This episode of Be On Air features founder and leader of Gravitas Recordings, Jesse Brede. Jesse has been in the electronic music scene for over two decades where he began his career deejaying, renting out equipment and speakers for the events and eventually opening for big name artists like Deadmau5, Kascade, Scrillex, and more. He has also managed artists such as CloZee, Beats Antique, Bluetech, and Desert Dwellers. Holding the title of Facilitator of Dreams, Jesse is dedicated to supporting artists in reaching success through his four companies: Lion’s Share Digital, Gravitas Recordings, Gravitas Create, and Pivotal.
We start of the episode hearing the story of how K.Lee and Jesse met and began working together. Further in we discover how Jesse founded a record label, four highly successful online companies, and helped dozens of artists make their name in the scene. We wrap up the conversation discussing the challenges of the music industry today, the influence of psychedelics and alternative medicine on creatives, and as always get some fantastic book and podcast recommendations. Jesse’s book recommendations: Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point, Aubrey Marcus’ Own the Day Own Your Life, and Ari Herstands How to Make it in the New Music Business. Podcast recommendations: The Tim Ferris Show.
Listen to the music from Gravitas Recordings here!
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00:00 – Introduction
02:19 – What can musical artistry do for podcasters?
05:00 – How Jesse and K.Lee began working together
08:45 – What Jesse looks for in a new artist?
15:37 – How Jesse started an award-winning international EDM label
30:39 – How artists can set themselves up for success in the changing industry?
40:15 – Growing Gravitas Create and building online community
50:27 – What does the future of our consciousness expansion look like?
59:23 – Rapid Fire Q&A and Wrapping up
Jesse Brede: [00:00:00] it’s just delivering value, bringing value to people, sharing things in a way where it can help them is such an amazing way to like bridge connections and create opportunity for yourself
K.Lee Marks : [00:00:44] hey, Hey. Hey, welcome back to another episode of beyond air. I’m your host K.Lee marks. And today I have brought on my mentor and dear friend, Jesse Brede. Jesse is the founder of gravity test recordings, gravity test create lion’s share digital co-founded pivotal booking agency for electronic musicians.
He’s. Enormously influential in my life. And he has an amazing track record. He’s opened for Scrillex. He’s opened for cascade. He’s opened for dead mouse. He has brought together some of the most incredible up-and-coming electronic musicians and an amplified, incredible music all over the world. And his motto is to do good with good music.
And he has raised tons of funds for charity through the amplification and the donation of music and creating these powerful compilations and fundraisers and remix contests. And he has brought together an incredible team of musicians and artists and visionaries authors, and just been an extremely powerful force for good in this art creative scene.
Jesse Brita. Welcome, man. It’s so great to have you here.
Jesse Brede: [00:01:55] Hey, thanks for having me.
K.Lee Marks : [00:01:57] Man, Jesse, we have known each other for quite a while now, at least at least like five years or so.
And you have seen me through. Many different changes. I’ve seen you through many different changes, but one thing that I have consistently seen from you is that you do good with good music and with good people, and you have this power of just connecting incredible artists. And you know, what I want to share today with my audience is how to position ourselves as podcast hosts like musical artists, like touring artists.
So you have been the manager for some of the most well-known electronic artists like Beats Antique closy, uh, BlueTech you, and many more. And you’ve been involved in collaborating with all the leaders in the festival scene and, and electronic music in general. And so you, you’re a storehouse of wisdom around this topic and just a really generous person with your information.
And so I wanted to bring you on to try and serve my audience and give them value so that they can, they can really. Add some rocket fuel to their, to their podcast and to their platform. So again, welcome. Just happy to have you, how are you doing today? How’s life over there in Austin.
Jesse Brede: [00:03:11] Ah, yeah man. It’s, you know, all in all.
