A Major Label Producer's Guide To Making Content

What you just described is a constant feedback loop of new writers coming in, artists, songwriters coming in, sharing what's going on. It's like, oh man, like that just take all the education and all that stuff away from it. Just as a producer is a massive benefit.

I mean, that's been my secret. And to be fair, yeah, there are a few people who still are like, I hate what you do. Hey everyone, Daniel Grimmett here.

You're listening to Producer Management, the podcast that lets you in on real conversations between professional music producers and their teams. The deals, the strategies, and the unfiltered advice. This show is brought to you by my company, Dark Label Music.

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So everyone thinks that major label producers don't need to or have to make content, but welcome to 2025. Things are starting to change and today's episode is proof of that. I'm sitting down with Pete Covington, one of my clients who came to me as a touring guitarist, producer, and songwriter, working with indie and major label acts down in Australia.

When Pete decided to get off the road and go all in on producing, he quickly realized that he had no idea how to build a stable business doing that, and no one around him did either, despite looking like they had it all together. He would ask his peers what they were actually doing to build their business, but soon realized that none of them had a clue. They were all just winging it.

That is until he met another Australian producer on tour who happened to be a past client of ours and connected him with us. Pete's story shows the good, the bad, and the ugly of what happens when you step outside of the box and build something different as a modern record producer, especially in a market like Australia that can be very judgmental to anyone challenging the status quo. And even if you're not in that market, you can probably still relate to that.

I always found it pretty interesting that for an industry that is all about creativity and doing things outside of the box, it still remains pretty hung up on wanting everyone to fall in line and do things the same way. Because if you do something different, then it's often seen as a threat. My guess as to why would be because of the rampant scarcity mindset that most creatives are unfortunately infected with.

And I don't mean that to come off as cynical, but I feel that it's important for you to know the realities of what you're up against. So this conversation starts at the beginning of Pete's journey with me and then gets deep into how he used content to build a brand as a producer, something he never thought he would do. He breaks down things like his approach to making authentic content to get work, how to use the platforms in your favor, how to balance marketing yourself and doing the actual work, how content changed his life, and of course his struggles to finally do it despite all the judgment.

This is a packed 45-minute conversation that goes places you're probably not expecting. You definitely don't want to miss this one. Let's dive in.

You were producing records and stuff there when we met, right? Outside of you would kind of go on the road for a bit, come back, weren't you working at like a studio kind of complex? You had a room in a place? Yeah, I had a room in a spot. So I got off a stint of overseas touring. I was out for about two years on and off with a band who did a lot of stuff in the US and Europe.

And when I came back, I left that. And then when I came back, I hired a room, an early version of the space I'm in now actually at a studio out here. And that was just like, without really having a plan, I just grabbed a room because it felt like the right thing to do.

And it made me feel like more of a producer if I had a studio to work out of. That was probably half of me just working on my own music. And half of the time, or less than half even, was just like a friend who was a musician would go, can you help me record this song I'm trying to make? Or can you mix this for me? Or whatever it was.

So I wasn't actively pushing that really. But people who knew me knew that Pete can produce and he can mix and record. And so I would be doing stuff for not often, not for free back then, but I wasn't taking it very seriously enough to charge a rate that would sustain me.

Still more of a live guy at that point. Absolutely. Yeah.

Why did you come up? Remind me, we've been working together for a long time. When you originally reached out to me, what struck you? What was like, hey, I'm trying to do this or solve this problem? What was going on kind of at that point? I think we moved back from the coast a little sabbatical after about six months. And I did the same thing I had done before where I just rented a room.

Because I was like, I needed to find a room in order to go after this production thing now, where I really, I wanted to have both feet in. I wanted to be all in on this. So I knew I needed some sort of space to do it.

But I was really hunting for some sort of a way to shore up or some sort of a method or a plan about how to find clients regularly, how to build my career as a producer and wanting to go all in on it, but not really knowing how to direct or where to direct that energy. So every producer I would talk to who was open enough to talk about it, I would be quizzing them about like, how do you get your clients? How much work are you doing? I would ask rates if I felt comfortable to do that. And I actually did a gig with a producer and mix engineer and drummer called Gareth, who's in Dark Label as well and had done it previously.

