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You're listening to the Radcast, a top 25 worldwide business podcast. If it's radical, we cover it.

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Here's your host, Ryan Allford. Hey guys, what's up? Ryan Allford here, host of the Radcast. We're going behind the music today, folks backstage with some of the best and brightest in country music, songwriting, pop, all of the gamut. We got Kofi Henderson who did the Netflix special a few years ago. All around great dude. Jared Johnson from the Cadillac three, Jenna Andrews, BTS butter. You heard that song? Yeah, you have. It's all over pop stations.

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so you know what I'm talking about. You get to learn from them the ins and outs of the music business and all about tactics and social media, things that really cover the gamut for any business, but we go deep with some great guests. Really enjoyed this episode, so much knowledge, so much insight, especially for us, you know, you kind of listen, you always wonder what it's like behind the scenes with the music business these days with streaming and all the other stuff. Really insightful, really enjoyed this episode. We've aggregated all the best of.

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some of the biggest and brightest in music. Hope you enjoy it. We'll see you next time.

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Woke up this morning, way before the sun. Focus the wind, I'll be a number one. I'm in my zone. So I'm beyond. Come on, man. That is the first song on the Radcast. I love it. Hey guys, what's up? Welcome to the latest edition of the Rad, Radcast. I'm Ryan Alford, your host. I'm joined by the raddest, baddest country music singer. I know, Kofi Anderson.

01:48
What up, Rob? How you doing, bud? If you've been checking my playlist, if you've been, if anyone that knows me, they know I'm a country music guy. So I'm going to get as many country music stars as I can. And I got my favorite guy right now, Tyler Rich. What's up, brother? What's up? Thanks for having me, man. Yeah, man. Radically country today, folks. Radically Southern, I'd even say. My friend, Jared Johnston, what's up, brother?

02:13
Hey man, thanks for having me on here, dude. I'm excited to be joined by Elena, Lena Smith, hit producer, songwriter, podcast host and all around bad-ass. What's up, Elena? What's up, Brian? How are you? I'm good. I've got a super talented singer, Grammy nominated songwriter, producer, vocal producer, so many titles. I can't even keep my head on straight. Jenna Andrews, what's up? Hi, how are you? I'm great.

02:42
I'm awesome. I'm feeling like dynamite and butter all in one. Oh my God, I love that. I love for them to know just kind of like your journey. You know, I don't know, you start from wherever it makes sense for, you know, I guess your love of music and everything else. Literally when I was five, my parents bought me like this little piano and I just taught myself how to play. And that was kind of a thing where they were like, oh, I guess it's your musical. Do you wanna, you know, pursue this? And I think-

03:11
for them like they were never pressuring on me with something that i wanted to do so i mean from a young kid i just always was in every lesson possible with it like i would i was just always sort of a hustler trying to get on his you know anyway i could so i and i was from calgary canada uh... which is not a lot going on so a lot of the artists that would come in i would just you know ask the promoter like sells tickets to open the show and basically uh...

03:36
One of the promoters introduced me to a producer that I then moved to Vancouver to work with. And that was when I first got my first production deal. And then a couple of years later, funny enough, I put a song on my space that then got me a record deal at Def Jam. And then, you know.

03:52
The star continues. Yes. I heard my space in there. It's like, I love it. Yeah. So the date, I feel like I'm dating myself. Uh, you know, like the original music social media platform, you know, before Tik Tok or Facebook or anything else. Back in like 2005 when I was like 18, 19, whatever else. You're a social media OG.

04:15
MySpace. Yeah, oh gee, I had a MySpace. It was popping up. I definitely had like a bit of a good run with MySpace. You know, it was very easy back then to kind of get your music in front of a lot of people using that tool. So that's what I was doing. The only thing I would say is, at that time my music wasn't that good. And you have to have good stuff to like really make this work. I've kind of had...

04:42
I had a long journey, a very long journey. I'm 34 now. I started when I was 17, like full time. So pretty much half my life at this point. And definitely for the first 10 years of that, I had pretty much like no success at all. And I definitely, I always feel kind of weird saying that because I know a lot of aspiring people that listen, that's not like a very fun thing to hear and maybe a bit discouraging, but I always say like,

05:09
a lot of detriments that were kind of holding me back. Like one is definitely kind of like, not even just a language barrier, because I learned English fluently, to speak English fluently really quickly. It's more like a cultural barrier, I think is a lot tougher. I think it's a lot harder to absorb.

