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This week on the New Music Business podcast, Ari sits down with Danny Ross, a producer/songwriter, columnist at Forbes, professor at Berklee NYC, and the founder of the largest songwriting camp in the world, Anti Social Camp. Now in its 5th year, Anti Social Camp brings together over 250 songwriters, producers, and artists, including Cigarettes After Sex, Beach Bunny, Bryce Vine, Walk the Moon, Taja Kumari, Evan Giia, and Louis Cato, for 200 recording sessions across 40 studios in 5 days.
If you are a songwriter or producer who’s ever wondered what goes down at songwriting camps or how to get involved, you’re going to learn all about that and more in this episode with Danny Ross.
https://www.instagram.com/antisocialcamp/
Get $100 your Anti Social Camp Badge by using the code: ARIANTISOCIALVIP at antisocialcamp.com
Chapters
00:00 The Importance of Reputation in the Music Industry
03:02 Understanding Songwriting Camps
05:48 The Structure and Dynamics of Songwriting Sessions
08:47 The Evolution of the Anti Social Camp
12:01 Building Community in New York’s Music Scene
14:54 The Anti Social Camp Experience
17:54 Diverse Genres and Collaboration
20:54 The Future of Songwriting Camps
31:11 Creative Collaborations in Music Production
32:26 Success Stories from the Camp
33:44 Understanding Major vs. Indie vs. Self-Releasing Artists
38:33 The Financial Landscape of Music Production
44:53 Navigating Splits and Royalties in Music
47:01 The Ethics of Publishing in the Music Industry
52:39 Teaching the Next Generation of Music Creators
56:40 The Importance of Community in Music Creation
59:01 Defining Success in the New Music Business
Edited and mixed by Ari Davids
Music by Brassroots District
Produced by the team at Ari’s Take
Order the THIRD EDITION of How to Make It in the New Music Business: https://book.aristake.com
Transcript:
Danny Ross
A note to all aspiring writers, producers, you’re going to be known by your reputation more than any, more than more than your songwriting. I’ll say it again. You’re going to be known by your reputation more than your talent. So it behooves you to behave well with others. Do equal splits. Be open minded. Don’t shut other, others, people’s ideas down. You want to be known as the good hang and that will get you further in your career than any song you ever write. What’s
Ari Herstand
going on? Welcome to the new music business. I’m your host. Ari herstand, author of How to make it in the new music business. The book, Third Edition, out now everywhere, all formats, audiobook, hardcover, ebook, however you like books, you can find the book today. My guest is Danny Ross. He is a producer and songwriter based in New York City. Danny and I go way back. We did the song con together, which was a songwriting camp and conference a couple years back that I know some of some of you listening to this attended. He is also a writer. He has a column with Forbes. And if you have my book, The quote on the cover of the book that says indispensable by Forbes. That was Danny. That is so thank you, Danny, for that quote. And now the biggest thing that he’s done, and what he has gotten a ton of press for, is the anti social camp. This is the world’s largest songwriting camp. There are over 250 individual songwriters, producers, artists that come together in New York City every summer for the world’s largest songwriting camp. If you don’t know what a songwriting camp is, don’t worry. We get into that. That’s the first question that I asked Danny. So just stick around in a couple minutes, he’s gonna explain all of this. Now, the camp also has hosted Jacob Collier, Miranda Lambert, Moby, Niles Rodgers, Kimbra, Andy Grammer, previous guest of the show, friend of the pod, Kimbra, JP Saxe, Rob Thomas, and brands like Tiktok and Spotify and YouTube and Amazon and title and the Recording Academy and Republic Records and Distrokid and many others the MLC, they’re part of this camp as well, and they host events, and he’s going to get into all of this. And if you do want a badge, he mentions the badges. We’ve put the code there down in the show notes so you can, you can check that out if you want to attend some of this. But songwriting camps are a fascinating phenomenon, and we go all into that. So if you are a songwriter or a producer, and you’re wondering about how pop camps or hip hop songwriting sessions or country songwriting sessions go. We get into a lot of that throughout this discussion of how just in general, songwriting sessions go, but then also how songwriting camps go that are hosted around the world and stuff like that. And this is a really incredible thing that Danny has built. Very happy that he was able to come on and discuss it. You can find anti social camp on the social specifically, their Instagram, anti social camp. You can find the anti social producers club. Also, that’s where this all began. That’s the website anti social producers club, or antisocialcamp.com find all of us that make the show happen at Ari’s Take on the socials. Find me at Ari Herstand on Instagram, but right now, if you wouldn’t mind, just pause it. Pause this episode. Give us a five star review on Spotify or Apple podcast. Give us a thumbs up on YouTube. Hit the subscribe button, hit the follow button if you want this show to populate your feeds. And then visit aristake.com and get on our email list. That’s the best way to stay in touch with us. Get on that email list. That’s how we can let you know when there’s new episodes, new stuff about the new music business, all of that stuff. All right, let’s kick into the show.
Ari Herstand
Danny Ross, welcome to the show,
Danny Ross
Ari. Pleasure. Thanks for having me, of course.
Ari Herstand
So we’re gonna, we’re gonna talk about the Anti Social Camp. But before we get into that, just to give people some understanding of what a songwriting camp is, can we just start at the foundation. What is a songwriting camp? Absolutely,
Danny Ross
a songwriting camp is a large number of recording sessions in a short period of time. Usually these are very exclusive events in exotic locations. An example would be a Rihanna camp in a chateau in the south of France. I
Ari Herstand
want to get an invite for that. Me too. But Is that for real? Are you making this up?