And he seemed to have this regular flow of income and mix work. And after a bit of probing, he said, I actually got some help from this person called Dan. And then that was what led me to just binging your podcast that you had with Nick.

And yeah, starting to open my mind to other approaches to what I was used to, because I'd come from such a traditional place in the industry. I was looking for a manager because I thought that's the thing that's going to get me work. And that was kind of it.

I had a space and I was like, I need a manager or I don't know how to get work. So I came to you asking all of those questions. And I think I was like, are you a manager? Like, you know, what's going on? Sort of.

Yeah. Sometimes. Play one on TV.

I'll play one on this podcast. Yeah. Got it.

Yeah. I remember that's right. You met Gareth.

Yeah. We had a kind of a string of Australian guys at that, at that time. And then sort of pick back up after you weirdly enough.

Australia is kind of that market, I guess it's small, big, but small enough to where I think we had a lot of guys, you know, even come in through, through you that knew you afterwards or you were a reference, a reference for them. Cool. That, that makes sense.

The traditional thing, let's, let's talk about that. Yeah. I guess you came in and, and, you know, we start sort of started with the, the, the normal stuff, right.

It's like, cool. Here's, here's the math problem we need to solve. Here's how to solve it.

We need X amount. You know, if you want to make this, you need to be sending out X amount of proposals. The only way to do that is to have X amount of artists that need a proposal.

The only way to do that is, you know, you know, the drill, right. But I think one of the coolest turnarounds with you specifically, I mean, well, I guess how long into the process did things kind of, I guess maybe we shouldn't breeze over that. Cause some people are like, well, I want to, what happened? What happened in the first like couple of whatever? Cause we've been working on it a long time.

Maybe, I don't know what first three, six months. Well, the first, the first probably two, two months, I reckon when I, when I joined dark label, I, I hit Gareth up and I was like, man, I'm in like, thanks. This is, this looks awesome.

Like appreciate it. And he just had one piece of advice, which was like, just do everything they say, because he had said that, like, he'd heard of people doing dark, like going through the process of dark label and going, not feeling like they got as much out of it for some reason. And then he would ask, well, did you implement X, Y, Z that they recommended? And the answer would always be no.

So he was like, well, of course you didn't get as much out of it. And that's the same with management too. I mean, there's a lot, I mean, a lot of our guys, you know, may co-manage them with other people and they have like a industry manager and it's like, well, yeah, I mean, you got to show up to the rights if the manager's putting you there or you can't go and make a fool out of yourself or not follow up.

Like it's a, it's a partnership. So same, same with this, you know, we're just ad hoc business partners at the end of the day, but it's a business partners. You're hiring us to be a business partner, but we're a partner, right? If one partner is fucking up, then it ain't a great partnership.

Yeah. But that was good advice that he gave you. So two months, at least, you know, when it doesn't, if it doesn't work, why? It doesn't work, you know? A hundred percent.

And that, that was for me, like the first probably month or two, I was pretty slow. I was watching the, the, you know, there's, there's lots of videos you, you kind of need to watch just to get an overview of, you know, the system, what you need to learn. And I would, I started to optimize my Instagram profile and a new website and things of things like that, but I was a bit slow to start to implement things until about month three.

And when I had some existing clients and I needed to up my rates with them, cause I was on a super low rate for my production. And so I just looked in the resource library with dark label and started to be like, Oh, there's literally a video here for the issue that I'm about to face. So I watched that and just basically followed the advice on how to have that conversation in, in a way that, you know, has worked before.

And basically, yeah. Raising rates with past clients. That was the same.

Raising rates with past clients who you've charged no money or less money than you want to. Yeah. And, and I had that conversation with, I think two clients and all of a sudden, and they both went great, you know? So I, all of a sudden was like, Holy moly, like this is actually a thing.

And then I started to implement the outreach. And that's when I'm, when I got my first client from outreach, it was just like mind blowing. Cause that's the hardest part.

It is really. Cause then you said a math, math problem at the beginning, but then, and I heard someone talk about like a math problem versus a drama problem and the drama problem being like your head space and the self-belief and, or just whatever, not, not like beliefs that you're carrying that aren't helpful to your business or your career. And I had a bunch of those.

So breaking through those drama problems and actually like sending messages to do outreach was a huge breakthrough. And then once I got into the swing of that, it started to like move forward. So that was the first three to six months, I suppose.

