Moderated by Michael Laskow
Panelists: Jim Thacker, Patty Boss, Greg Carrozza, Matt Vander Boegh, and John Pearson
Michael: I’ll admit that it really pisses me off when people say, “Oh, there's a clique at TAXI. The guys that you have on TAXI TV, the ones that are successful, there's a clique, like they must know something, or they're your friends,” or to even infer that really, really upsets me, because that's absolutely not the truth. But there is an inner circle of sorts, but it's not exclusionary. It's just everybody up here has earned their place in the inner circle because of the work they do and the way that they do their work. So, I just wanted to have a conversation about it. This might be a little less structured than most of the panels we do. From left to right, we have Jim Thacker, Patty Boss, Greg Carrozza, Matt Vander Boegh, last but not least, John Pearson [Applause]
I've known them all for a pretty long time. They are my friends, but they're my friends because I respect them so much. It's easy to be friends with people that you admire, and I admire all of you, and I admire your work ethic, your attitude about the industry, and the fact that each of you has become successful. You guys are what everybody else in this room wants to be. So, I want to peel back the onion layers and find out what it is that got you into the so-called inner circle.
All right, Greg, you're up to bat. How'd you become part of sync’s inner circle?
Greg: I joined TAXI because I must have seen print ads in magazines. I had music that was sitting on my hard drive and thought, “I'm going to join TAXI, and I'm going to shoehorn all this stuff in,” just like everybody else thinks when they first start. And of course, that doesn't work. The first year I joined TAXI and then decided to move across the Country from Philadelphia to Albuquerque. So, I did nothing that year. In fact, I moved the week of the Rally, so I couldn't physically even come here. So that year was a waste. Second year, that's when I started the shoe-horning process.
This year, we have a remarkable number of new members that came to the Rally. Tell them how bad it is to take older stuff and use magical thinking and try to shoehorn old music into current pitches.
Greg: Well, it doesn't work because you don't know anything, okay? I'm not being disparaging, but you don't at that point, what you don't know. What you probably think is, “I read this listing, and this particular thing I have is good enough or appropriate enough to fit this, and so I'm gonna submit it,” and what it turns out to be is that's not the case. It took another whole year and then coming to this Rally to realize that that wasn't going to work. And so that's when I got the idea to have to write stuff to [match what the company is asking for]. Just like Patty was saying, I walked in this door, and this was the most daunting thing I think I had ever done. I came in here and I sat right over there next to a gentleman in a white hat. I remember sitting right there. I sat down next to somebody and now we're really great friends. We've done 40 songs together, but, um, and I remember hearing stories, but, I mean, that took a while because I was still daunted. And I see a room full of faces, and a bar full of faces, and classrooms full of faces of people that I think are all so successful, they're here! They're doing this! How am I going to do this? So, it was really daunting. But the hurdle, and I tell anybody I meet you here for the first time, the hurdle is to come back, and come back, and come back again, because you need to come back to learn the next thing and meet the next person, and the next person after that.
So, I set a goal to write one track a week, which at that time, seemed quite impossible to me based on what I had done in past. But I met that goal, and I did that by reading the listings, listening to the references, and figuring out what I should do. And slowly got better at doing that, and finding efficiencies to help me work faster. In the next year, I submitted 100 times and slowly started getting more forwards. After that, I probably made over 250 submissions and had over 90 forwards and still had no deal with anything.
Michael: “Is TAXI really forwarding my music?” [Said jokingly]
Greg: That’s right! I think that’s the next panel. [audience laughter] But then what happened was, I did get one [deal], and that's kind of when the floodgates started to open. And then I went from that first deal to another one, and then I got a placement by the end of that year, and I’ve had nearly 1,000 placements, now. So, it just happens. The timeline is not the same [for everybody]. You're going to keep hearing that from all of us here. The timeline is not exactly the same. It could be a little bit shorter. It could be a little bit longer. Some of us could have been a little bit smarter. Some of us could have wasted more time. But that's kind of the story, you know, I don't know about the inner circle stuff. I'm probably just standing around the rim of the circle. [audience laughter] I don't know if I'm on the inside. The thing is, and I guess I'm stealing this from you, Jim, but exactly what you're saying is, you know, so I'm at the middle of my circle, and intersects with all these guys’ circles, and so my real circle is huge, and once those circles start to intersect, that's what makes this trajectory [to success] go a little more exponentially.
