Devin Townsend is a successful singer, songwriter, performer, guitarist, and music producer. He is also the brain behind The Devin Townsend Creative Academy www.dtcreativeacademy.com

As a part of Devin's Creative Academy Devin offers select student's one-on-one coaching calls.

In this episode of Music Business Facts, Devin has allowed us to listen in to one of those calls, where he coaches one of his students on how to make it in the modern music business.

Chris O’Brien is a bit of a legend in The Australian Music Scene. He’s the general manager of touring for Destroy All Lines and former general manager for Australia’s biggest touring metal festival Soundwave 2003-2015.

During the conversation we discuss a variety of things including how to get into the music business, management, touring and tour management, festivals, and a lot more. We also have a brief conversation about Soundwave and the demise of Australia’s largest metal festival. As well as a bit of a chat about AJ Maddah - the colourful character who ran Soundwave.

Chris is a very knowledgeable guy who has a lot of experience in the business so without further delay - I really hope you enjoy my conversation with Chris O’Brien- General Manager for Destroy All lines.

Well there you have it folks I hope you got something out of that discussion with Chris. Once again some recurring themes about believing in yourself, having a positive mindset, working hard, have realistic expectations. And if you’d like to connect with Chris O’Brien go to:

https://www.facebook.com/whatavibemanagement/

Or

chris.obrien@destroyalllines.com

Guys if you’re enjoying the podcast and you haven’t already, head over to iTunes and subscribe so you don’t miss an episode.

Tim Charles is the epitome of a modern music business entrepreneur. He plays violin and sings with his Australian metal band Neobliviscaris.

He’s also a songwriter, booking agent, artist manager, tour manager, publicist, business executive, label manager, concert promoter, artist liaison, lecturer, teacher, key note presenter, consultant, content creator and social media manager.

On this episode of The Music Business Facts podcast Tim discusses the roles he performs to bring multiple streams of income into his business.

Benji Rogers is the Founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Pledge Music.com

Pledge Music is a global direct-to-fan platform that helps artists raise funds and create excellent pre-order campaigns.

Benji Rogers is also an accomplished musician and has been through the major label system himself. But now he is predominantly focused on helping ‘creatives’ raise the money required to bring their projects to life through his Pledge Music platform.

So I encourage all of you to check out the cool shit going on over at https://www.pledgemusic.com/

Today, when I looked you’ve got artists like Black Sabbath using the platform right down to a stack of indie acts I’ve never heard of. Anyhow check out Pledge Music!

Website: www.musicbusinessfacts.com
Facebook: facebook.com/musicbusinessfacts
Twitter: twitter.com/musicbizfacts

My guest today has experienced an enormous amount of success in the music business. Brent DeBoer has been the drummer for American rock band The Dandy Warhols for over 19 years. Since moving from Portland to Australia permanently, he also plays guitar in a band called Immigrant Union.

The Dandy Warhols have a new album out called Distortland and they are about to embark on an Australian tour in October. For all details on the tour you can visit my show notes page over at musicbusinessfacts.com.

If you have would like to discuss anything Brent talked about, I’d love to hear from you. Let me know at Rodney@musicbusinessfacts.com or you can get me at facebook.com/musicbusinessfacts.

Website: www.musicbusinessfacts.com
Facebook: facebook.com/musicbusinessfacts
Twitter: twitter.com/musicbizfacts

My expert guest today is Satchel- lead guitarist for the very talented and incredibly funny American parody glam act Steel Panther.

I’ve got to admit that this is definitely the most politically incorrect episode of Music Business Facts ever, but it was a lot of fun to interview this guy.

Satchel’s real name is Russ Parish and I did inquire if he’d be interested in doing a “serious” interview, but he wasn’t, so when I realised that I’d be speaking with the character “Satchel” I thought I’d have a bit of fun with it and have a bit of a crack at comedy myself. So don’t take this episode of the show too seriously!

Although, there are actually a couple of good music business facts in this interview, most of it is just a bit of fun so I really hope you enjoy it.

Steel Panther are touring Australia next month in June. If you haven’t seen them live before they are an excellent band, kind of a cross between Motley Crue, Skid Row, Van Halen and Rodney Rude- It’s a great show and if you like your 80’s metal performed flawlessly and delivered in a hilarious R rated manner you’ll love Steel Panther!

Website: www.musicbusinessfacts.com
Facebook: facebook.com/musicbusinessfacts
Twitter: twitter.com/musicbizfacts

My guest today is a super interesting guy called Eyal Levi. Eyal is an ex-touring metal musician who went through the whole major label system, and now has positioned himself as not only a successful recording engineer and producer, but also as a successful sound production trainer and entrepreneur. I think you’ll really enjoy this interview regardless of whether you’re coming from a performance, songwriting angle or from the sound production sector.

As always, I love to hear from all of you. So hit me up with any questions or comments at: Rodney@musicbusinessfacts.com

Website: www.musicbusinessfacts.com

Facebook: facebook.com/musicbusinessfacts

Twitter: twitter.com/musicbizfacts

My guest today is a cool guy named Karl Sanders, who is the founding member of the American Ancient Egyptian themed, technical death metal band Nile. I’ve met Karl a number of times now whilst he’s been here in Australia and he is making a full time living as a death metal guitarist. He’s been doing that for many many years, so as usual I thought I’d pick his brain about the music business facts and see what he had to share.