It's, it's fun. We tend to have, yeah, the initial part of any new kind of system or strategy that we're doing is always the trickiest. We call it on our side.

We don't really, I guess, use this term with you guys often, but like Aaron and I, we call it buy-in is the client bought into this particular strategy. And we don't expect people to be a hundred percent bought in immediately. Cause that's just not how that's not realistic.

They have to kind of see it. They have to get at least a glimmer of like hope and reality. Of course you can, you know, there we put you guys around other, other folks that are, that are crushing it with certain things.

And that helps for sure that that is almost like, okay, it's a real thing. I believe that this is a real thing. That's sort of step one.

And I think most people get that about all this stuff nowadays. But then the second thing is like, okay, but is it a thing for me? And that's the buy-in phase. And it's, and we of course start with on purpose and you kind of know why the hardest ones to Yeah, because, because if they can get through that, then it unlocks, you know, like I've talked about, it kind of unlocks this, this animal mode that they kind of need at the start of this process that will help them just kind of go for it later.

Yeah. I, I, I think that's smart and yeah, it's interesting, but I mean, to me, like the second, the thing that came after the outreach for me was like, in my head, that was harder at the time because what I'm talking about is, yeah. Well, I remember you saying two, two big moments for me, right.

Where I think we were on a call and talking about outreach and I was saying, yeah, I'm having some success with it and doing it regularly and you know, it's great. And you said something about something to the effect of, well, now we got to get you into doing content and then you won't have to do as much outreach. And so I was like, well, I like the sound of not having to do as much outreach, but yeah, like the, for some reason, the idea of doing content felt like a much harder hill to climb than getting over doing outreach.

Because of course now I was just doing it as part of my like weekly routine. Yeah. So more about the hiccups with, uh, or not the hiccups, the hangups, I guess, rather with, with the content is, I think this is pretty relatable.

Yeah. So a lot of the same hangups I had when I, uh, just even about joining dark label were similarly could be applied to my hangups about content. So, I mean, specifically where I come from and Australia in general, there, there's a thing called tall poppy syndrome, which is like, we cut the tallest poppies down to size and we want everyone, you know, like culturally, we just have this messed up thing where we, when we see people like growing taller and, you know, moving faster and doing better than, than the herd, we just want to cut them back down to size.

And so the idea of like doing something for your business, doing something for yourself, getting help from a business coach or a manager or some sort of, you know, accelerator, it just doesn't sit with like, well with that for some reason. And it's, it's a bit hard for me to articulate, but it just makes it, it just feels like something that's not possible for whatever reason. And content for me fits into that zone or fitted into that zone where as soon as you start to put yourself out there, no matter what industry you're in, if you're Australian, you just have these, these voices, either real or imagined that are saying, who are you to be up here? Like, you know, talking about what you do and acting like, you know, all this stuff and being like a, trying to be a leader in your field or like, you know, just putting yourself out there in that way.

And I think that, you know, that's a relatable feeling for people all around the world. It's hard to put yourself out there on the, on the internet. But then I feel like from Australia, especially in the music industry, it was, it, it just feels very insular and judgy.

I, I, I was very scared of being judged by other producers, artists, whatever. So that was, I felt a lot of resistance there, first of all. Why'd you do it then? I didn't want to do as much outreach.

And I also felt like, you know why we put that one first now? Yeah, kind of. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of reasons, but that is part of it.

I think I had just an itch to do it too. Like I like, my dad was a, was in, in showbiz. Like he, he was a ventriloquist and a playwright, so I grew up around that energy.

Like I love, he was like a, essentially a standup, like, so I grew up around that energy. I love that. And I'm a performer too, you know, like I started playing in bands.

So there's an element of me that feels called to, you know, be on stage, be in front of a camera, whatever it is. And I also just felt called to like, talk about my perspective as a, as a music producer, as a songwriter, because I felt like the things that I believe about music production, about songwriting, about music making, about creativity, I didn't see those things being talked about a lot on Instagram or TikTok or YouTube. So I felt like called to add my voice to the pile of voices and, and just talk about some of these things.

And I think that that, that's a really genuine calling that I, I feel that I have. So that was part of the reason too. So it was, if, if I can do less outreach and get a bit of inbound, that would be really great.