05:25
the culture of another country to then be able to regurgitate that culture in an artistic way and serve it to the people. I think that's a really tough call. So it took me quite a long time to kind of like really understand what was going on here culturally, business wise, like in the music industry, you know, and I would say kind of like the 2010s, earlier 2000s. It was not like as.

05:53
I don't know, as honest of a time, as good of a time as it is now, I think things have gotten a lot better. And so I had all these really cool influences growing up and dove into guitar and bands and all that stuff when I was in high school and then my early 20s and then all of a sudden, you know, guys like Keith Urban and Tim McGraw and Kenny Chesney and all that stuff. When I was departing from the band I was in and it was just going to be me and my guitar and I was going to be a singer-songwriter, I was like, what do I really want to do?

06:23
And country was like, just that obvious, like, I want to write songs about where I grew up, what I grew up around, who I grew up with, um, and the ex-girlfriends I can't stand, you know, and like all these like real, realistic stories where I grew up and whatnot. Your favorite beer and, and, uh, yeah. The long, the used to mo. Exactly. And you know, and country sets you up so nice for, uh, to be as honest, painfully honest as you want to be. My dad was, uh,

06:50
always a drummer, the grand old opera. He was a drummer for a bunch of older country artists in the 80s and early 90s. And then he started pitching in songs, which means, you know, like finding songs from writers and taking them to John Michael Montgomery or whoever and trying to get them recorded. And so I saw that at a very early age and remember seeing how excited dad would get when he got a whole quote unquote, a hold, which means the artist or the manager liked it for whoever. And I was just like, kind of.

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mesmerized by that whole thing, like the equation of sitting down writing a song by yourself or with friends. Then two weeks later, it's a recording by Garth Brooks or whoever. I just thought that was so cool. I started touring when I was 18, playing drums for a bunch of bands. Then I started writing songs, man, and got real serious about it about 2005.

07:50
you know, got my first publishing deal and from then on it's just kind of been a crazy, you know, country western ride. I got a Mel Bay guitar book, $4.95 and I started practicing G, C, D and E minor, four chords. And out of that I started doing kind of campfire praise and worship songs, singing in church because that's what I knew. And when you're under 21, church is a place you can sing on Sunday and Wednesday nights and get a whole lot of practice and everybody's still going to cheer for you because you're doing it for the lot. So at that point...

08:20
I realized that I had a gift and I always, I'm a, I'm a capitalist. I'm like, let me figure out how to get paid from this job. And I moved to LA and I started meeting different people and I realized that the music industry was smoking mirrors. I realized that there were a lot of people that were famous and broke. And I never wanted to be that. The business of country music, you know, you've been in it for a while. I mean, oh five, like you said, maybe getting your feet really into it with the songwriting.

08:50
I mean, you've seen a lot of change, right? It seems pretty cutthroat from the outside. It can be pretty brutal. Um, it wasn't until 2010, late 2010, where I had my first. Number one, that's five years, you know, like, and there would be a couple songs that got recorded in between there, but you're not really seeing money from that unless it's on the radio. So, um, you're living off that publishing, you know, the 30 grand a year.

09:19
And you're trying to keep that deal every year to look Nashville. So damn hot, you know, and country music is so hot, like in, you know, popularity and everything, it just seems like you could get caught up in that rat race and I don't know, get swallowed whole, maybe trying to like, you know, do your own thing, be your own artist, but also having the realities of that. I don't know the business and I don't, it's not even just a competition. I would just think there's, I don't know, there's gotta be.

09:47
some backstab and I don't know, I don't know. I'm not trying to pull drama out of something that's not drama, but I just would think with all that it's going on, it just would be cutthroat. Oh man, every time I turn the radio on, I hear something, whether it's a guitar lick or a lyric that's in one of my songs. It happens a lot with like, you know, you'll hear something. I'm not going to do the names, but the other day I heard something and it's one of the biggest songs, you know, it's going to be one of the biggest songs on country radio this year, probably. And it's a direct...

