IAM060 – Consultant, A&R Man Journalist Helps Support Heavy Metal Artists [EXPLICIT]

Intro 0:02

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 0:27

Hello, hello, hello, this is Gresh from the I AM CEO Podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Matt Bacon of Dropout Media. Matt, it is awesome to have you on the show.

Matt Bacon 0:37

Thank you so much for having me here. This is pretty great.

Gresham Harkless 0:40

Awesome, awesome, awesome. Well, what I wanted to do was read a little bit more about Matt so you can learn a little bit more about him and all the awesome things that he's doing. Matt Bacon is a consultant, A&R man and journalist specializing in the world of heavy metal having worked with everyone from glam rock icon Phil Collen of Def Leppard to black metal titans Enslaved by way of legendary thrashers, Exhorder, as well as labels including Prophecy Productions and Ripple Music. He has dedicated his life to helping young bands develop having started his own blog at the age of 14, he views his career and artists development as a hobby that got out of hand. In 2015 he formed Dropout Media in order to better support the artists he loves. They sit here now years later, with countless tours booked records released and deal sign and he's loving every minute of it. Matt, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

Matt Bacon 1:32

Presumably.

Gresham Harkless 1:33

Awesome, awesome, awesome. Well, the first question I have is if you can expound a little bit more upon your bio, and tell us a little bit more about your CEO story, what led you to start your business.

Matt Bacon 1:42

A lot of it just kind of came out of only caring about black metal? Right? Like, if you're, I grew up, I mean, I went to high school in France, right. And I went to like, a private high school just because that's how it works, if you're an expat, and just nobody there cared about, like, music that was interesting to me, if that makes sense. So I started this blog, because I was like, oh, maybe this way I can, like meet the other 14 year olds really into Darkthrone, because that definitely exists. And so you know, and that kind of turned into this thing, where I was going to shows and I was forcing the scene and booking shows, and then ended up going to college thinking again, that Oh, and finally meet people who were like, really into black metal. And I didn't, because nobody explained these things to me, which wasn't anyone's fault. It was just situations, right. And so I ended up dropping out to go work with my buddy James at independent music promotions, and I moved to New York, fucking hustled, didn't work out after a few months. But one of the reasons why it wasn't working out, was because I always was really into kind of sitting with the artists and being like, Hey, man, here's some ways to like better market yourself. And it would kind of take away from like, the actual PR thing. You know what I mean? Then when I ended, working with James, a couple of the bands were like, Yo, can we like pay you to like, keep telling us how to do marketing. And, you know, so it kind of was that was just working with that. And then this guy, Gideon King, from Low King, hedge funds, kind of took me under his wing and taught me a bunch of shit about just running businesses. And I was like, fucking 19. It was ridiculous. And it kind of just slowly grew from there. I got my first employee, I think two years ago, basically. And now I have a team of like, five dudes I work with, which is pretty cool. And yeah, you know, we just keep modifying services and making spreadsheets that flow more smoothly. You know, I got to pick up big thing that kind of got things moving was working with Purple music, kind of starting in late 2016, I want to say, just another mentor and Todd severing the head of the label, who kind of brought a lot to me. Same with working with Prophecy Productions, which I've been doing for like six months and getting to finally like, just think about black metal when I wake up. Of course, that's sort of tied into, oh, well, if I understand the music business, I kind of understand business. So I started doing business consulting for like, CrossFit gyms, which don't ask me how. But that's sort of, in a nutshell.

Gresham Harkless 4:10

Nice, nice, nice, nice good to hear, like this idea of like, kind of scratching your own niche, so to speak, because, like you said, you're just kind of creating something just because it was a hobby. And next thing, you know, you have a business, you have employees and a whole team in front of you. So I wanted to drill a little bit down. I know you touched a little bit on it about your products and services. So how exactly do you help serve the clients that you work with.