And also, yeah, I just feel called to do this. So let's like try and figure this out. But then still, I started to follow like the Dark Label, you know, there's some videos on it, or there were some videos that may have changed now, but when I sort of started to do it, I watched whatever there was.

And I started to try and do those things. And then I remember we were on a, one of the weekly kind of business calls with you and I raised my hand and said, yeah, I'm just, I'm just struggling to find time to do the content. And you just said, well, what time do you get up in the morning? And I went, ran through it and you basically found, I took you through my whole day and you basically found like three hours a day for me and just went like, well, it doesn't sound like you don't have time.

Just sounds like it's a motivation thing. And I was like, damn. So from that point on, I was like, okay, I can, I can do this and I just have to like get off my ass and actually fricking do the things that I need to be doing.

So that was probably the, where I went a bit more turbo on it. And then how ironic fast forwarding. I mean, we're skipping a lot, but people watch these case studies before you can predict what happens.

Things go well, you start getting clients, things get consistent. Hoorah. But what I find interesting about your story is coming from that background of, you know, which sounded like it was mainly outside pressure.

It sounded like maybe you had kind of a, maybe you were more open to the content thing based off your background the whole time. Perhaps you just getting over that hurdle, which I totally get. It's it's.

And sometimes that judgment is, is real. Unfortunately, I can't even sit here and tell you like, oh no, don't worry about that. Like no one actually cares.

I mean, I think for the most part, most people don't, but everybody loved me. I'll make pop music. That was no problem.

You know, and you know, the, the production team channel, which was that channel before it was called make pop music. No issues there. And then when I started talking about like business for producers and doing this, it was like a big switch with some people, not the majority, luckily.

But when I saw a lot of guys that haven't had my back, but yeah, there was definitely somewhere I didn't hear from them as much anymore. It was kind of like, what's Dan? This is weird thing, but everybody wants everybody to love them. Right.

And, and think they're cool and, and, you know, all that kind of stuff. But then at the same time, they're also like, yeah, but I want to do something different. And it's like, well, a lot of times those two things don't go hand in hand when you kind of, you know, do things that are a bit out of the box.

Some of those things could even be a mistake and not go anywhere or, you know, and like, then you just have to kind of live with that and take the L I've had to do that a lot of in my career. And guess what? In a month, people forget about it. And, but, but the only thing that's going to happen if people kind of don't take, take the risks, then there's going to look back in there and they wish they did.

Yeah, that's right. Caveat to all this, you know, you got to do stuff. People can do stuff.

That's a little, well, I mean, if it's done with taste, right, that's the thing. Like you have taste, you came from the traditional world. In my opinion, those are the guys that should, should be making the content anyway, but they're the most resistant to it, which I understand, but it's like, well, you guys are the ones that have these interesting perspectives and stories and like cool stuff you can show, but are the least likely to do the content.

That's exactly it. And that was the people who I felt most judged from. And to be fair, yeah, there are a few people who still are like, I hate what you do online used to it.

And like, yeah, there's people who like will literally say that to me in the face and it's like, yeah, that's cool. At least they're honest. It's honest.

That must be an Australian thing. That's not an American thing. It's really wild.

I mean, I'm sure I can only imagine the things people would say not to my face, but, but yeah, it's, it's definitely a real thing. And there are people who, like when I started posting videos regularly, I just blocked them because I was like, I just don't even need that energy in, in my, you know, circulation world here on social media at all. And I think that that's like, that probably helped because it just got me over that hump of like, you know what, whatever, I'll just put it up.

But yeah, you do get over that after a period of time and the benefits start to outweigh the judgment and any sort of perceived cost that it has quite quickly. Especially if you like, if you're truly like sharing, you know, you're not trying to hedge your bets and trying to please everyone. You're being honest and sharing like authentic, you know, your authentic perspective and your take on things.

Magically, the people who gravitate towards your stuff are people who align with, you know, your, your taste and your perspective and your outlook and your methods and all of that. And all of a sudden it's like you pre-qualify clients that, you know, you start to meet people on these platforms who you're like, wow, I'd not only would I love to work with you, I'd be friends with you, you know? So there's these tremendous benefits that come from it and negative voices that come in. You're just like, you know what, like that's fine because of all this other good stuff.