It’s great. Uh, I have my health. I have, uh, live with my beautiful wife. We have three cats. Uh, we get to live in Austin. You know, I run my web agency Lion’s Share digital. I get to create and release amazing music through gravitas and we get to help educate, you know, budding producers who are at gravitas create. Uh, I have a growing team of people that work for me and I get to empower them to, you know, learn and, and step up to the plate and get to, you know, do things with their w in their career and, and grow.
And, um, you know, really, I think kind of you already hit on it, but my mission in life is really to empower creatives to. Make their dreams come true, make their, their ideas come true much like yourself. And so whether it be with lion’s share, um, you know, helping people with their digital media or their marketing or their websites, or with gravitas gravitas, create helping artists kind of get into their flow and, and kind of get through some of the barriers and challenges that they, they find or through artists management through pivotal.
Um, that’s just really my mission and, you know, to, to hit on your topic, what you said. You know, in terms of podcasting, I just think of it as creatives, you know, creating something, um, because at the end of the day, or at the beginning of the day, there’s a blank page. And so whatever your medium is, jump in and, and get busy making things and, you know, don’t let the fear hold you back.
And so I love to empower people. So thanks for having me. Thanks for connecting. And, and I mean, our story is, is ripe with that. So I think there’s a lot that we can hit on.
K.Lee Marks : [00:05:00] Yeah. So just to give the audience a little backstory about how we did meet, because it was pretty cool. I was living in Mexico. And I had a record label, their cooperative record label, and we did more like world music and jazz.
And, but we did rock and some electronic stuff, but it was more traditional instruments and recording. And I moved to the states to work with my brother’s startup and we ended up in Austin and for whatever reason, I started to really get into dubstep and working because I had this whole studio and then I had no studio.
And so I had to work with just my laptop. And so I think the natural evolution was to do mute, uh, electronic music. And this was like 2014 ish. And so dubstep was pretty, you know, boom. And then. And so I was making, I was making dubstep step in. Somehow I came across gravitas recordings, band camp page, and I was just so stoked that that kind of music existed.
I could just, I could feel the collective energy of the label through the website and everything, and I just kind of enjoyed listening. But then what happened is I, you know, maybe like a year or two later, I started to actually collaborate with, uh, the singer of, of my duo Bassine Drift, uh, Sync, Rachel Sync Lindsey.
And we really wanted to take that music to the next level. So I submitted a demo and here’s the interesting part. I had submitted a demo and the person responsible for reviewing the demo, shout out Jackie moon. She had kind of, uh, escalated it up the, up the totem pole up the food chain to you. But at the same time, my brother ran into her at a park.
In south Austin with, with our, our niece and she, she and him were talking and he was like, oh yeah, my brother does music and stuff. And they kind of, I think they figured out the connection somehow. And it was so random because it was basically like the same day or two in which it had all happened that they randomly met.
So there was some synchronicity already brewing there and, you know, you heard something, you know, our demos. They were, you know, they needed a lot of work. Let’s say that, but you heard something in us, you heard our vision, you understood exactly what we were trying to do. And I just felt this, this, um, I felt like you had our back, you know, and, and you, you were really trying to make it work.
It wasn’t quite the right time to do an official release with the label, but you just supported us so much in, in sharing on the SoundCloud and giving us some artists direction and development tips, and really bringing us into the fold. You, you, you put our single, uh, drink the water down, out on a Virtus and Sonus III, I think compilations.
And, and that really helped us grow a lot. I mean, that was like our first dip into getting into actual professional musicianship and, and, and being with the label. And so that was a, that was really exciting. And you’ve done that for so many artists that you’ve seen hundreds and hundreds of artists. What release is gravitas on right now?
Jesse Brede: [00:08:12] Uh, well, the way we count it is in terms of albums, EPS, or compilations. So like more than one song, we’re at 162. And then with, with singles, which, I mean, those that still counts as a release, cause it still takes a lot of work artwork and PR and press and all of that stuff. So we’re at something like close to 300 with all of the singles and things we’ve done.