Danny Ross
But that’s there are. There are so many camps, famously in Bali for the who’s who of songwriters and producers. There are so many camps in castles and Ireland and Scotland. All. Across Europe and even in like mansions in Malibu. The idea is it’s, it’s a sort of compound of the rich and famous to make a new record for some very well known pop star.
Ari Herstand
Oh, interesting. Okay, so historically, songwriting camps have been, they have been curated or so by the artists, or the artists, I’m assuming, label A&R, and they invite songwriters to write songs for the artist’s next record. And now, are the artists typically at these camps, and are they in in the sessions? Or, how does this work? How do they work? Typically, everything
Danny Ross
you said is correct. I think sometimes, I think sometimes not, sometimes just the A&Rs or the managers, you know, I’m exaggerating to say this is the only version of songwriting camp that exists. There are plenty of publishers, for example, or sync teams that will have a sync camp, or, you know, a warner chapel camp. But in general, this is sort of a new innovation in the music industry over the last 15-20, years, something like that. And how anti social camp is different, and we’ll get to that a little bit later, is that we are the first front facing festival style songwriting camp with and the largest songwriting camp in the world with hundreds and hundreds of of artists, writers, producers, involved,
Ari Herstand
right? And I do want to talk about it, but I think this, this this idea of a songwriting camp is so foreign to a lot of people, and I know that that this is now so common to you and everyone in your world. And so I’m going to challenge you to really to forget everything that you know about songwriting camps and pretend that you know nothing. And that’s because that’s what we’re that’s where I’m going to be coming from, because I want to just break it down, and then we’ll build it back up, and then I’ll show the magnificence of the anti social camp, but we’ll talk all about it. But yeah, I still, I still, I don’t think we have a grasp on what a songwriting camp is just yet, but I so I want to keep going with this. So if I understand it correctly, you’re saying, within the last 15 years or so, this is this new phenomenon where a bunch of songwriters come together, you said a bunch of recording sessions in a short amount of time. So talk to me about a difference between it, because when I think of a recording session, I think that is like the artist is there and they’re making a record, you know, for their album or for a single or something like that. But when you say recording sessions, what do you mean by that? Because then you just said that the artist always the artist sometimes is not there at the song camp. So how can you do a recording session without the artist?
Danny Ross
So these days, a writing session and a recording session is the same thing, okay? And essentially, if there is a there’s usually a brief involved, right? Let’s brief. Oh, great, great question a brief is the instruction for the day? Let’s use this Rihanna example, 15 people in a house trying to make the next Rihanna record. What does that mean? Five rooms with three different people in them, producer, songwriters, some combination of both. And usually those songwriters are excellent vocalists as well. So they will put down the vocals of the demo when it’s finished. But they, you know, they will get together, they will write a song, either with an acoustic guitar in the room or with a piano in the room, but more likely, creating a beat and listening to reference tracks, throwing down drums bass, get something going and then create what’s called top lines, or melodic melodic structures of a song versus pre chorus, Melody, post chorus, bridge, etc. And by the end of, let’s say, four or five hours, you have yourself a demo. The the topliner will will sing vocals in that demo, and they’ll record it like, like a real track, because they’re trying to sell it to the artist. And by sell it, I mean trying to persuade the artist that this is a song that should be on their next album. So you’re trying to make that demo as professional as possible. And in doing so, you have five different rooms going. That means five different songs in the course of one day, for example, and then you do this two days, three days, four days, five days, you walk out with 2025, songs you can then show to the Rihanna team and say, What do you think? And perhaps that she uses some of that on her next album. Does that help to explain. Playing the beginning of this process.
Ari Herstand
Yeah, no, that’s super helpful. That makes sense. So for an artist like that, you they bring together, because, right? And so for like, typical pop songwriting sessions that are not necessarily surrounded by camps, I know that there’s oftentimes, like you said, you know, there’s a producer in the room, and that’s they sometimes call the driver, and they’re the ones driving the session that are literally sitting at a laptop, and they’re pressing the buttons and they’re making what you called it the beat, which is colloquially, like the instrumental production, I guess, but we call it the beat. And then oftentimes in these songwriting sessions, there’s like a producer that’s driving it, there’s a top liner, like you said, doing the vocals, and maybe another writer in the room, or something like that. And and is it safe to say that most songwriting sessions have like, three people or so, two to three people, four. I think, I think three
Danny Ross
people is the average, sometimes four, sometimes even more than that. But usually what it is is it’s a producer, like you said, the person at the computer driving the session, basically doing all the engineering and and structuring the song. And they’re sort of the captain of the ship, right? They are. They’re reading the room in terms of momentum and vibe so and usually they’re responsible for doing a lot of the instrumental work, as you mentioned, which are almost completely digital these days, right? Drum space, synth sounds, guitar sounds, all in the box, of course, as they say, which means, like created, using, using sounds through MIDI and through the computer and DAWs like Ableton logic, etc, right? So producer a top liner, which is just another modern way of saying songwriter or,
Ari Herstand
well, top liner is like the vocalist, so they’re the singer or the rapper, right,
Danny Ross
right? But they’re also responsible for coming up with the melodies or the top line as well as lyrical content as well. Sometimes what happens is that the the top liner and the artist will huddle into a corner think through a concept of a song of what happens in verse, one you know, into the pre into the next verse, while the producer is like honing in on a snare sound, right? So it becomes this very like division of labor between technical and the creative, something like that. But you know, my favorite sessions is when everyone is doing everything, and there’s a real sync up of all parties involved. And then frequently, the third person in the room is the artist themselves, and usually, just from a business standpoint, what you want is to have the artist in the room, because who’s going to know better about the narrative of this song and what happens in the course of that relationship, and the person who’s singing it right, they’ll have more buy in and more emotional connectivity to the song if they wrote it and they were part of the process from the beginning. So that’s typically the lineup. But then there are songs called outside songs, in which songs are written outside of the artists, accessibility in the room, and then they are pitched to the artist and and that’s what happens frequently in a lot of these camps for larger artists. Or they will be starting points at which point Rihanna would jump in and help finish it and guide it to be more the type of song that she would sing in concert.