You just, you watch kind of the old world go into the new world, right? It's probably like the, the tape machine guys talking to the DAW guys, you know, there's probably a little, a couple period of years where there's a little bit of a clash with that and what's, what's legit and what isn't and what, you know, just one of those classic things. I think that, you know, if you look at who you're going to be working with in the next five, 10, 15, 20 years, they're growing up now. Yeah, that's right.

It might be weird that someone doesn't have that, you know? I think that's what I found. I mean, I think you said that to me early on and that resonated because yeah, like I would meet young, younger clients who had come in who are 20, 21 and writing with them and yeah, that them expressing that sentiment of like, I, you know, I went to this, this person hit me up, but like they didn't have any, like anything on Instagram or they didn't even have a YouTube account or they didn't have this. And that was weird to them, you know? So that it definitely resonated what you said there.

Yeah. Cause it can feel like actually to younger people who've, who've grown up with, you know, I still remember when we didn't have social media at all, but with young people who've grown up with it, people who don't share online, if they, they often just call it gatekeeping. They're like, Oh, you're not being open.

You're like hiding what you know, which is not perceived to be good, you know, obviously. Yeah. It's like, I think a lot of the sort of mystery thing that we grew up when it's all mysterious.

Well, that, that bubble is just burst, you know, I think we're hanging on a little bit to this bubble, like, Oh, it's about, and I totally get the, how that's captivating, right. And interesting. And there are still some artists that, that do like pull that off, you know, and producers and stuff that pull that off.

And you know, so it's not like a bad, a good or bad or better or worse thing. Or I highly doubt that I will regret, you know, like building this YouTube channel, even though most producer managers probably would look at that and like, what are you talking about? You know, or that's crazy or that's stupid. Obviously there's some deal stuff we just can't talk about publicly, you know, but that's okay.

Like that's a risk I'm willing to take. Well, I don't think it's a risk at all, actually, but that's something I'm willing to do, I guess. And I think that like, we'll caveat all this, like you don't have to do any of this stuff, right.

Anybody listening, you don't have to do any, anything you do whatever, whatever you want. I'm very big on do what, do what's right for you. That helps you, helps you reach your goals.

But I do have this, this conversation often. I also have conversations like with producers. Sometimes they're at the top of their game and I tell them don't do it at the moment, you know, I was like, hold off of it just because it just may not make sense for them to take time away from what they're doing.

If they're literally at the peak of their game to do anything else, content or some, some other kind of business or something, you know, I'm like, I don't know, man, it doesn't sound like you need to worry about this right now. Maybe just put your, put your head down. This will always be here.

Yeah. And that's the thing I think about the industry or just maybe it's at any business, you know, I think we, we want, I mean, at least for me, I always crave like, what's the one thing that what's the one method and what's the, what do I just need to rinse and repeat every day? But the truth is you have to kind of be adaptable. That's the thing I've learned along the way is like, when I've had a really locked in routine where I'm like doing outreach, doing content, doing like I'm at home, I'm not away.

So I can do the production when I need to do it. That's great. I love that.

That's what I strive for. But then there are times when like, Hey, I've got too many projects on right now and I just need to like crush through that. I can't be spending half a day making content this week.

And that's okay because I know it's going to be here next week or the week after when I can get through these projects and like get back to it. And it's just like constantly like surfing that, that wave of, of like thinking forward and knowing like you have to, you know, prepare for the quieter times, but also just like when you've got the work and it's, and you've got to just get through the work and do a good job and be there for your clients and stuff. It's okay to like put the other stuff down for a second, knowing you're going to come back to it.

That's been a big thing for me, like trusting myself going, it's okay. Put it down for a sec. You're going to come back to that.

And then yeah, being comfortable with that whole thing has been huge. Call that learning how to surf the wave. New module.

Learning how to surf the wave. Yeah. Cause there's waves in any, in any business.

Right. And that's okay. No, we don't want tidal wave.

If it's like, you know, all or nothing, that that's, that's tough. Usually, usually indicates that there's a problem in the business. If it's like, oh, some months I make a gazillion dollars.

And then for three months I'll make zero, you know, it's like, well, probably those are, those are big waves. Those are, those waves are too big to surf. Yeah.