K.Lee Marks : [00:08:36] you’ve seen so much, you’ve heard so much and you have taken artists to some of the biggest stages in the U S and beyond, and you’ve managed huge acts. So, you know, I, as you said, creatives, when, when a new artist comes to you, what are you looking for? What, what is it that catches your eye and your ear?
Jesse Brede: [00:08:56] Well, I mean, that’s a, yeah, that’s a great question.
There’s a lot to look for. I mean, it’s, I think of it almost like a video game character, right? We’ve got all these different attributes, the things that are most important to me as a record label would be sort of following directions, um, desire to sort of collaborate on the process. Um, yeah, I really look for a work ethic.
I look for people having something to say, I mean really having something to say musically, where I think. When people first start off, especially with electronic music, it’s pretty easy to sort of be a copy and paste artist and sound like someone else. And in my experience that that really doesn’t go that far.
And when you’re, when you’re learning, you’re one of the first things you do is to emulate others. And that’s great. That’s fantastic, no shame in that and do it, do it, do it and get better. And then eventually when you really start to come into your own, you’ll find your own voice and it will be a, you know, amalgamation of all of your influences and experiences through your life and that’s coming through you.
So if you sound like someone, it’s not, there’s no, there’s no problem with that, but I want to hear people that have their own. Take on it, their own style and something unique. So in a creative arts industry, you want to have something unique. You want to have something that can stand out or you can hang your hat on in a way that, that, um, you know, is pretty, fairly easy to understand.
Um, and I wanna, I want people really to be authentic to themselves, you know, and not be kind of doing it for status or ego, um, that just doesn’t resonate with me. I don’t, you know, not to say it resonates with anybody, but I’ve just found if people are in it for the right reasons, then I’m very, then I’ll I’ll then I’ll double down on them, for sure.
Um, so yeah, I mean there’s a lot. And then having, you know, at this point with where we are at, we want people to have. Ahead of esteem. We want them to have some fans. Um, you know, we do look at the social numbers. That’s not the end all be all. Um, but it is indicative of something. Um, I want people to have had released some music before, because that’s a whole process and there’s a vocabulary and there’s, um, you know, there’s a lot to understand about that.
And so, you know, we, um, in the past have helped people. Like go through the entire release process and really educate them through every piece. And that’s not as exciting to me as it once was. And it is, it takes a lot of energy. Um, but we have a process and we’re very organized around that. We’ve got documents and things like that that helped people understand it.
So, but I don’t there’s no there’s no any like specific number or anything that I’m looking for. I know a lot of it has to do with my gut reaction and my feeling based on the music that I’m hearing and sort of interacting with the artist, what their communications like, what their online, um, behavior can be like.
So I don’t want to work with anybody. That’s really polarizing. People are spreading negativity. Like we want to be very positive. We want to be very uplifting. We want to be future forward, progressive problem solving, um, inspirational people. And so that’s what that, you know, more than anything, that’s what I want.
K.Lee Marks : [00:12:35] Yeah. Uh, you touched on some awesome things there. And for podcasters listening, you’re like, I’m not an electronic artist. Well, there is such a huge similarity in the release process. You have artwork, you have to distribute it, you have press releases and all the social media marketing and assets that go with that.
You have to create buzz about it. Um, it’s, it’s, it’s just so similar. And so I think that there’s a lot to be learned from what you just said, for instance, your online presence, your online behavior, the way that you write, the way that we communicate when applying. So let’s say that someone writes to a guest, let’s say you’re a podcast and you, you reach out to a pretty high profile guest, you know, the way that that goes down.
Matters the way that you position yourself, the way that you write and type and format your email, the way that your socials look, the way that the whole thing comes together matters in being accepted for the interview. And in a way it is like a label. It is like reaching out to a, to a bigger organization and trying to get a foot in the door.