Ari Herstand
Got it super helpful. Okay, so, yeah, in the Rihanna example, those are like outside songs. So there’s a camp that might be scheduled for got together. And when you mentioned brief earlier, a brief you’re saying is kind of like maybe Rihanna is looking for songs about her breakup. So we want breakup songs, and we want them she’s really into reggae or something. So let’s get a reggae feel for some of these. And so then they’re gonna get like, 25 reggae breakup songs or something from this camp, right? By the way, I’d love to hear that album, yeah, right, for sure, but that’s exactly, that’s exactly right, yeah, okay, and then, but Right. So like you mentioned in like, non camp songwriting sessions, oftentimes, you know, the the artist is in the room. They have some buy in. They’re a co writer on this. A lot of artists we know are co-writers. Rihanna, historically, is not a co-writer on most of the songs, most of the cuts, but yeah, and of course, you know, yes, the superstar pop artists are not usually in the room. Initially, you know, we had Kevin Garrett on the show, and he had a cut. He learned that. He got a Beyonce cut the day the album came out. And so he didn’t tell him, you know, he was talking about, he’s like, woke up and Lemonade was released, and he was track number one. He’s like, wow, cool. To wake up and know that you got a Beyonce cut. And you like, that’s a thing. And so, like, right? You know, yeah, publisher submitted the songs and stuff like that. So it’s, yeah, I mean, songwriting sessions, especially like the, you know, pop sessions, hip hop sessions, it’s such a interesting concept, I think, for a lot of artists that aren’t in LA, Nashville, Atlanta or New York, and we’re gonna get to New York in a second. But, you know, like LA and national, this is day in, day out. There are these songwriting sessions. And it is people like, essentially, especially Nashville, it’s their like, it’s their job, day job. It’s like, they clock in, clock out, they like, go in, they’re doing, you know, a couple sessions a day. During the day, they go home to their family at night, you know. And the like, it’s a business. Now you’re in New York, and I know that you kind of, you started with this anti social producers club based in New York, talk to me about, initially, what that is all about. Because I think the conversation in the industry for a while is kind of ironic, oddly enough, like New York hasn’t really, hadn’t really been part of the conversation for a little while, it had been LA and Nashville, but I’m curious, kind of you know, as a lifelong New Yorker, what your standpoint was behind all of this. Totally,
Danny Ross
what you just said is has been the narrative in the music industry for a long time now, which is everyone left New York and moved to LA and Nashville and London and Atlanta and Miami. There’s no one left here. I would say that’s partially true for sure. And I’m a writer, producer, myself jumping into these sessions that we’re talking about, right? And as I was making my way around the New York City music scene, learning about the network of people that were here, it was abundantly clear that there’s a rich pool of talent that’s here, songwriters, producers, artists, and it’s the New York City music scene hasn’t really had a spotlight put on it in in the way that it should. I think there are a few reasons for that. One, because there’s some truth to a lot of people moving away. But I think it’s also, I mean, it’s also true that New York is a has been a tough place to live economically, and I know LA these days is probably just as difficult to live in,
Ari Herstand
not as expensive as New York, from what I’ve seen and heard. But right, yes, it’s getting up there, for sure, yeah, but it’s Yeah,
Danny Ross
yeah, yeah. And look, there’s like systemic issues and that are, that are real, that, you know, I live here in New York, it’s it’s expensive and it’s hard. And you know what I’ll say is I learned about this incredibly diverse and talented group of people making my way from apartment to apartment, another part of the sort of just the natural layout of the city is you’re just, you’re going from one apartment studio to another, and these people aren’t talking to each other. You know, you’re driving, you’re you’re in the subway for an hour to go from Harlem to Bushwick, right? And there isn’t a community hub. And my day job for years, while I was in bands in my 20s. I think you and I are on the same age Ari, and we were probably pursuing our own artist projects around the same time was I worked in government, and I’ve worked for a congressman. I worked in the New York State Legislature for 10 years, and community organizing was a big part of my job, and I here, I was in music, seeing disparate parts not talking to each other. And thought, hey, let’s find a way to bring people together. And so during the pandemic, it was sort of a perfect opportunity to be like, hey, writers, producers, artists in New York City, let’s all hop on a zoom once a week or once a month, and like, talk about producer stuff and songwriter stuff, from plugins and gear to, like A&Rs that are good, and maybe artists to potentially avoid things like that, just the insidery, Fun community things for us as a niche. And, yeah, you know, the within a year or two, there are, you know, hundreds of us, which is really an amazing thing, all in New York, all in New York only, yeah. Okay, yeah. And so, you know, for the first time in my music career, actually, I saw a hunger for community that that i. Never seen before, and that sort of evolved into this idea of, hey, why don’t we just put together a massive event, which became the largest songwriting camp in the world.