But you know, the normal waves, yeah. What you're talking about is learning how to surf those waves and when to pull it. That's like level two stuff.

The first thing you mentioned, the rigid, you know, like, cool. I have this rigid thing. I do X amount of it.

That is the, that is the, that's level one, right? That's the way to learn the fundamentals because you don't yet have the privilege or, or I don't know if that's the right word, but to just kind of like surf the wave with that, you kind of just need to go all in and just swim fast. Right. Cause that's, that's developing the skills and I think having a rigid schedule for that, then yeah, once it starts working and starts paying off and now it's like, well, crap, not crap, but like, oh wow, now I have work because of, you know, the efforts, but now crap, how am I supposed to keep it up? You know? And then that's it.

Learning how to get work is one thing. Doing a great job on the work is another thing, but then when you pull it together and it's okay, well, how do I, cause I can't just do a bunch to get the work. And then when the work is over, now I'm back at nothing and starting over every time, which is most producers.

Yeah. It's it's like, yeah, well that's, you got to learn how to surf the wave, man. Yeah.

It's knowing what bit of what to, to work on while the projects are still going on to set up the next, the next thing. That's exactly the thing. Yeah.

And, and that's where like also content can do a bit of the heavy lifting for you. Cause it's, you've put stuff out that exists, whether you're, you know, there or not to do the, the, the outreach for example. And yeah, it's, that's a huge lesson, I think.

Yeah. And, and that's also where, you know, you can start to build systems and stuff to, to help you with either the production side or the content side or whatever it is, right. Get a bit of extra help.

So yeah. So the, the irony of this, right. With the obstacle, one of their biggest obstacles being the content stuff coming, you know, coming from the traditional world.

Now we loop you into help our other guys with content. I'll put them with you. If I think they need to get better, I'm going to go talk to Pete.

Cause I think people relate to, we have obviously like prolific content creators in, in, you know, that we rep that kind of came from that world already, you know, but sometimes some of the more traditional producers that I work with don't necessarily relate with those guys. They think it's cool. They're like, yeah, okay, that's cool.

That's that guy's thing. But I don't necessarily relate to that. That's not the world I come from, but I like people like you.

And there's some other folks that we work with that. I call you excuse eliminators, right? When anybody says something just like, well, look at this, look at that. And it eliminates those excuses.

And I think you do a great job of serving that role for the people. Like, yeah, no, listen, I get content. Like I get it, but like, I want to do it in a way that like feels good to me and authentic to me.

And, you know, and I was like, well, technically that's what we're all trying to do. Some of us just may not be as good as it doesn't come off as authentic. I don't think anybody's purposely trying to be not authentic with their content.

They just may not have the skill to, I'm very much still teleprompter Dan on YouTube. And I, it's a skill that I'm trying to get better at, but you know, certainly a bit more stiff on YouTube than I am just talking like this, but yeah, you've been an awesome, I think resource for the other, the other guys. And then now it's kind of morphed into the, the producer afraid of content.

Dare I say kind of, kind of heading to the content creator side. Yeah, totally. Tell us about that.

I mean, I think just it's, it's what you're talking about or through wanting to do it. Wanting to so badly do it from a place of honesty and authenticity. And I guess I wanted to do it on my own terms.

And that comes with two sides to the same coin because there's wanting to do it on your own terms, in terms of what you're sharing and your perspective and not hedging. But then there's also where a lot of people start and where I started with, with say Instagram, for example, or TikTok was like wanting the platform to be a certain way. And through posting a lot and seeing what doesn't work, you start to realize like, well, the platforms are certain, the platform is a certain way.

It's not, it's, I can't shape it into what I want it to be. So learning the mechanics of how to package something that is raw or not necessarily raw, but honest and authentic to you package that in a way that works on, on the platform and connects with, with real people. Cause there are real people behind these.

The algorithms are just responding to what real people like and react to learning those two things. It starts to kind of click. And so through doing that, the community that started to form around the stuff that I've been sharing has just been really mind-blowing and inspiring to me in a way that I didn't expect, because it's, it's helped me to, you know, launch a newsletter, for example, where I just go deeper into the things that I talk about on Instagram.

Have you ever thought you'd say that sentence two years ago? Never, never. Maybe in like 2005, when I was in my first band and I was like, we need a mailing list on a clipboard. But now not in the way that I do it now where it's every week and it's, it's it's just about songwriting and creativity and, you know, you know, recording production, things like that.