And so that I’m hearing that that matters. And it was interesting that the first thing wasn’t like an epic beat that you’re looking for some awesome singer, you’re looking for a certain kind of person to collaborate with. Is that right?
Jesse Brede: [00:13:51] Yeah, because of the spirit of gravitas was born out of a creative collective.
And so I’m, my goal has never been to be, you know, some massive, you know, mainstream label it’s been to work with inspiring and creative artists where. I am. I am being, I’m being filled up with their art and be excited about their project and I’m passionate about what they’re doing and, and that I get to have a hand in their, their career and their success.
And in when I hear their music come on, I go, oh, wow. I helped do that. You know, and that’s happened a lot when I go and it’s, it’s never fails to, to put a smile on my face and, you know, with my life, I like to think about writing the story of my life. And, and so I think about if I’m on my death bed, looking back, would this make a good story?
And so that’s kind of how I make a lot of my decisions. And sometimes when I make plans for things or I want to do something, I’ll think about that story and that chapter of my life. And so, um, That’ll those, those will come into play for like the types of artists or decisions that I make for the label or, or really anything in my life.
K.Lee Marks : [00:15:20] I also really like to think about that. Well, will I be happy with myself on my death bed about this? And it really matters our life. Our time is so precious and you know, it, I can’t think of a better way than amplifying all these incredible creatives. And maybe, maybe you could talk a little bit about how you got into this.
And I’m curious if you could share with the listeners a little bit about how, how you came to amplify so many incredible musicians and maybe some of the challenges along the way and how you overcame them.
Jesse Brede: [00:15:50] Sure. Uh, well, I come from a musical family. I started playing guitar when I was 15. I had a couple bands.
I moved to Austin in 1998 to go to school at the university of Texas for computer science. Um, I just so happened to live at the Taos co-op, which was a cooperative living space. There were no. You know, um, RAs, there were no really adults living there. It was run by the, the people that live there, which was an amazing experience.
And it fostered so many opportunities. Um, I fell in with a group of guys who were into electronic music and we started deejaying at the same time, or I was going to school for computer science at the university of Texas. And so I’ve always kind of had these two little parallel lives where I’ve been into, uh, been in like an honors, you know, the accelerated learning in school.
And then I also was into music and sort of psychedelics and, and rock and music and in high school. And so. It kind of continued into college. And, um, we had a DJ night, you know, monthly or weekly DJ nights. And I started running out equipment and getting really into the, the business side of the industry and started to open up for bigger name DJs and rent out equipment and speakers and be part of the business and the production side of events, and then also being a DJ.
So that, that, that those two things really started to happen where I would get called to bring equipment to the club, run out some gear out additional speakers, and also, Hey, you can open up the night. And I really, for it forged like a bunch of really critical relationships in Austin, um, during that time.
And I sort of saw that I could. Have multiple skill sets in the, in that industry really helped me. Uh, and then, and then also, Mike, my DJ crews started kind of doing pretty well and we all, we’re all, we’re playing quite a lot. Um, and I just kind of stuck with it and then kind of fast forward, you know, I really played a lot of shows in Austin.
At one point I opened up for Deadmau5, open up for Kascade . Um, I’ve gone on to open up for, for Scrillex and the glitch mob and tipper and B. Yeah. It’s just played tons and tons of shows in Austin and have my own monthly at clubs and things like that. And I continue to rent out the gear and be in that side of the business.
And when I graduated college, I got involved in some startups and had sort of that technology marketing part of my life continued while the music side continued and they sorta kind of grew, but they were very separate in some regards. And, um, then 2008, I went to burning man. And I guess before that, like dubstep and bass music was coming on the scene and I was interested in it, but I was, it was sort of just more club music.
And when I went to burning man, that changed my life. It was like, wow, this is what I’ve been looking for. This freedom of expression, this like everyone was participating. The idea that you have to bring something and be a part of it. You can’t just. Show up and take or show up and look at the stage. It was like everybody was dressing up and bringing something to the experience was very powerful idea.