Matt Bacon 4:31

What I noticed very early on, right, because when I was in high school, I would write a review of a band every day. Right? And I my big focus was unsigned bands, because I was 16. I didn't know how to get promos for signed bands. So like, just kind of by being like a curious kid. I would see things that bands were doing where I'd be like, Oh, the bands that don't have Facebook pages clearly do worse than the bands that have Facebook pages, you know, and then oh, the bands who do their bio this way, are clearly better off than bands who do their bio that way, you know. And so I kind of took that understanding of just being deeply immersed in the scene, and brought that kind of to the forefront. And what I did was I sort of built, I've built and I'm building tools that sort of are just like marketing tools you'd see for any other small business, but they're catered to musicians, right. So it's like, here, we're going to build out a marketing plan. But it's going to make sense for musicians, we're not going to deal with a lot of the bullshit that maybe normal small businesses deal with, although I enjoy some of that stuff. And I like to work on that. On the side, it's just sort of giving musicians a clear way to market themselves beyond getting a bunch of reviews, because you can get a bunch of reviews. And that's cool. But that doesn't actually do anything, unless you've got a plan to follow it up.

Gresham Harkless 4:31

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And exactly is it helping to move the needle as well, because like, end of the day, a lot of musicians are people that are really, really great at what it is that they do. But a lot of times they don't have like that business background. So being able to kind of lean on somebody like you is huge for them to be able to be successful, not just from a musician's standpoint, but also from a business standpoint. So I wanted to drill down a little bit deeper and ask you for what I call your secret sauce, like what do you feel kind of distinguishes you and makes you unique.

Matt Bacon 6:11

Working 16 hours a day, and answering emails fucking quickly. Like, literally, if you want to make money, the number one thing you can do is have an under one hour turnaround time on emails, like, I'm sure there's other things people do that make them a lot of money. And there's things I do that feed into that, like you have to have a good product, etc, etc. But if you respond quickly to emails, and you're someone people know, they can get in touch with at the drop of a hat, they're going to want to work with you because people value in in a age where no one has any attention span. People value response time.

Gresham Harkless 6:45

Yeah, no, it's huge. And and I think that's all across industries that I've seen is that a lot of times people don't follow up, and especially if you can do that in under an hour, or you can respond to an email or, or phone call or whatever. And quickly, that can definitely, you know, set you apart. So the thing that's a huge thing.

Matt Bacon 7:00

In sort of the Facebook Messenger era, I think that people like me, who kind of grew up communicating with Facebook Messenger, I find that to be a lot more automatic, you know, and I think that having that automatic response, just being able to say, Yo, what's up? Go miles.

Gresham Harkless 7:14

No, you're absolutely right, where you kind of always connected and instantaneously, you can provide a response, or whatever somebody's looking for is huge. So what I wanted to do was switch gears a little bit, and ask you for what I call a CEO hack. And this might be an app or book or it might be a habit that you have, but it's something that makes you more efficient and effective as a business owner.

Matt Bacon 7:33

There's a couple key things I do outside of the answering emails quickly. One thing is I have a checklist of shit I do every day. So and this is like writing a review, because I still have that blog from when I was 14, you know, introducing to people sending three relevant articles to people in my network, the list goes on, you know. So that means that on any given day, like even if I feel like I have a shitty day, and I didn't get a lot of stuff done, I can still look back and be like, Oh, well, at least I you know, wrote an article on went running. And you know, at least there's five or six things like that done, even if they're the basic things, you know, the other key, in my experience has sort of been meditation, I try to meditate for half an hour a day, 15 minutes before I start my day, 15 minutes before dinner, and then I have like an evening work time. And then that sort of keeps you balanced. Especially I think, at the end of the day, if you're listening to this, you're probably in some sort of customer service type position, right? Like you've got to deal with other people. And that can be stressful and overwhelming. So taking the time to meditate has completely changed my life. And then of course, there's just that thing about reading a book every week. And obviously, you can't always do that, especially like I've got live gotta go to a lot of shows, I went to 10 shows in the last 13 days. So I didn't read a book, unfortunately. But I think like Mark Cuban reads for three hours a day, and he's fucking Mark Cuban. You know what I mean, like, and I don't care that you're reading articles on the internet. Like, that's very informative, I'm sure. But for whatever reason, the human brain gets better when you sit the fuck down and read a fucking book, like, and it's not hard to find books that are going to directly help your career or be directly relevant to your interests. I always encourage people to kind of balance the books they read, I try to I have a rotation like I'll read a like a biography, a nonfiction historical text, a piece of like fantasy or some other sort of fiction, and then a marketing book so so that I never like burned myself out. You know, if you fucking read, you will fucking succeed. Like that's literally all that matters.