But, but yeah, building a community where all of a sudden I can put on songwriting workshops, which people turn up to on zoom and, you know, reply to emails every week saying, sharing what they're working on and sharing that what they're struggling with, or just talk about lyric writing, or just talk about sharing music that they love and that's inspired them. And it's people that like, I genuinely connect with. And it's just been mind blowing.

So it started to lead me towards other possibilities in addition to, to being a music producer, you know, that even in the education space or working with people just on the songwriting, for example, which again, I never thought would be possible before this whole journey kicked off. So that's been amazing. A lot of producers that I've talked to a shocking amount, despite them, you know, working with artists for maybe decades even, and having some of the credits and stuff, they just have much less understanding about the actual market they're serving than I would ever thought they were.

I was just surprises me. And I think that it's like, yeah, it's like, you're barely talking to the market. You're barely having any interaction with them outside of maybe the clients you already have that, you know, and that there's some, there's some things to learn from that and data to learn from that.

But like you, what you just described is a constant feedback loop of new writers coming in, artists, songwriters coming in, sharing what's going on with it. It's like, well, man, like that just take all the education and all that stuff away from it. Just as a producer is a massive benefit.

I mean, that's been my, my secret, secret weapon. I mean, I've even noticed this in management where I meet managers and I think it's really awesome because I get to learn stuff from maybe their more traditional world that I find really, really interesting. And then when they ask about my world, I'll bring up certain things.

It's like, they have no clue about, you know, some of them even like freelance work, which is, I don't know, it's been around forever. Right. And they're like, well, really? So like, these are India, like paying the, I was like, yeah, I was like, how are your producers living? Yeah.

I'm like, oh, well, they work at a restaurant. Or so I was like, okay, well, there's nothing wrong with working in a restaurant, but it's like, yeah, they don't really know how to make them money in the meantime. Until they get, you know, till their pub deal renews or they get, you know, a big cut on something, which I know that's fine.

That's what that manager's focused on. That's their specialty. But just, again, it's, I'm not saying this is bad or good.

I'm just saying it's interesting of how little of a feedback loop that, you know, most producers have, they have no, they barely understand the landscape of artists and they wonder why they're struggling to connect with them or build a business or get new work. Aside from all just like the business, whatever fundamentals of learning how to acquire work. It's like, you don't even know the market you're working for.

That's it. I mean, the concept of knowing the market that you're working for though, is, that was completely alien to me before I came into Dark Label. So certain books you could read that, again, I would never have read them or known to even look at them in the bookstore before joining Dark Label because they were around business or things that I just didn't think would ever be relevant or applicable to what I did.

And the world of music, but yeah, from a practical perspective, like the fact that you can literally just ask, you know, a client or a songwriter or whoever it is that you're, you know, you're working with or connecting with, you can just ask what their pain points are, what their struggles are, what they enjoy, what they don't enjoy, you know? And that's the, that's, I, that had never occurred to me before Dark Label. So, I mean, yeah, I totally, it is mind blowing to me now that I, you know, before I was just prodding around in the dark. And it was also why, you know, I would say yes to any project that came along in any genre, because I didn't, not only did I not understand my potential clients and songwriters and people like that, but I didn't really know what I had to offer them.

And I think that that, the lack of a feedback loop there meant that I said yes to the wrong work, you know, I couldn't find clients that actually wanted to work with. So I didn't think that was even possible. So yeah, it's, it's gone the completely the other way in a positive way now.

Yeah. I mean, you're describing most producers. A hundred percent.

And I know I still, I work, you know, alongside and know producers who feel like they're stuck in that as well. And yeah, so it's, it's so common. Looking or looping back rather, this is, this is why I like starting with, it's, you know, obviously it's not the most like leveraged thing in the world, but it's why I like starting with, with outreach.

It really outreach really gets overlooked. It's become a more popular topic recently on the internet and producer circles. And it's technically always existed.

It was content is relatively new compared to a good old fashioned outreach networking stuff. It forces producers to go talk to their market. Yeah.