Ari Herstand
Wow, yeah, so that’s cool. So I didn’t realize that the anti social producer club kind of came out of the pandemic. And I guess as everyone everywhere was like yearning for community and and so naturally. I mean, you know, COVID just physically separated everybody, but you kind of saw that. But, you know, I’ve heard that New York can be a lonely place as it is, even when everything is open and alive, even though everyone is slammed together on this island, or like, you know, burrows and stuff like that. But so then, yeah, how did that come to the camp? And when did you first start the camp? And what, what is the concept behind the anti social songwriting camp? Yeah. So
Danny Ross
we, we did this the first time in 2021 when the pandemic was still happening, so it was all over Zoom, and now we’re entering our fifth year. Immediately after starting 2022 we said, enough of zoom. I think the whole world said, enough of zoom, or enough of virtual meetings, and especially virtual recording sessions. It’s a really hard thing to do?
Have you done virtual sessions? Yeah,
Ari Herstand
I made my album actually over the pandemic with my producer, who lives like, you know, five miles down the road, and we were using audio movers and zoom. And he’s like, I’m literally tracking vocals here. And he is like, screen sharing and running my logic on my computer as I’m, like, tracking vocals and guitars back here, like, Man, I wish I could just come to your studio to do all this. Yeah, it’s that. It’s, it’s, it removes a lot of the magic and a lot of the fun of the process of, you know, being doing, you know, sessions in studio. So, yeah, I don’t miss that. Let’s just say that I’m not gonna want to go back to that totally, totally
Danny Ross
same. And you know it, you know, virtual sessions have remained a little bit to finish songs that are like 80% of the way there. Okay, which makes a lot of sense. And in fact, we’re doing that at the camp this year for the first time, which is just finish your song that’s almost done for a few hours over zoom. But yeah, it sort of evolves from that into Oh, like, you know, we want to build this community in New York. Oh, we all want to meet in person post pandemic. Let’s just celebrate these communities that don’t really talk to each other, and like songwriters and producers who know of each other from a distance to all come together, all be in the same place at the same time, experiencing the same thing. And in that way, it becomes like a real summer camp, actually, because you’re hopping around from different recording sessions, jumping back into evening events, and by the end of the week, you’ve made your new homie. That’s your you know, new collaborator for life. And we have so many amazing examples of that
Ari Herstand
awesome. So tell me, how is this structured? And how many people do you have that are part of this? And how are this? How do the camps? How does this camp work, and the songwriting sessions work? And, yeah, give me a give me the breakdown of all
Danny Ross
Yes. So you know, we mentioned the Rihanna example, where there’s a brief for to write a Rihanna song for the 15 people who are part of those sessions.
We have 250 artists, writers and producers at this year’s anti social camp. It’s the largest songwriting camp in the world, and 10,000 people applied, which is overwhelming. And, you know, wish we could take them all the the brief is the artist will be in the room with you write the next hit single for the artist in the room before those four hours are over, so you have a short period of time and and I’m sure it’s filled with pressure, but hopefully everyone feels relaxed and happy to be there and making music. And you know, the our camp is about, you know, as songwriters and artists and producers ourselves, this is an opportunity to celebrate each other as a community and create the kind of festival that we would want for ourselves. So all accepted artists attend fully free. We don’t take any percentage of the songwriting or the master recording in the room, exactly the publishing or the master and we just try to create incredible opportunities. So there’s a Spotify, Spotify showcase. There is a YouTube showcase, a Grammys Gala, a title playback party, a Tiktok artist lounge and creator studio at Republic records.
Ari Herstand
What does that all mean when you say showcase or playback party are like a Spotify showcase? So does that mean, like the editor or what does that mean? Yeah.
Danny Ross
So we work with the Spotify team to bring in 25 artists from our roster to perform one song each, and
Ari Herstand
wrote like that day or something, or not, not, no,
Danny Ross
not necessarily from the camp, but any song that they would like to play, okay, but they will. This is the day before session starts, so this is sort of a way to get to get icebreakers.
Ari Herstand
Yeah, exactly, exactly, yeah. Get to know each other through their through their music, through their performance. Okay, that’s right,
Danny Ross
and the Spotify editorial team is there and present and are part of the process. And the same is true for our YouTube writers round the next day and and our playback party at the end that we do with title is, is hearing back the 200 songs that were just created for straight hours of new music. Oh my gosh,
Ari Herstand
cool. Yeah. Awesome. And how do you are you pairing these 250 writers together and putting them into rooms,
Danny Ross
I am now personally very lucky to have an amazing team around me as you are Ari, I personally remove myself from the curation process so that some of my my good friends, you know, I don’t have to tell them that their artists have been either accepted or not accepted. There is a there’s a committee and a curation team that that is incredibly detail oriented, and one goes through the entire application process, but then also listens very carefully to the music that these artists, writers, producers, make, and try to, you know, you take an educated guess in terms of the chemistry of how these people would work together. And, you know, it’s always exciting on paper. Occasionally you get a few that these people just don’t like each other, and there’s nothing you could have done about it. But for the most part, I think everyone is really open minded, really just enthusiastic to be there and willing to try and make great new record together. Cool.