Gresham Harkless 9:33

I love that quote. If you fucking read, you will fucking succeed, so we can get that on T-shirts. There we go. So now I wanted to ask you for what I call is a CEO nugget. So this might be something he might have already touched on before but this is more of a word of wisdom or piece of advice you might have for business owners.

Matt Bacon 9:51

Keep pushing and keep kind of being grateful and positive and just generally be present. Because if you're just present over a course of time, and people start to just respect to that in and of itself, you know, I think people, if people see that you take have the where with all to show up, they're going to care, you know what I mean. And this can be showing up in terms of always being on time for conference calls, it can be showing up in my role, it's often just being at shows, you know what I mean, if you take the time to just be there, be present, and then just are nice to people that's going to go very far might take time. But eventually, you're going to start to meet people who introduce you to other people. And that kind of evolves. You know, just last night, just because I went to this show, it was one of my artists that wasn't expecting anything other than to hang out with the artist, and I met the metal director for Google music. Like, I wasn't expecting that I just was present. And it came, you know what I mean?

Gresham Harkless 10:55

It's huge. And just like going back to also being active, and like you saying, just showing up and being there and be impressed, sometimes opportunities, kind of dropping or falling your laps on time. So it's great to kind of hear that's been consistent with you. And now I wanted to ask you for what is my favorite question, which is kind of like the definition of being a CEO, and we're hoping to have different CEOs on this podcast. So I want to ask you, Matt, what does being a CEO mean to you.

Matt Bacon 11:18

Working your fucking face off until you puke? Like that is like, like, Do you think I'm exaggerating, but like, there is a nonzero amount of days, or I'll work until the point where I'm bent over a toilet. And that's just like, and I'm fucking sober. But like, so like, that's just the level of dedication you need to have sometimes, right is you need to just be able to be like, I'm going to get everything I need to get done. And like, all go to bed sometimes shaking, but I got what I needed to get get done. You know, and that's, and you need to know when you need to step back. Like, I don't usually take weekends as we kind of stepped back a little bit did some hardcore shit with my hardcore friends. But like, most of the time, you have to push through and work your fucking face off, you know.

Gresham Harkless 12:02

Yeah, I mean, that definitely hits home because a lot of people forget, you know, how difficult it is running a business and understanding like what the failure rate is for those people that do even start to run businesses is extremely high and it can be high sometimes you just got to you know, roll up your sleeves and start working and get it done. So I appreciate that definition. And it's a good reminder for everybody that's running a business so I'm Matt I wanted to do was just kind of past the mic to see if there's anything additional that you want to let our readers and our listeners know and how best people can kind of get a hold of you.

Matt Bacon 12:32

Right? So a bunch of stuff. Check out if you like ambient dark music, black metal, doom metal, whatever. I have this really cool festival happening in Brooklyn on November 2 and 3rd Alcestis headlining there's November's dooms there so hideous, a ton of other great bands, Knitting Factory, check it out Prophecy fest, it's gonna be a blast. Other things follow me on Instagram @mattbacon666. Every single day, I put up a video helping band marketing and general entrepreneurial advice. I have a podcast dumb and dumbest, which you should check out. It's on Spotify now, which is fucking ridiculous. I don't even know how. And check out my writing at independent music promotions where I have sort of a music marketing blog, and to guys metal reviews, which is the blog that started at all when I was 14. Those are sort of the main things if you want to get in touch with me DM me on Instagram @mattbacon666. Hit me up on Facebook, you can email me anytime matt@droupoutmedia.net. I'm very accessible. I want to help you out.

Gresham Harkless 13:31

Awesome, awesome, awesome. I will have those links in the show notes. So Matt, truly appreciate you and all the awesome things that you're doing to help out these artists. And also spend some time with us to learn a little bit more about you. And I just hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Matt Bacon 13:43

Thank you so much. You too.

Outro 13:45

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening

Transcribed by https://otter.ai