Like just go get in the room and talk to the market because I'm almost like, again, unless they kind of get are prolific with content before I meet them, which sometimes they are, it's like, what are you even going to make content about? You don't even know the hell you're talking to. What are you going to share? I mean, you could share random stuff and like, sometimes that random stuff, I guess could be interesting. If you get lucky, it will align.

But I think that's the most important thing. When I talked to Purdue, I'm like, well, how many artists are you meeting on a monthly monthly basis? And I'm like, well, I mean, I work with kind of the three same people and I don't know, maybe I'll meet one or two new artists. And I was like, that's insane.

I meet hundreds of producers a month and I still got to work my job just like everybody else, you know, and work with my clients. And I still make time to, you know, some of them become clients obviously, but like I talked to a hundred a month. Totally.

And redefining your expectations around that. What's yeah, just that it's that math thing of just going, oh, okay. Like what's normal for me is very different to what's normal for Dan or for another producer in dark label, for example.

Yeah. Why don't we do this? You obviously lead some conversations with some other clients around content. What are some of the common things, I guess, that you see people struggle with and what do you tell them to do as far as solving that? I think number one would be understanding, getting used to the idea that the platform is a certain way, whichever the platform is that you're focusing on and being humble enough to accept that your job on that platform is to craft a piece of content that adheres to the tropes and packaging inherent to that platform.

One way that's been effective for me with that is that like on the one hand, making a video sort of feels like a little art project and that's one way that I enjoy doing it. It makes it feel fun and achievable, but on the other hand, remembering that the music you make, the records you help artists make is the art, the promotion for your business is something else and that's what you do on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube. That's helped me become comfortable with learning, being humble enough to learn what works on the platforms, shaping what I authentically have to say and share into that packaging and then sharing that and being able to test what works, what doesn't work and doing it consistently.

That'd be the number one thing, I think, is just getting other producers to understand that. That's a good one. Yeah, give us one runner up to that.

A supplementary one to that is modeling what works in a way that feels authentic to you, which is a bit simpler. It's just looking at what works, doesn't have to be in the niches of music production, could be in lots of different niches, but that's a good clue as to how to figure out the packaging on these platforms. The other one would be just figuring out, well, if I want to be authentic, doing a bit of an audit of what is my approach, what are the things I believe about creativity, about music production, about recording, about mixing, what's my perspective? Getting that down on paper, getting down on paper your origin stories of where you've come from, why did you start making music in the first place, what have been your struggles, your path to getting to where you are and really doing a deep audit on that.

I think a lot of producers undervalue that process or maybe it doesn't even occur to them to do that process, but I think having that down on paper or in a notion doc or something that you can look back at and go, here are my stories, here's my why, figuring out why you're doing it all in the first place, what's driving you, what's your perspective, that is a really important part of crafting content that feels authentic to you. I don't think it happens by accident. I know I've been very intentional about getting all those stories down and figuring out my why and it just informs every piece of content that I make, even the pieces of content that just appear to be broader pieces of content to bring people in.

Even those, I feel a connection to those pieces of content just because of that work that I've done. That's another thing I talk about with other producers a lot as well. That reminds me, I'll leave you with a little funny story.

I have this little backup drive, external hard drive, and it's all stuff I have in different places, but it's just an organizing kind of thing. I have a folder in there called Dan's Life Assets. It's basically just like, I spent some time doing what you're talking about and I was like, okay, any pictures from old sessions or clips from old production business or certain screenshots of, oh, we got the first Billboard record, get a screenshot of that, all these things that I put in there, old clips on YouTube that old bands had of me recording them and just all these little things, because then I can send them over to our video editor sometimes.

If you watch our YouTube channel, you've probably seen some of those throughout it. I was filming a YouTube video and had my SD card and in the drive, I need to reformat and clear it and put it back in the camera to clear some space. I had that and my backup drive selected and deleted, so Dan's Life is gone.

Oh my God. I have to rebuild it. It'll be a nice trip down memory lane going to collect all these old screenshots again and old videos and stuff.

But yeah, I thought it was hilarious. I literally deleted my, I have my life on a hard drive and I deleted it. So Pete, thanks for sharing your story.

I look forward to many more years of working together on stuff. Thank you, man. And I'm exactly the same.

I owe you a massive debt of gratitude and yeah, I'm stoked that I found you guys. So thank you. Absolutely.

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That's the episode.