Ari Herstand
So tell me about how you guys, how your team puts these rooms together, and how many sessions, and what, like, how many people are in the room, and just like all of that. Yeah,
Danny Ross
so it’s, it’s about three to four people in each room. There are 30 recording studios across New York City. Maybe it might be up to 40 that we use, right? So it really is kind of like South by Southwest in that way. We call it a South by Southwest for Songwriters, in that we take over the whole city. It’s, it’s the 40 different studios and venues across New York over five days. And yeah, we’re, we’re listening for, you know, a genre such a loaded word, but just listening for the kind the kind of style that that artists, writers, producers, make, and you try to hope that if you pair certain combination together, that they will create something magical. And and we also try to even put them in the kinds of studios that that focus on on the music that they make. So, for example, you know, there are studios that focus on hip hop, and there are studios that focus on alternative music and studios that focus on pop and indie pop. And we try to, you know, make sure that these artists are, are making and creating in the type of environments that can
Ari Herstand
breed the best possible song. And then when you’re pairing these people together, I’m assuming you’re putting, like a producer, a top liner and an artist, or maybe a couple top or an artist in the room together, something Exactly, that’s exactly right, yep. And when you said the brief, the brief was, the artist will be in the room write a hit song for the next record. Is that? Is that make believe, or is that actually, like the artist that is in the room, they’re writing for that artist who is in the room, and their ideas that the artist in the room is going to put this song on their next record? That’s exactly right. Oh, okay, so the artist might get a great song out of the out of the thing too. I think it really right
Danny Ross
exactly that that’s, that’s exactly the idea is, you know, they walk out with their next hit single. They walk out with some brand new collaborators that they’re thrilled about and professional opportunities by meeting with all these brands that you know and performing for them in a front facing kind of way?
Ari Herstand
Yeah, what genres would you say that the camp is focusing on or specializes in? It’s
Danny Ross
a really interesting question. And every year, it’s very surprising to see who applies and who we end up accepting in general, especially in for New York, I would say the most dominant genres have been straight pop, hip hop, a lot more dance music lately, and actually this year, more than ever, country. So. Which is surprising for New York City, but not surprised
Ari Herstand
they made the country out just open the floodgates and having the biggest Song of the Year as this crossover country hit. I mean, yeah, country is now blurring the genres, right? Yeah.
Danny Ross
And country, for all those reasons, has never been more popular. So, you know, the app, the applications that we get, and the incoming we get in terms of genre, is very much dependent on, like, the mood of the moment. And so it’s, I guess, not entirely surprising that is having this, this moment. So
Ari Herstand
I mean that that is fascinating, because that would make your job challenging, I would assume, because country songwriting is so dramatically different than pop songwriting or hip hop writing, do you intentionally place rooms together as like, Okay, this is a country room. This is a hip hop room. There’s a pop room. Are you like, Good luck guys. You got a country guy, you got a hip hop producer and a pop singer, and you put them together. Like, let’s see what you guys can do. No, that
Danny Ross
what you said is exactly what we do, which was, hey, let’s, let’s, let’s put some of our more country oriented top liners with the country artist, and maybe the more sort of analog recording producers in the room too, to capture some natural sounds. But, you know, sometimes it’s really fun to mix it up and be like, All right, you’ve had a couple sessions that are kind of straight country like, what if we throw a rapper in there too, with everyone’s blessing. You know,
Ari Herstand
how many sessions does each person do over the span of this week? We
Danny Ross
try to do three sessions per person for about 250 plus people. Wild.
Ari Herstand
That sounds like a logistical nightmare to me, but props to you for facilitating that. It’s
Danny Ross
a year’s worth of work for one week. That’s what we like to say. We do nothing else full time, right,
Ari Herstand
right? Wow. Okay, cool. Hats off to you and your team for that. And so tell me, like, what are what’s the takeaway? Like, what are people walking in and you mentioned you had some success stories and stuff like that. So tell me some of these success stories that you’ve heard about from the camp. Yeah. I
Danny Ross
mean, one is, we have plenty of songs who that, that that have come out of the camp, that have gone on to be released on major labels, right? And that’s very exciting. You know, part of the curation process too, is creating opportunities for up and coming, emerging writers, producers, artists. Because, you know, we want to create opportunities for them and like, let’s throw them in with a big, major label star, if we really believe that they can contribute in a meaningful way, and and like, Let’s get them their first major label cut. That’s that’s a really exciting opportunity for someone like like me and my team, who you know grew up and continue to be songwriters ourselves and are excited to see young people get new opportunities. Forgot your question. Oh,
Ari Herstand
just success stories. Success. Yeah, yeah. I do actually want to ask you about a major label cut. Major Label cut. Sure. So tell me how a major label cut differs from an indie label cut differs from a self releasing artist that has a big following cut. What are the difference between those three scenarios? Self releasing, artist, indie label, major label,
Danny Ross
from a producer, songwriter point of view, you’re going to get the most money from a major label, and how does the money work? How does the money work? Oh, the big question, when you say you’re going
Ari Herstand
to get the most amount of money, I don’t, I think a lot of people don’t really understand what that means you’re gonna they’re gonna get more streams. But that’s not always the case. But like, What do you mean money? They’re gonna get more money? Yeah,
Danny Ross
so the label would buy the song from you, the producer, and they would give you an upfront fee for it, in additional to your back end royalties, which are complicated and come later. Songwriters, I should mention, do not get upfront songwriter fees in this way. From a business point of view, it is better to be a producer than a songwriter. I think there have been movements to change this, but I don’t think there really have been much result yet,
Ari Herstand
right? I mean, famously Justin Tranter, who’s a massive songwriter, one of the biggest hit songwriters in the world. He’s got a gazillion hit songs, platinum. Records, et cetera, et cetera. He’s now started a label where they’re giving songwriters points on the master, which has never been done before. I don’t and then Ross Golan, who is another hit songwriter, he represents. He’s got a publishing company he represents songwriters, and he was saying that they he is doing, getting them paid for sessions and upfront fees as well to be in rooms, which also has really never been done before. I mean, some of these big camps, I know maybe the Rihanna camp or something like that, they will pay the songwriters a little bit to be there, and then they’ll get publishing, of course. But the upfront fee, um, right, historically, has been reserved for the producer. But now give me, give me some ranges, like, what are we talking about in terms of what an upfront fee is for a producer? Sure?