Mike Portnoy is an extremely technically proficient drummer primarily known as the skin hitter for the prog metal act Dream Theatre. He is the second youngest person (after Neil Peart) to be inducted into the Modern Drummer's Hall of Fame (at 37 years of age). Mike has also played in numerous other musical projects including his latest project Metal Allegiance, collaborative super group with David Ellefson from Megadeth and Alex Skolnick from Testament.

Eric Grothe Jnr is a former Australian Rugby League player who played the game for fourteen seasons at the highest level including spots on both the Australian Rep side and the New South Wales State of Origin side.

Post his football career Eric Grothe Jnr has now established himself as one of the leading authorities on the social media platform Instagram.

This episode of Music Business Facts grills Eric for his top tips and strategies when using Instagram for business.

Zakk Wylde is an American guitarist, songwriter and entrepreneur who first rose to prominence as the guitarist for Ozzy Osbourne. He later went on to found the successful rock-metal band Black Label Society, as well as a number of successful business ventures.

This is part two of my interview with super cool Eclipse record label founder and and President Mr Chris Poland. And on Eclipse you find such cool bands like A Breach of Silence, Mushroomhead, Our Last Enemy to name a few.

Chris Poland is the founder and president of Indie American Record label “Eclipse Records”. Chris believes that a record company should try to work on making each album "hit material", instead of merely putting out as many albums as possible to gain recognition.

Tim Price is an independent Music professional who runs a few companies including a management business - Pricewar Music, as well as a PR business Collision Course. And he does a whole lot more, Tim has been a drummer, a stage manager, artist liaison, graphic designer and much more. And Tim’s currently getting some great results. He’s really helping some hot new up and coming artists and he makes a full time living doing this from his music businesses, and that’s what this entire podcast is all about- uncovering the Music Business Facts.

My interview today was conducted at the recent BigSound conference and is with a great guy called Adrian Kelly. And Adrian runs an independent artist management company called NMA Management. So obviously I wanted to hear his take on how it all goes down in this crazy business.

Ex Skid Row front man Sebastian Bach talks to Rodney Holder from musicbusinessfacts.com

Sebastian is one of the great rock metal voices of our time and is also a legitimate businessman in his own right.

With over 20 million records sold and 30 years experience in the music business Sebastian Bach certainly has the credentials to discuss the Music Business Facts!

Dave Haley is one of Australia's most accomplished and recognised metal drummers.

He is also the manager for his extreme metal band Psycroptic.  

Additionally Dave run's music events, tours international bands, teaches drums, tour manages, and invests in property.

Dave has never had a real job and makes a great living from his passion of drums and heavy metal music. 

Some great insights in this interview with Rodney Holder from Music Business Facts!

Burton C. Bell is a veteran of the music business and in this episode of Music Business Facts he shares a plethora of stories on the music business. He is the vocalist for American heavy music act Fear Factory. Burton is attributed to first successfully mixing "clean" vocals into the style of death metal. A great insight on what to do and what not to do in the music business.

In today’s episode I’m absolutely stoked to be bringing you my interview with legendary metal guitarist, vocalist and songwriter Max Cavelera.

Max and his ex band  Sepultura where a huge influence on me personally and my band Alchemist back in the day.

Max’s story is a really interesting one because Sepultura were once well on the way to becoming one of the biggest metal bands on the planet. Just at the peak of their career- the band split with Max due to the fact that they were going to sack their manager who also happened to be Max’s wife.

Max has gone on to become involved in numerous exciting heavy music projects including Nailbomb, Soulfly, Cavelera Conspiracy, and Killer Be Killed.

Anyhow I really love this interview as Max goes into some of the huge music business mistakes he’s made in his career like simply being naïve regarding contracts, not knowing the intricacies of understanding name and brand protection, getting ripped off and a whole lot more. 

He also has a dig at The current line up of Sepultura who are still performing and touring under the Monicker that Max and his brother Igor started all those years ago.

Anyhow lots of music business lessons in this one. Hope you enjoy the episode.

Let me know on Twitter.com/musicbizfacts. And share the link around with all your metal buddies if you think they may enjoy the episode.

Welcome to Music Business Facts – The podcast where Rodney Holder talks to successful music industry professionals and debates the facts about the music industry.

Today's guest is Mr. Dani Filth- Lead vocalist for the very successful and often controversial gothic horror vampire black- metal band- Cradle of Filth.

In this conversation Danny shares his views and opinions on the music biz as well as some great take away advice on how to get the attention from big industry players.

Behemoth are an extreme metal act from Poland. They are excellent musicians with a very strong visual presentation and image. Their music, videos, artwork, live performances are all very nihilistic and horrific- Stuff the metal kids really love. 

I was absolutely stoked to secure this interview with band leader and main man  "Nergal" because this guy is not only a modern extreme metal cult figure, but also a fully fledged entrepreneur with his fingers in numerous and various business ventures.

Apart from exploiting the standard music income streams like shows, touring, physical & digital music sales and merchandise (which Behemoth do exceptionally well), Nergal is also an accomplished entrepreneur with numerous other businesses outside of his band including a bar/night club and two barber shops, plus overseeing licensing ventures with beer brewers and a whole lot more.

Adam "Nergal" Darski is Black Metal's Behemoth Entrepreneur.

Enjoy!

Jason Fuller speaks to Rodney Holder about his professional career in the music business.

Jason is veteran of the Australian heavy music scene who has played in his rock and roll grindcore band "Blood Duster" for over twenty three years.

Jason is a song writer, performer, manager, publicist, promoter, producer, studio owner, comedian and entrepreneur. 

This is an action packed episode about a DIY punk rock ethos had to evolve to music business entrepreneurship in order to survive the insanely crazy music industry.