10:17
rip off of an old Cadillac three song. Wow. Because a lot of these guys that are big now, when they, when, when, when we started in 2011, they were going to whiskey jams in Nashville. They were going to riders rounds in Nashville. They were coming to Cadillac shows. They were doing so you're, you're hearing a lot of that. And that's also a way to see like how you've affected or influenced a market or genre, which is kind of fun, but at the same time, you're like, okay. All right. Okay. Get a little too combs.

10:46
Yeah, I thought that's who you were talking about. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's there's a lot of, there's probably that fine line of flattery and, uh, and, uh, what's the word paid, uh, suing. Yes. Law lawyering. It seems like hit artists or whatever. Every journey is different, but it's definitely a different path. It seems like every other one I've heard is like.

11:14
moved to Nashville with the dream in mind or something like that. But I know California pretty well and knowing how some of the rural country, it's a huge state, like, you know? And how popular and how it kind of did originate some of some major artists and things like that and country and things like that. So not that shocking, but what do you think the biggest challenge for you like, you know, through that journey?

11:43
Is it just like, is it just, I don't know. You don't seem to lack confidence, but like it just seems like the journey for artists, especially is like when you're trying to get that fan base and trying to kind of get the machine rolling or something. In this growing age of streaming services and constant just content at your fingertips, no matter what it is that you want immediately, that is changing. And there are a lot of artists I'm seeing that are absolutely just crushing.

12:13
independently because of stuff like Apple and Amazon playlist and Spotify playlist. And there's just a discovery aspect there never was before. And if you make it on hot country on Spotify and you are unsigned and you're getting a million streams a week or something like that from that, that is massive awareness on your product, right? Your song. And so it's interesting to watch change. Now in my time.

12:44
My situation, that was not even an option in my mind or even in reality. I was very set on my, I need to get this record deal and then we're going to take it. Country radio is still the biggest radio format of any genre, whereas in people that listen to other genres don't necessarily listen to the radio as much anymore as country consumers do. Country radio is everything to the country audience still. In order to get on country radio.

13:13
actual charting country radio stations, you have to have a record deal. And so if you don't have a record deal, you don't have a promo team that's pushing your stuff to country radio. And so it's just become like other genres, man, you can do it without a label for a long time. Country, I would still, my number one form of advice is go get yourself a record deal, but get the right one. Even if it's an independent one, even if it's small, you need a radio promo team because country radio.

13:42
is the spark to every career still currently. And I ended up meeting Paul Wall, a rapper named Mike Jones. Who? And they were at a urban network convention. And I asked their manager how he monetized, how he made his money. And I bugged him so bad that he really took 10 minutes and I literally wrote down all these notes and he gave me this blueprint on how to be successful in the music industry. At that time, it did change from CDs to downloads, downloads to streaming, but some things never change when it comes to business.

14:12
no matter what business you're in. Number one is scaling, number one is excellence, and number one is getting leads. If you do all those number ones, you end up pretty successful. And also, you wanna work hard and take care of the people that believe in you. I think that every customer that calls, everyone that wants me to do a live show or someone that buys my music, they believe in me. I wanna give them the best product possible.

14:35
I actually lived in Nashville for quite a while for about four years and had an interesting experience there in country music. So I definitely am a fan of country music. I did leave the town and moved to LA because I think at least at that time, and I don't know how it is now because I've been kind of out of that game for like five years now. But at that time, it wasn't a very friendly environment to females, like female writers and female producers. There weren't a lot of female.

15:03
country artists that we could even write for, right? And I think it's definitely a little bit of a stretch for somebody like me to write for Luke Bryan, for example, to write about trucks and beer and girls. I can, but there's probably male songwriters that can nail a lot better than somebody like me. You know what I mean? So definitely at that time, again, can't speak for how it is now, but at that time it just felt like it wasn't a very...

15:29
like friendly environment to women and there weren't a lot of opportunities. So when I moved to LA is when I kind of started having a lot of my success, but I still definitely am a big fan of country music. I even, you know, release some music as a country artist back in the day, you know, kind of played around with that. But I think it was one of those things that as an artist that really wasn't very authentic to me, I like a lot of things about country music, like harmonies. I love live instruments like guitars.