Danny Ross
So if it’s an independent release, right, it’s maybe someone who’s a friend of yours that you know, let’s say, has less than 10,000 Spotify monthly followers, maybe less than 10,000 Instagram or Tiktok followers. You know, I I would say somewhere between 2003 1000. But I think a good rule of thumb is, if a label is buying it from you, you’ll probably get about double whatever that fee is. So if
Ari Herstand
a major or if an indie label, Oh,
Danny Ross
good question. I would say major, and I’m I guess I think an indie label would be probably somewhere in
Ari Herstand
between. So a major label, break that down for me, yeah, yeah.
Danny Ross
So let’s say you, you produced your friend’s song and she puts it out on her, on just her own Spotify and and and streaming. Maybe she, on the higher end, pays $3,000 to you for one upfront fee where she owns now 100% of her master great. If an indie label did that, you know, let’s say it’s probably closer to 4500 and if it’s a major label, you probably get 6000 for that same track, if that helps to give you a range. Cool.
Ari Herstand
Okay, so interesting. So what you were saying, if we bring it back to the camp, some of these, some of these songs that have come out of the camp you said, we’ve gotten major label cuts. So theoretically, that producer that made the that that made the beat, or at least made that session, made the recording of that demo that day they’re gonna the major label would buy that from them for, like you said, like 6000 or something, 7000 something like that,
Danny Ross
right? And then, by the way, like your superstar producers, I’ve heard stories of $100,000 for one song, right? Is as a producer fee. Which are, you know, some of the big, big names, so and arranges, right? And there’s also negotiating that goes on with attorneys and all that stuff.
Ari Herstand
And break that. But let’s, let’s keep, let’s keep on the money kick, because I know that that’s where the time when people’s ears are perking up here is when we talk money, because it’s hard to find this information anywhere else. And you know, as someone that you’ve been, you know, close to a lot of this, you kind of know what’s going on with all of it. All right, we’ve covered the upfront fee. So let’s say it’s like a lesser known producer coming out of the camp or something. It’s an emerging producer. They’re getting, you know, 6k or whatever, for that. And then what else do they get? You mentioned back end royalties of some kind. Or how does that work? Yeah,
Danny Ross
so there are two kinds of back end royalties, right? There’s publishing, which is the songwriting, and typically that’s split evenly between everyone who’s in the room. So if Ari – you, me, and our buddy Jimbo, wrote a song together, the three of us would split the songwriting royalties evenly three ways, 33.33% and if the song went on to make a million dollars in publishing royalty, then we would each see 330,000 33,000 etc. So that’s kind of easy to explain, but master royalties are harder to explain. Basically, if you you know it’s a question of who owns the master recording. Now, if I understand it correctly, the way that the industry is structured right now is that the producer until the song is released, or a deal has been made, if I’m the if Ari, if you’re. Were the producer in that session, you own 100% of the master in that moment, okay? Because it’s literally on your computer,
Ari Herstand
right? Okay.
Danny Ross
And basically I would have to, if I was the artist, I’d have to buy back from you the Master percentage. And like you mentioned before, songwriters top liners typically don’t participate in this master royalty pool, right? So if I bought, if I spend an upfront fee of $3,000 to buy the royalty from you, I will then own 100% of the master back end. Okay, does that make sense? Uh, huh, yeah. And, and the songwriting we’ve already discussed, so, but
Ari Herstand
the but the master, but so you buy, you spend $3,000 and now you own 100% of the master. I know producers that we’ve heard about, points, points, points, the master points on the record producer points. What are producer Points? Points
Danny Ross
are like a major label way of discussing the same thing, because you’re, you’re dealing with massive quantities, right? So if you have 100,000 records sold, and you have four points, that means you you take away 4% of the $100,000 which adds up to decent amount. And if it’s millions of dollars, then it’s 4% of the millions of dollars. But when you’re dealing with like quantities that are pretty low these days, because the streaming age has changed things financially for the worse, for money for artists and creators. You know, the way to think about it is in terms of percentage, right? How does, especially in like an independent deal where you’re the producer and I’m the artist, and, you know, I think, like, four points in a major label way could translate to 25% of the master recording, something like that. There’s, um, there’s sort of a different math that goes on in in the world between us and normies, then up, up in the castle on the hill, right? Because
Ari Herstand
traditionally, major labels, a major label deal with an artist, majors would keep, like, 82% was this like thing as the 82% thing, you know? And then the artist gets 18% and so if the producers get four points, which means 4% that’s because the artist is only getting 18% but now, if you’re talking about, like, in an independent self releasing artist standpoint, four points in the artist getting 96 points, that’s not how it works. It would essentially kind of be, you know, four divided by 18, which what you’re saying is like the in the major label scenario, four points, and the artist has 18 points. And that’s like 22% or whatever, 25% if you round up or and that is that kind of the loose calculation of how you come up with, you know, the producers getting 25% in that situation when an artist is self releasing,
Danny Ross
right? That’s, that’s, that’s exactly right. It sort of translates into that. And that was pretty good, like, you know, pen on the napkin math, right there. Yeah, sorry, right,
Ari Herstand
sure. I was impressed. So, so when, when we’re talking about, so I want to just get back to this example of the producer is selling the recording for $3,000 to the artist or to the label, and are they also getting points in addition to the sale? Does that is that common?
