Everything Is Going To Be Okay

If you've been doing music professionally for a while, then you've probably had this intrusive thought before. You think to yourself, why the hell am I doing this? Everyone wants to figure this thing out, but why? Why do you need to figure it out? Figuring it out is not required. Hey everyone, Daniel Grimmett here.

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This one's going to be short and sweet, and hopefully will give you some comfort and motivation. I was just reflecting on my week, and to be honest, it was kind of a frustrating week. If you've been doing music professionally for a while, then you've probably had this intrusive thought before.

You think to yourself, why the hell am I doing this? Generally, that's followed by a brief period of fantasizing other things that you could be doing with your life. I remember back in 2016 when my production company was at its peak, I had that thought for the first time, and it actually kind of scared me. Fortunately, I had a conversation about it with our mixing engineer at the time who, he had already been full-time for a decade at that point, and he told me that, you know, if you work in the music industry and don't hate it at least a few times every year, then you probably don't work in the music industry.

And that certainly made me feel better knowing that I was not alone, and that, you know, the thought is temporary. This is all I've ever done, but I'm sure people feel that way no matter what industry or job that they're in, even if it is their passion and they love doing it. And it seems like every time that thought enters my head, at the same time, something cool happens.

And that's what I want to tell you about in this episode. Just the other day, one of my key employees who worked at my production company about 10 years ago just signed with Big Machine in Nashville. That's a major milestone in anyone's career.

And seeing someone who was grinding it out in those early days with me now hitting these huge career markers, it's just incredible to witness. It's really cool. And then there was a producer that I worked with back in 2020 who just recently connected with me last week, and he was collaborating with this artist and one of their songs took off.

And obviously when this artist's song blew up, you know, big management companies came in, she got signed, they started working with her, and apparently those managers, traditional managers, really were just kind of coming in to try to extract as much money as they could out of this moment, which is a popular thing, unfortunately. And luckily the artist was like, nope, that's not going to happen. And my producer got to take over that role.

So now he gets to share financially in the growth of, you know, this artist's career ongoing, and they have a great relationship. That is probably one of the best case scenarios as a freelance music producer. And this guy was just like any other producer probably listening to this show right now.

In 2020, when I met him, he had been working a corporate job for years. Music was just a hobby. He was good, but it was more of a side thing.

He was in his forties, had a family, and, you know, we started a little studio and he went full-time doing that, did that for a few years, and then boom, one of his artists took off. So it can really just happen like that. And just this morning, I saw another producer that I worked with around the same time, who has been working really, really hard to break into the Asian market and finally landed a billboard charting record.

And if he's listening to this episode, he knows who he is. Congratulations, my friend. It's amazing.

He posted a picture of the plat today on Instagram. And these stories just got me thinking about something that I'm calling the producer's journey. That's really what I want to talk about today.

And it's something that I want you to embrace. I've worked intimately with producers for a long time, and I've noticed that they're constantly in the state of thinking that they're doing everything wrong when it comes to their career. It seems to always be this nagging feeling.

And I know the industry is, you know, changing so fast and everyone on Instagram looks like they're killing it. And it's easy to feel like you're the only one struggling, or, you know, you've somehow missed a critical step that everyone else has figured out. What I want to tell you and what I really need you to hear is that you're not doing it wrong.

There is no wrong or right. There is just learning and keep going. And as cliche as it sounds, the ups and downs are the path.

The confusion is the journey. I think everyone wants to figure this thing out. But why? Why do you need to figure it out? Figuring it out is not required.

Just learn and keep going. Take that producer with the recent billboard record. He held out and stuck with it for what was probably a 10, maybe even 15 year journey.

I've known him for, I guess, five or six of those years. That's not an overnight success. That's persistent, consistent work finally breaking through.

And he could probably tell you the story of how it happened, how he got that record. But I doubt he would say that he figured anything out. Don't get me wrong.

I mean, having a plan and a strategy is important. I spend almost every waking hour putting together plans and working on strategies for producers. But that doesn't replace the journey.

And I think sometimes people, producers rather, will come to Dark Label and be like, yeah, I just want the answer. I want the plan. And it's like, well, yeah, you do want that.