15:58
I love a lot of bendiness and vocals too. I still have retained some of that in my style now, but I think it was one of those things where I felt like I was really trying to stuff myself in a box, like trying to fit this thing everybody was doing at that time and make my voice fit it and make my style fit it and what I look like fit it. And it kind of wasn't working and I learned a really important lesson then.

16:24
basically be yourself. When I went to sing for record labels, they were like, yeah, you got a permanent tan and do country music. I don't get it. And then, you know, I sang for the R and B labels and they were like, yeah, you got a hat on, we don't get that one either. So I created my own label from the house and we had a beautiful roll up door. When you hit the button, it's called a garage was our office. And, um, out of that, we, I started doing videos every week on YouTube. That got up to over 200,000 subscribers.

16:54
And then Facebook went crazy and we're at 700,000 on there. But the difference is most people think of numbers. I don't have 200,000 followers. I got 200,000 customers. People that follow me have bought from me. Most people go, well, how many followers you got? I don't care because you can buy followers. You can't buy revenue. Money shows up or it don't. Out of that, I got on Facebook one day and made a video playing a joke on my wife when I said, honey, what does Y-E-S feel? She said, yes. I said, what is E?

17:24
why he has been she said yes, it spells eyes public schoolers and in the middle of that video I said Bravo USA we need our own show call me Alex baskin the genius that created Orange County Housewives Housewives of Atlanta call we created a country ever after. Mark Nets wife, my bernick rich chart, take the voice survivor only deal with people that win. Have you noticed all the names I'm dropping? They're all winners, all winners.

17:52
Mark Burnett, Mary Roman Downey, she was the star and one of the producers of Touched by an Angel. Okay, she's also done countless movies. She was Jackie Onassis in the Kennedy story, phenomenal. She believed in our show, Netflix put it out, here we are. Dropped a couple of albums, number two on the charts, number 16 in the world, Mr. Red, White, and Blue went viral on TikTok five months ago. We have over two billion flips on TikTok of just that sound.

18:20
and over 101 million streams independent, all that money comes to my house and my children. You can do it if you apply yourself. So talk about the transition. I mean, I know it's, are you still producing your own music? I mean, you're still doing, you're writing, you're doing all those things, but obviously you found a niche with vocal production and writing. What's that transition?

18:47
or balance of those things of being your own artist versus writing for others, what's that been like? Well, for me, like when I, you know, I was signed to Def Jam for like seven years and when I left the label, I think for me I was definitely signed right on the cusp of when all the streaming stuff really, you know, started in terms of like Spotify, mostly Spotify in terms of like that, you know, kind of like you said, changing.

19:15
what the industry is not in so much different than even when it first started obviously but anyway i think for me you know is we're just being signed for seven years only putting out that one song in as p p in like and one mistake in like seven years which is people put out in a month now you know so uh... so i think coming off label i just i was just so hungry to just put out music and have all the songs on my hard drive release i think writing with other artists was sort of something that i never thought about but

19:45
but amazing for me, because I was like, oh my God, these songs get to come out in the world. I love this. And then I just, you know, it was one of those things that you don't plan for that became your life. And I was like, oh, I'm just gonna roll with the punches, you know, that thing. But there weren't as many kind of these self-sufficient opportunities and there are now. So I think we're gonna see a lot of artists that are, you know, maybe a little bit older than we're used to seeing, because we're used to seeing basically kids, like teenagers, early twenties.

20:13
People that just got signed to a label really young have been building since they're like 11, and they got this opportunity. But I think we're gonna see a lot more people in their late 20s and their 30s and their 40s that have been building their own brand and building their own platform and fan base, doing really well on this independent level. And I will say there are a lot of opportunities, especially if you are somebody that can write and produce their own stuff as well, because you end up keeping...

20:42
100% of your master, which is, you know, your recording. Not to get into like all of these kinds of technical things, but yeah, you get to keep a lot of your money where a record label would pretty much take all of it or most of it, or they would make you recoup all your promotional costs as well. So I think it's definitely like a very tough thing and I wouldn't encourage people to like jump into any sort of deals if they're new and they don't have like professional help. I think like building on your own.