Danny Ross
I’ll tell you. A common scenario is if, if, if you paid me $3,000 as the producer, and now you own 100% of the master, sometimes in these deals after you’ve been recouped those $3,000 by streaming or sync or some other way, then I, as producer can also participate in your back end royalties and collect and 20 25% of the master recording, too. Got
Ari Herstand
it Okay? That makes, that makes a lot of sense, right? And that’s of the master recording, not like and you did a great job of breaking down the difference between the publishing and the master because it is very different. Early on, we were like we wrote the song, we each have 33% but you as the producer, you have 33% of publishing, but then you have 25% of the master recording, which is totally different. And so, you know, this is a very confusing part, and I’m assuming, of the 10,000 applicants to this camp, and of the 250 that got selected to this camp, not all of them understand how splits. Work, I would maybe argue most of them don’t understand how splits work, especially if they don’t have publishing deals. They have never gotten cuts like this before, and they’ve only really been in sessions with their friends. Is there any education that goes into this, or recommendations of how splits work? When you put these people in, in in these sessions?
Danny Ross
Yeah, great question. One, read Ari’s book and listen to his podcast. We’re not prompted, but I appreciate that. Two is, we? Do? We? Do? We do? Give everyone a several split sheets throughout the week, and we, we ask and encourage them, at least on this on the publishing side, encourage them to do equal splits. Of course, you can’t enforce that, right, but we try to create an environment of, you know, equanimity is that? Is that the word equanimity, we try to create an environment of good collaboration between good collaborators. And sometimes people don’t play by the rules, though, and they ask us to get involved, right? And say that this person is asking for X amount of percentage, and it’s ridiculous. And I say, I agree it’s ridiculous. I’m sorry. I don’t know what to do about it, except maybe not have that bad actor back in our festival next time. Right? So, and that’s sort of like a note to all aspiring writers, producers, you’re going to be known by your reputation more than any more than more than your songwriting. I’ll say that again, you’re going to be known by your reputation more than your talent. So it behooves you to behave well with others. Do equal splits? Be open minded. Don’t shut other, others people’s ideas down. You want to be known as the good hang and that will get you further in your career than any song you ever write.
Ari Herstand
That’s great. That’s great advice, because, yeah, if you’re going to go to battle for a few percentages here and there, in the long run, it’s going to work out to be that you are, have stopped getting invited into sessions and rooms, and you have no more friends, no more calls, and, yeah, it wasn’t worth the battle. Now, on the other end of the spectrum, which I also have heard, is there are some superstar artists out there who will go unnamed, who will try to strong arm the songwriters into cutting in that artist to the publishing when the artist had nothing to do with The songwriting. Can you speak to that at all? Have you seen that?
Danny Ross
Yeah, that is unfortunate. It’s true. It continues to happen. And I think it’s been happening, you know, since the 60s or something like that. Famously
Ari Herstand
the current, you know, there’s a famous story of Elvis wanting to sing, “I Will Always Love You,” by Dolly Parton. And Elvis’s manager, The Colonel, said to Dolly, you’re going to split the publishing with Elvis, even though he didn’t write the song. You guys are gonna split this 50/50, he’s gonna be a co writer on this. And Dolly said, in her way, go fuck yourself. In the real Dolly way. I don’t know if it was those exact words, but it was essentially that. And it worked out in her way, because then, of course, a couple of decades later, Whitney Houston cut the song and made a massive hit. And guess who still has 100% of the publishing
Danny Ross
crazy, crazy, yes. So here’s the thing, is that the artists have all the leverage here, right? Because the song can either go on this massive pop record that will get potentially billions of streams and help make your career, or it will sit on a hard drive and no one will ever hear it, and your career will not progress at all your choice, right? And, of course, like those without leverage, in this case, the songwriter or the producer say, Fine, take your percentage as long as we get to be on the record, right? And they’re trying, you know, writers, producers, they’re, you’re trying to create a narrative and an arc that’s that’s building momentum. I was on this big artists record, and I was on that big artists record, so to lose an opportunity, even even, not just for the money, but for the narrative of your career that you can then later sell to get into bigger sessions, right and take bigger jobs, it’s worth taking the hit. But is it wrong to leverage your position as an artist to insert yourself in the publishing when you had nothing to do with the songwriting. Yes, it is,
Ari Herstand
yeah, and it’s tough because, you know, I, for the record, I don’t support that practice whatsoever. If you did not have a hand in writing the song, you should not get publishing full stop period. But that being said, I do understand that the challenging position that artists on major labels are in in the sense that they’re not getting paid from dollar one, where theoretically the songwriters are, and if it becomes a hit song, that artist, honestly, probably won’t see much of that those royalties whatsoever, because they have to recoup the cost of their advance and the major label, with their financial trickery, they that artists might actually never see any royalties from that recording if they didn’t have a hand in writing it, whereas the songwriters only for hit songs. And let’s like be very clear about that, if you have, you know, a deep cut on even the biggest Record of the Year, you’re not making that many royalties unless it’s on the radio. And that’s like, what a lot of songwriters have said is that, you know, performance royalties, which are generated from when your song is played on the radio, is really where they’re making their bread and butter. It’s not streaming anymore these days, and but these songwriters are getting paid from, you know, dollar number one on the publishing side, whereas artists don’t. And so I understand why these managers are trying to look out for their clients. I still think it’s completely unethical and they should not be doing this. But that’s, you know, this a broader conversation of how the industry just needs to change its ways overall, because speaking of equanimity, it is just not equal. And it’s just there is no equanimity when it comes to all of this.