And that’d be something that I was always kind of wanting in, uh, to bring, to, to, to be in Austin. And, you know, California is always kind of a few years ahead of the rest of the country. And that was definitely something like the culture of California. Um, so that inspired me. I saw people like Bassnectar , who’s very much canceled and, and, uh, he lost an insane amount of respect and, uh, it’s even hard to say his name, but those people, people like the glitch mob, Adam Freeland, like artists like that, like really inspired me and excited me like, wow, these people are doing something very different than what I had been doing with the sort of tech house and progressive house dance music.
And so that was really exciting. So I kind of got involved in that scene and got really excited about it. And then in 2010 and 11, I went to the landmark forum, which is a program around creating a life that you love. And. Sort of course, or program is kind of about completing your past, letting go of old traumas and sort of freeing yourself from your story of like, this happened to me.
So like I’m going to act this way and we sort of create, we take our paths and we kind of make, or create our future with it, which is pretty, pretty powerful stuff. If you have had a lot of trauma or you’ve had something bad happen to you in your life, which we all have had some level of, it allows you to be free from that and then create a life, a new life, the new opportunities and the new, um, things like I want this.
And so I’m going to go out and create. So I, I did the second, uh course, and then the third course is called SELP self-expression leadership program. And inside of SELP, they challenge you to create something that’s bigger than yourself and you have to enroll and register them. And so that idea is coming up with the idea and you sort of write it down on paper and like, what is this?
You have this vision. And then from that vision, you really have to go and talk to people and say, this is what I’m up to creating. This is something, this is why it’s exciting. And then this is the opportunity for you to participate. Would you like to participate? So enrollment is like pitching them the idea and saying like, this is why this is a cool thing.
And then, and then the enrollment of like asking them to participate in this thing and it could be anything, um, the world’s aid blanket aids blanket. A project that was born out of landmark forum and the SLP. So as the LP program, um, so it was really powerful experience for me, transformative like burning man and out of, I actually did SELP first.
The first time I did it, I was just a participant. And the second time I coached and the second time I coached is when I created the idea of gravitas and it was 2011 and I was looking around the Austin music scene and I was seeing so many people trying to self promote and get their selves sort of a foothold in the scene, but they weren’t working together and out of the Taos co-op and the DJ crews that I had, I was like, man, this scene needs us to like come together and work together.
And so I rounded up a bunch of people and I said, this is what. I want this to be. And at the same time, I was talking to a lot of people online on internet forums and. Sort of, they were sending me music and I was getting demos and things. But even though I wasn’t a label, I hadn’t even told anybody that, but we were all sharing music and I was creating some music and I was deejaying a lot.
And I had my, I actually had a, a DJ podcast that, that people would download from my website. And, um, and I opened up for Scrillex and I played some music from some of the people that were on this forum that were sharing me with their, uh, sharing their music with me and out of that one person in particular.
Crazy excited. His name was Tyler and his artist’s name was Cryptex and he sent me another folder of probably like 50 or 60, um, works in progress when they call them whips. And out of that, I told them like, I think these eight or nine could be really good. And he continued to finish and work on them.
And we, and I was like, let’s release this music. Let me help you do this. So that was the first release we ever put out. And this is 2011 where we’re sort of seeing the music industry die. I mean, we thought it was dying and it was just changing. So that was like where people had moved away from albums, buying albums or buying CDs to using iTunes to now, like people are no longer even buying albums.
It’s just all singles. And so you can see on the chart, there’s the revenue for the music industry is cratering. And I just said, you know, I don’t really care. I just want to release some of these people’s music. And I forget how I really, set down on the name gravitas, but when I heard it, it had come into my life through like television or, or music a couple times.