“So, the first thing I say to anybody who's here for the first time is, ‘Come back again next year.’”
And it's not exclusionary. That’s one thing I want everybody in the ballroom to walk out of here knowing is that it's not like these guys [on stage] won't talk to you. I can't think of anybody in all the generations of TAXI members who’ve been successful, the so-called “golden children” that act like golden children. Sometimes I feel like a grandfather at a family reunion looking at all the grandchildren playing nicely together. It's one of the great joys for me being the owner of TAXI; seeing these friendships, not just relationships, but genuine friendships, where you guys talk to each other, you collaborate, and you can't wait to see each other at the Rally every year.
Greg: Yeah, and we keep coming back [to the Rally]. These are the people who keep coming back [pointing to his fellow panelists]. Those circles just keep getting stronger and bigger, and bigger and bigger, and we want to expand them. So, the first thing I say to anybody who's here for the first time is, “Come back again next year.” And I'm sure we all feel that way.
Matt, tell your story.
Matt: Well, I'll start by saying, this is my 13th Road Rally, and so to piggyback off of what Greg just said, I'll never stop coming here. I don't care what's going on. This takes precedence over everything during the first weekend of November. I'll be at the Road Rally until I physically can't make it anymore. And like I see so many people through the years that come once or twice, and then they're just gone, and the career that they had worked towards building just kind of stagnates, and they go back, and these relationships that they were fostering here just kind of dwindle away, and then we forget about them, and then they're gone, and the person that I would normally call for a collaboration or something, now they're out of sight, out of mind. The career just dies a natural, slow death if you're not here. So, for all you first-time people, I cannot recommend highly enough to get back here next year, and the year after that, and the year after that, and the year after that!
I don't know the secret to my success. The secret to my success is I'm not a very good composer. I've been telling this to everybody at the Eat & Greet lunches, and they're pretty shocked. So, I've been in this game for a while, like I just re-upped my TAXI membership for year number 16. So I've been a 16 year TAXI member. That's another thing I tell people, “Don't ever let your TAXI membership last lapse!” Why quit? This is the golden goose. I don't know why people give up on TAXI like…
They’re not giving up on TAXI. They're giving up on themselves.
Matt: I think that's exactly it. And this is going to sound braggadocious, and I'm not a braggart. I don't check any narcissistic boxes, but I'm closing in somewhere around the 30,000 placements range. [audience applause] Thank you. Thank you. People wonder… like they're surprised and shocked when I tell them that I'm still a TAXI member. Like, whoa, you should, aren't you on your own? You could do this on your own? Well, yeah, maybe. But first of all, I'm not a very good businessman, so I'm not going to go out hoofing my own deals. I've got plenty of libraries that come to me and ask for stuff directly, but it's not 365 days a year. So, there are down times. And what are you going to do with your downtime? For me, I go to the TAXI listings. I still submit. You guys [pointing to the audience], I'm right in there with you, doing everything that you're doing, still submitting 16 years later.
“I'm always wary of putting too many eggs in one basket, and so I like to spread my music around, like a diverse portfolio of your stocks. My tracks and songs are little minions that go out and live a life, and they collect money, and they send it home to me. The more baskets that you have that music in, the better your chances of success.”
And do you get forwarded every time you submit?
Matt: I still curse out the screeners with the rest of you when I get a return. “That person doesn't know what they're talking about,” but then you move on. Anyway, my point is that 16 years later, I'm still a TAXI member. I still have lapses in my workload where I turn to TAXI to fill my [time doing something constructive]. I’ve got to do something. What am I going to do, just sit around and do nothing?
