building other bridges for these people. And so that, that's a part that we're really excited about for this year is just kind of doing those for bigger clients. And so along with the talking about releases, there's also dubs, which is like, you know, the first big like Canadian DJ, DJ duo from Toronto and they were like the original guys. Um, we did a design together called somebody like you featuring sorrow coming out March 8th, which is going to be a big dance one. Those guys in the studio, I've worked so fucking high. I, yeah, I think they're like, you know, 10 plus years of experience in this music business. And we've already have those majority of those being, you know, playing in front of 80,000 100,000 people every weekend flying across the world, playing like hundreds of shows, making a lot of money. I'm sure to see where they're at now creatively as artists. They're in the studio every day, 12 hours a day. Now, whether the next there are someone else's dead, they're not partying, they're not doing anything but living in their amazing home in La writing music every single day.
Speaker 1:Wow. That's just absolutely incredible. Nick, I've got a question for you. Let's go back to the Junos for a second. What are Juno's for anyone who doesn't know what a Juno is and did the two nominations that you're nominated for have anything to do with music you've already produced?
Speaker 4:Yeah, so the two general nominations are for that song that we briefly spoke about, a body that I worked on and it super excited because the Junos are like the Canadian grammys and it's the highest award that you can get in Canada. Very, very, very exciting for us. Um, I think now,
Speaker 5:you know,
Speaker 4:looking forward, let's go get a grammy next.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's incredible. I'm pulling for you and I hope next year when we have both you guys back on the podcast, you not only have Juno's but also Grammy's underneath your belt. So a couple of final questions as we start to wind down here.
Speaker 4:Where does the, like the majority of the source of your inspiration come from today? Like where are you pulling that from everyday that you wake up and you go into the studio and you're like, this drives me. Like I will never get sick of this because of this. Um,
Speaker 5:I think, I think
Speaker 4:like as I've been like growing up producing music and stuff, I've noticed that, you know, every time someone says like, Oh, you should like take a trip and find some inspiration on the, I got always in my head I always thought, oh yeah, well this is like you go and you look at the ocean and you hear a melody in your head and then you go home and you write that melody. But like that's, I've learned that that's not what inspiration is. That's not like how you capture a drive to be able to do something cool. And what I found is that inspiration is just to me at least, is driving the car, listening to great music that's coming out. And me just wanting to be able to hear my songs comparable, you know, people that go, wow, this massive producer did it well but soda, Nick Henriques and I want to be comparable. That's all. I just want people to hear my stuff and be like, cool. Now he's one of the good guys side and he's, he's one of those guys that we can look up to. And I, and biggest thing for me is there was nothing, there was nothing for me to learn. Um, when I was like, when I was up and coming and trying to learn how to produce, there was nowhere for me to learn. But Youtube and sure you can learn everything on youtube and blah blah blah. People say that all the time. But like I didn't have a mentor and I didn't have someone to go to and you know, sure you meet people along the way, but no one was kind of there by my side in the production sense to kind of help me and tell me what I was doing wrong and how and, and whatever. But I want to know, I've always wanted to do is open up a school, which is very, very far in the future, but I always want to open up a school in Toronto to give a chance to, you know everyone from, you've never opened a computer before to, you've been perusing for five years, but you want to learn more and and on leading up to that talking on panels and I want to start doing that now. My only problem with it is I'm not trying to be that guy. Like yeah, I know everything. You can learn from me. Like I don't, I'm learning. There's so much I gotta learn about production. I don't know the proper way to do certain type of bacteria instead of questions. He's pulling inspiration from these opportunities. Yeah. As well. Like that's all firing him to work with kids that were in his position. That's like a huge thing that's going to drive him forward to like seeing how we've had some success where like I said, we had no one kind of helping on the production side and teaching me. Imagine if someone did have help and where they would be in the same amount of time and the same amount of grind that we've done it. They saved me so, so much further. Did people get jaded over certain things that happened because they're not protected with good management or lawyers or they're just, you know, they're allowing things to get to them. Where we've always tried to create a healthy environment that's always just gonna fuel creativity and inspiration versus getting caught up in those little moments that like, you know, that's age old quote. If it's not gonna matter in five years, don't get bothered from another five minutes type of thing. Like we very much live on that life on earth. There's been a wall that sick though. Like I let we live on that. Like, you know, without even knowing it or thinking about the quote, that's sort of the way like we don't know. We might, they got fight, we talked about it lasted for 15 minutes, 15 minutes later were joking about something. It's just not going to matter in the, in the term, you know? And I think that's a big part of it is racial people let things really get to them. In this business you have to have thick skin. If you don't, you're, you're allowing things that don't matter ruin your sense of creativity and inspiration. So happens to me. I get too emotional on things and then so I have to then dial back on that. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Well guys, listen, this has been really great. This has been like, I know this was a long time in the making and a I'm sure down the road down the line what we're going to do this again and we're going to hear a lot of great things that have happened, but for anyone who's listening, if they want to find out more about you, listen to your music, see what's up and coming, where can, where can they find, I'm on Instagram, on Instagram is kind of where everything goes. I mean I don't have like a Facebook drop. The handle Twitter at Nick Henriquez follow it and I c k. H. E. N. R. IQ. E. S. I love what you're looking at, Eric, as you were saying that just in case you messed up your own name.[inaudible] I don't know. I was looking at him to make sure he didn't talk anymore because he already talked. Sorry, you're telling him I'm listening for how many hear Eric's voice was so long. Long like boys. Thank you so much for being[inaudible] fun until next time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so there you have it. Good times and good vibes on the podcast. This was a really fun episode. As you can tell, make sure you reach out to nick and Eric and congratulate them on the Juno and see what else they're up to in the coming weeks and months and years as these two guys are going to continue to kill it in the respect of spaces in the music scene. So once again, I hope you guys enjoyed the podcast and if you're looking forward to more content, I'd love for you to be a part of that conversation. Please hit me up at Andrew Bilek on Instagram and let me know what you want to hear in the podcast. And if you wouldn't mind stopping by the iTunes store and reviewing and subscribing to the podcast, that would mean the world to me.
Speaker 6:[inaudible].