21:11
learning in like a more paced way is a much better thing in the beginning. You know, and as you get more experienced, you'll be a lot more, you'll be just in a better place to be able to call these decisions because it is, it's definitely one of the most confusing businesses, I think, because I have people that do, you know, friends that do other things. And I hear about how much more straightforward their careers are. And I'm always like, wow.

21:36
Okay, not here. Yeah, yeah. So, but I am excited about all of these opportunities that are in front of us now. I mean, a lot of these guys and girls coming out now that let's say they have a number one hit, can't sell 500 tickets in their hometown. You know what I mean? And that's not doing anything for anybody. So, I think that ours is more content, less...

22:04
less directing one thing at one thing, like a single to radio, which let's be honest, everything we'd kind of do is, you know, it's left, man. And it's, we're doing it on purpose. There's that mentality, I think, that if we build it so big, at one point, radio won't be able to not play it because it's, you know, the fans want it, the country fans want it.

22:31
Our idea for marketing is many irons on the fire. We're putting out more records and songs and videos and all that stuff and touring as much as you can. It's more irons on the fire. Every one of them is gonna do something for you. So I believe in that one for our particular situation. You know, like for some of these kids out doing it now, it wouldn't, that wouldn't work. You know what I mean? Because they don't sound any different from Thomas Rhett or whoever to make a dent without that radio single.

23:01
But that thing about 500 tickets in your hometown, if you can't do that, that's somebody in your team is doing it wrong. It's crazy how stuff can pick up fuel, especially with just where social media's gone. Things get picked up you don't ever know and damn, viral later, right? Dude, you think about all these songs now, look at the, what's that?

23:28
with the Mexican guy that was drinking the cranberry juice on the skateboard. Oh, yeah. Do you know how much money he made? Lindsay and the others. Bro, you never know. Like you're you only got to be right once. If you don't give yourself the opportunity to win, you're messing up. We've never lived in a world like this, Ryan, ever. Oh, you got to tell me, brother. I tell people that every day. Like, that's what we do for a living. We we give people opportunities here.

23:57
Erratical is like, you know What planet are you on? I had somebody tell me I mean you're oppressed and you don't even know it you lying You lying I live in a capitalistic country. What do you think the the biggest challenge for you like, you know through that journey is it just like is just I don't know you don't seem to lack confidence, but like it just seems like the journey for artists especially is like

24:25
when you're trying to get that fan base and trying to kind of get the machine rolling or something. The biggest struggle always is, well, what you said about confidence is important because that's the number one thing you have to get no matter what. Because if you don't believe in your brand or believe in yourself and what you're selling, because I mean, I'm an artist, I'm a musician, but I mean, it's business more than anything in the world. You know, and you have to believe in it and what you're selling. And it's so crazy important because when you're trying to tell somebody to listen to your music and they've since any sort of hesitation, they're like,

24:54
And he's sort of like, they get like, I mean, if somebody tells me, Hey, man, will you check out my music? And I have like even a 5% inkling of like this weird vibe from this person. Like, but want to. Yeah. So that is super important, obviously. But as far as going back to that gorilla marketing thing, man, it was, it was so important in those early days of getting those, that core early on, because you want somebody, you want people that are passionate about your

25:20
your progress and your journey. What I'm saying is, is you can't put out enough content for consumers. The new music industry is quality consistent content. If you can drop a good song every week, Mixmaster and build a fan base, what happens with the algorithm of Spotify? Can we get real? Oh yeah, get real. Get real. The algorithm of Spotify is this. If I drop a song and you follow me, you listen to more than five seconds of that song, the next week I drop one, you get a ping that says,

25:50
Why? Because they want to fight against serious XM, the highway. They want to beat all those radio stations that are digital to say, we want you to stay here and give us your money. So we're going to give you, we're going to make success stories of the artists. I don't have to have a whole album anymore. When I get done with a song, good cover, put it up. Guess what? You're going to get a ping that says copy drop the new song. Then you were able to go from 6,000 followers is thousand and nine weeks. You go from 60,000 to 500,000 four months. That's real money.