Danny Ross
And like, to your point, Ari, and I feel like this is we’ve been citing example after example. If we could start the music industry over again, there’s no way in the world any of these practices would make any financial sense or, like, rational technical sense, any sense, right? We’re just like inheriting this like mess, right? And we’re like trying to explain the mess to like each other and your listeners, and we’re all doing the best we can, but it doesn’t make any sense. It’s so
Ari Herstand
messed up. Well, you’re also a Berklee College music professor, the New York Campus, which, before you took this job, honestly, I didn’t even realize there was a New York Campus. So speak to that. So what are you teaching there? And how do you break these concepts down for your students?
Danny Ross
Yeah, well, I try to break them down in the same way I’m breaking them down for you and your listeners right now, because these are high concept, complicated things to explain at a very base level to people who know nothing about it. And by the way, to your point from earlier, I don’t even think some of these, like well known, established stars artists, understand a lot of what we’re talking about, and I barely do right? But yeah, I’m a professor at the Berklee NYC program. It’s a one year master’s program, not to be confused with the Berklee College of Music four year undergrad program in Boston, famously, and I teach in their production, S&P program, songwriting and production. Yeah, I’m a professor there to teach folks about the business side, as we do now, but primarily to listen to their music and to give insights on songwriting and production and to advance their artist development full stop,
Ari Herstand
nice cool and getting back to the camp I saw, I know there’s a lot of opportunities outside of the sessions, like you alluded to these, like showcases, listening parties, playback parties. I saw there were parties. Are those exclusive to the 250 members that got selected for this camp or who are all part of these events?
Danny Ross
Yes, so the 250 artists, writers, producers are going to every one of these events, as well as industry and brand music, industry and brands, you know, an A&Rs, managers, publishers, labels. However, we realized we’ve created this, this slate of 10 events, these highly produced events, from the Music Hall of Williamsburg to, you know, a Recording Academy Gala with 1000 people, red carpet events. And we would like to invite in as much of the music community as possible to come to New York, or if you’re in New York, to be here and part of it. So for the first time, we are we are making available limited VIP badges that for one set price you are invited to. Have come to every single event of antisocial camp throughout the entire week, not only to meet and rub shoulders with some of the best songwriters, artists, producers in the world, talk to them, learn from them, but also to be in the same room as a lot of these major brands as possible and create an opportunity for career development for yourself as a creator. So we would love to sort of we also have a special discount code for Ari listeners. To discount code. It’s ARIANTISOCIALVIP, cool.
Ari Herstand
And what does that get people? If they want to use it, that’s gonna give people $100 off. Okay? And they can go to what’s the website, antisocialcamp.com, and then click on the back or Instagram as well. Nice. Ari, say that code again.
Danny Ross
ARIANTISOCIALVIP, well, we’ll put that in the
Ari Herstand
show notes so people can find it right on. Just, yeah, if they can our anti social. VIP, nice. Well, cool. And I know that this camp is coming up when this airs in just a few weeks. And so what are you hoping that comes like? What are you looking forward to? I should say about this camp, maybe that differs from this year from previous years. I know in previous years you had the mayor of New York that showed up to one of your events at one of these camps, and you’ve gotten a lot of press, or read The New Yorker piece, which was super cool. I mean, all of this. And tell, tell us what, what people can look forward to for this year’s camp.
Danny Ross
Yeah, it’s, it’s as long and hard as it is to organize, it is really, it feels like an adult artist songwriters summer camp. It’s, it’s just like an enthusiasm bubble for a week, where for just a brief moment, we get to celebrate ourselves as creators, as you know Ari and as our as your listeners know it is a lonely and hard road, and you’re constantly comparing yourself to others on socials and on on streaming services, and being able to break is almost impossible. Here’s the thing, the most successful people feel the same way, and you would never know unless you talk to them and to have and I feel like there’s an almost intentional ecosystem in which we are not openly talking to each other as a community, right? And so the more that we can have forums like this, Ari and thank you so much for having me. And we, we go back as friends for a long time now, and we’ve created events together, and we want to continue to do that more. But this is, this is really, you know, people call it the highlight of their year, because, because of that very reason for this sense of community and for feeling seen as we’re weirdos, right? You know, like, trying to explain to our parents what we’re doing as artists and writer, you know, like, like, it’s easy to forget, especially in like, New York and LA and Asheville, that, like the average person doesn’t understand what we do at all, and like your family probably doesn’t understand at all, and your friends outside of music don’t understand it all. So for all of us to get together in this big way with hundreds of us, right who who are enthusiastic and and thoughtful and open and share our experiences together, that you know, that’s really something special. That’s what I look forward
Ari Herstand
that’s amazing. That’s awesome. That’s so cool. What you’ve built up, Danny, and yeah, it’s fantastic. It’s a perfect segue to my final question, which ask everyone who comes on the show, what does it mean to you to make it in the new music business? Great question,
Danny Ross
paying rent, if you can spend every day making music and not having to have a day job in which you’re doing something else, then I think you’ve made it. It’s not playing the garden, it’s not playing the Greek. It’s getting to spend your life making music and being creative and being around others who are creative.
Ari Herstand
That’s great. Thank you so much. Ari, thank you.
Today’s episode was edited by Ari Davids, with music by Brassroots District and produced by all the great people at Ari’s Take.