And there are times where I'm like, “Oh gosh, I've been feeding this one library too much material. Like, I'm always wary of putting too many eggs in one basket, and so I like to spread my music around, like a diverse portfolio of your stocks. My tracks and songs are little minions that go out and live a life, and they collect money, and they send it home to me. The more baskets that you have that music in, the better your chances of success. So, I've got music in somewhere near 50 different libraries. But you know, I'm not gonna be happy till it's at 60, and then when I get to 60, I want 70. You can never have your music in enough libraries. And what better place to find those than TAXI? Seriously, it only costs you five bucks to submit!
Give the audience the short version of you wanting to be a Rock star and then a Country songwriter, and how you landed on doing music for TV.
“Here I am some 30,000 placements later. If I can do it, you guys sure as hell can, because I'm not that good. You're all better than me. I guarantee you that!”
Matt: I always just wanted to be a Rock star from when I was a little kid, you know, I grew up on Guns N’ Roses and Motley Crue and all the hair bands. I just wanted to be on stage having women throw their underwear at me. That was going to be my life.
But time went on; I got older. I actually joined TAXI my first year of membership, and I had all these hard Rock songs that I had written. And as any hard Rocker out here will realize that's a very sparse category when it comes to TV music and artist placements. And most rockers are writing their own stuff. But what I did see was a ton of Country listings on TAXI. Country artist needs a song about blah, blah, blah. You know, Country was just a deep well of opportunity. And I thought to myself, well, if I can write Rock music, I can surely write Country. How hard is it? You got a dead dog, a pickup truck, and a can of beer. Dead dog in a truck. Let's write it in key of G, please. And I recorded 12 Country songs, and I remember coming to my first Road Rally armed with this CD, which, by the way—side note—did not show up at my house in time, so I had to have my family overnight ship it here for like, $100 because I was sure that I was going to be a millionaire by the time I left, as long as I had those 12 Country songs.
My parents and friends and family all told me, “Oh, that music's great. Like, don't we all get that?” [points to the audience] Yeah, those are the worst opinions you never want to listen to. Like, that's good for the ego, but not good for the industry. And I remember sitting in a Country listening panel. It was in one of the rooms upstairs, and they'd pull CDs out of a basket. And I kept listening to these Country songs that got better and better and better. And I went from going in there just hoping they would pull my song to like, “I hope to hell they don't pull my song because it's not that good compared to what and every other song before me.” Anyway, they did play my song, by the way, and it was okay. And then it's like, I had my hopes and dreams pinned on this, you know how it is. And then you get your chance, and you get a few cursory words: “I do this different, this different, and that different. Okay, next!” What? Where's my million dollars? I'm trying to be a star. So, I went home from that Rally, and realized that I was not as good of a Country songwriter as I thought. Turns out the Country bar is quite high—lo and behold—and you should probably listen to Country music before you write it. That's another little lesson that I learned. But I went, I met a guy here, one of the few guys that I met, because, like Greg said, it’s very daunting your first time, right? All you first timers, raise your hand if it's an intimidating experience. I feel it because I was there. We've all been there. I met one guy, my first Road Rally. The guy's name is James Kocian, and he said, “Well, have you ever thought about writing music for TV?”
And I didn't even know that was a thing. And I was like, “People do that?” And he said, “You’re at the conference where that’s what it's all about.”
So, I bought Robin Frederick's book about songwriting, went home, and tried to start writing music, but I had three problems: Number one, I didn't have a DAW. Actually, four problems! Number one; I didn't have a DAW. Number two; I didn't know how to produce. Number three; I didn't know how to compose. And number four; I didn't have any connections. So, I was starting from scratch, here. There's the short story of the woe is me part. Let's fast forward to 16 years later, and here I am some 30,000 placements later. If I can do it, you guys sure as hell can, because I'm not that good. You're all better than me. I guarantee you that!
Don’t miss Part 3 in next month’s TAXI Transmitter!