26:20
Every one million streams you get is $7,000. You know, if you stream anything less than that, that's really not covering the expenses of your team, right? So that's why new producers, I mean, new artists have to kind of either work themselves into situations where they're working with somebody new who's also developing as a producer and writer, or you just have to kind of.

26:46
gather a bunch of the energy of each track had to do with the story it's told from beginning to end. But unfortunately fans just don't listen to music that way anymore. Super fans will. I mean like the real diehards always will. So that is why I believe the album obviously will never die because super fans like the filler songs. They like the deep cuts too. Like the sad bastard ones in the middle. You know like all that. They love all that stuff.

27:15
And it's a singles chasing game because at the same time, you've got other fans, everybody just content is so readily available. And if some artists are putting out a new song every month, and then I'm only putting a new song every four months, fans are listening to the other artists and they're forgetting about me. And so they want music as fast as they want Instagram posts. And it's just this weird world we live in now that we're all getting used to.

27:44
So Jenna, talk to me about like the songwriting process and like, you know, the marriage between artists and songwriting, like, you know, I imagine certain artists come to you, you know, for songwriting help, but are you, you know, constantly like toying with ideas and then, you know, maybe you or your team shopping songs to different artists? What's that process like?

28:06
No, it's definitely like that. However, I think in today's world, you know, like it's so much about the visual aspect and the narrative of what an artist is trying to say in their story. So a lot of times, you know, it's becoming more songs that, you know, you're writing with the artists or developing with the artists in terms of, you know, creating their story along with just like the song, you know, obviously that does exist to be able to pitch a song, you know.

28:34
for example, Butter, you know, was that. But I mean, I'd already worked on Dynamite and sort of really gotten to know the guys and really understand their voices and stuff. So in writing Butter, you know, that was something that was super conscious when writing all the lyrics and, you know, certain melodies and just like the way that they would phrase things. Like that was something that I feel like.

28:55
was in my, you know, all of our heads. Yeah, for me, I'm really excited just to be able to put things like that out there because as a producer writer, you know, I'm always catering to others and what they wanna say, which is great, which is what I think every producer writer should do. You shouldn't like impose your kind of artistry on other people, but it is good for me to have this outlet for myself, for sure. I think I would classify my styles, just left of centers, as far left as I can get without.

29:25
I like it still to be accessible because I grew up in a time where Garth Brooks was the biggest thing in the world, and it's commercial music, but it was country. Hank Williams Jr., stuff like that that was like Hank's on the side of left is held, but man, when he wants to deliver a strike, he delivers a strike. I think that's the fun part about the way that I try to write. Like I said, it's also like who you surround yourself with, the people that you're writing with.

29:53
And the people that work your songs that are working for your publishers and stuff. But, um, yeah, I just try to go into every room with something a little different and try to do things the way that, that aren't expected, you know? Yeah. I like that. And it's much the creative process. I own an ad agency and it's kind of the same thing when we're developing ads. It's like, how far can I push it? You don't want to alienate mainstream, but if it's different, it sells, you know? And it's kind of the same thing with music. I don't know.

30:23
It's like a disease, a positivity disease. You're just catching on, you know? The only prescription is more coffee. The more you get, the later by night you gonna stay. I know. I want you to feel excited, energized, and again, anybody out there, you wanna start your business, you wanna take yourself to the next level, you can do it, you can do it. Follow winners. Don't listen to anybody. I had a guy tell me, hey man, I'll show you how to make a million. He was asking me for money at a stop sign.

30:53
Get around one. Yep. Get around one. You are the circle you keep. You know where to find us, theradcast.com. You can search for all this content. Search for Jenna Andrews. Search for The Green Room. Search for Jaren. Search for Tyler Rich. Search for Alena Smith. Search for Grown Fucking Womming. Search for Carl Faye Anderson. You'll find all the episode information from today. And you know where to find me, at Ryan Alford on all the platforms. We'll see you next time.

31:20
Radcast. To listen or watch full episodes, visit us on the web at theradcast.com or follow us on social media at our Instagram account, v.rad.cast or at Ryan Alford. Stay radical.