But they're almost coming at it from an angle of like, yeah, I need to figure this all out. I need to figure it out fast. Well, what I don't want to ever do is replace the journey that you need to go on.

I mean, that's not what I did for myself. The point of a plan and a strategy is just to keep my producers looking straight ahead and continuing the journey. That's it.

We're just trying to increase the probability that they will keep moving forward. Just the other day, I was talking to a hip hop producer in the German market. He's not a client, but we just met and we were talking.

He had built a beat store years ago that was making money, but he wasn't really fulfilled by it. He felt like, oh, well, all the producers I look up to, they don't do this. So he decided he wanted to pivot and try to go build some things on the industry side.

What happened was that he learned some pretty harsh truths about that world. He discovered that even when you have a lot of streams and placements, it doesn't always lead to money. And you figure out the more opportunities you get, the more things you land, the more money you make, the more people take it from you.

Unfortunately, that's how it looks a lot of times. The economics of that side can sometimes be pretty brutal and confusing, not to paint it in a negative light. It can also be incredible.

But these are just some truths that he had to learn. And now he's facing the realities, trying to figure out what to do next. And I could tell that he felt like he had made the wrong move, perhaps, or felt like all this was kind of a step backwards.

Now I'm restarting. I need to get a day job and all this. So I just reminded him, like I'm hopefully reminding you now, that is literally the journey.

He didn't do anything wrong. You're not doing anything wrong. This is everything that you need to learn to make this a career.

Think about it. You have to know all these things. You have to learn them from experience.

Let's stop looking at this like it's a bad thing, even though right now it may seem like what you're doing is broken or not working. And I'm sure there's always things that we can improve and fix. But this is what the journey looks like.

This is what it looks like when it is working. You're literally getting experience on all sides and figuring out the realities of everything so you can make smart decisions about what you want to do. Now, taking this data and making smart decisions about it, that's a whole other topic for another episode.

And that's a lot of what our work here is, making sure producers leveraging their wins are not going to repeat an experience that they don't need to repeat, you know, that didn't serve them well. But the alternative to not learning from experience is this. Most people who haven't experienced anything yet, they're trying to make decisions based on really nothing, right? They don't have any real data to back up their choices, so they're just guessing.

At least when you make mistakes and you explore all the different sides, you get data and experience that you can make decisions on, right? You're in it. You're living it. You're collecting all that priceless firsthand experience.

The journey in this business is never a straight line. It's not even much of a line at all. It's more like this crazy zigzag that sometimes doubles back on itself.

One day you're up feeling like you've got it all figured out and the next, you know, you're questioning every choice you've ever made in your entire life. And the beautiful, frustrating truth is that's exactly how it's supposed to be. Depending on how good of a job you do at managing yourself, unrelated to music in your production business, that is what can stay consistent and solid.

Again, a topic for another episode. But one of the worst moments of my career is literally what gave me the experience and inspiration to do the job that I do today and to build the company that I have now. I just remember back then at that time, like, man, I couldn't, I was at the bottom.

I couldn't think of anything worse. Now I look back at that time and I know exactly why it happened and why it needed to happen. So a lot of this stuff, you will get clarity over time, but it comes in hindsight.

You're not going to know it ahead of time in a lot of cases. And yeah, it's the reason I have my company, a company that employs people, creates jobs in this music business and a company that's helped hundreds of music producers make a better living with their craft. Many of them were on the verge of straight up quitting when I met them, despite having Grammys and decades of experience and all that.

So if you're in one of those valleys right now in your career where nothing makes sense and you're questioning everything, just want you to know that you're right where you need to be. This is part of it. And as insane as this sounds, one day in the future, you're even going to look back at this time and feel nostalgic about it.

You're going to miss it. Crazy, right? My hope for you is that this week you'll spend less time worrying and more time making music. You're not doing it wrong.

You're just doing it real and real takes time. If you go to producermanagement.com, you'll find links to jump on our newsletter, which I highly recommend because it's the perfect companion to the show. And if you enjoy what we're doing here, please leave us a five-star review or share it with a friend.

Thanks for listening. That's the episode.