And, and I look, you know, I looked up what the word man. And I was like, this really resonated with me. And the idea of integrity or weight, or meaning really felt, um, like I could hang my hat on that and, and put that out into the world and try to make that, um, mean something for me. And, and, and it was available to so that we all know how hard that is.
And you’ve got to look for a brand it’s like, wow, I found a domain. I’ve found a name that hasn’t been totally done. So, um, that can be a real challenge these days. Um, so that was cool. So we released, uh, Cryptex’s music. And I mean, quite honestly, we got really, really, really lucky. It became a breakout hit.
It was making significant money every month. and that was through CD baby. And it got picked up by a couple of really big YouTube channels and people were buying it through, uh, um, iTunes, you know, one or two particular songs and it was crazy and it was sort of off to the races there. So, um, At that point, that’s kind of where the two worlds collided where my technology and my marketing experience through the startups that I worked at through my, you know, computer science, internet marketing, um, uh, background started to really make sense for what I had been doing.
I’d also worked at an email marketing company and, and had really coached people on like how to get people to register and how to people to get people, to sign up for your email list. And I just knew that, um, Quality music. Plus emails really kind of means something. And so I just kind of went off and went with it and you know I had worked at a couple of different places, um, like, um, web agencies and stuff.
And so I, you know, built up and built the website and built the brand. And I had a woman that I know Nikki Hampson did the logo. And at that point I think having the logo really meant a big thing for me. Like I felt official and like registering the business really felt a bit, uh, official. So that’s one of my suggestions for people.
Anytime they’re trying to do something is setting the intention. And taking action of registering a business and getting the domain name and getting a logo for it. And it is an investment. It is time, but those things can really catapult you into action where you feel like it’s real and other people will absolutely think it’s real with those things in place.
Um, so once we had that release and it was cooking and there was, you know, money coming in and, and we were like, whoa, I started to really get going, um, and, and make a bunch of mistakes and do a bunch of re really dumb things that I learned from. And, and really understand that the second, third, fourth and fifth releases didn’t come anywhere close, not even, uh, uh, uh, you know, uh, one, 100th of what the other one had done.
And, and the reality is of. Being a record label and putting things out into the world and, you know, the frequency of like success versus, you know, not maybe having success where we’re, we’re like becoming more apparent, but I was hooked. And I found through that, I really found my passion for helping people.
And during the time where I was really being a DJ and I never really wanted to promote myself, I never really was that keen on I’m the star of the show. I loved playing for people. I loved opening up for people like the glitch mob or tipper and, and, and setting the mood. And even in that place, it was a, it was sort of, I wanted to be, um, you know, of service to whatever it was that we were doing the, you know, opening the night or helping with the event or whatever.
And, um, I really, I really liked that. I really feel like that’s my place. And so, um, Having the label just it’s just seems like everything clicked for me. And I was so excited to be. Be in that role and it, and there’s so many other things started to blossom. And part of the idea of not just a record label, but a creative collective was people could get involved with like video or mastering or artwork.
And my hope was that they would learn and get better with their craft through gravitas, through our collective efforts. And that there would be this network of. Of creatives to help and assist each other. And that we would through that group, just like anything that more people would get work or, you know, opportunities would arise and connections would be made.
And that absolutely proved to be true. For instance, like Kendall Clark was someone that was there with us early on. He really started to do more and more video work and projection mapping and lighting design. And then he went on to tour with the glitch mob and tour with big name, um, um, Louis the child like plays huge festivals, ma massive stages.
I mean, he worked his butt off, but we were sort of his early, you know, playground or sandbox where he felt comfortable to kind of get his self going and, and get those, um, that early on experience when you’re first starting to do anything, it’s like, you want to apply for a job. It’s like, well, you must have two years of experience doing X.
And it’s like, well, this is an entry-level job. Like how do I w chicken or an egg? How do I do one? If I haven’t done the other it’s it’s very, it’s very confusing.
K.Lee Marks : [00:30:39] Yeah. One of the things I’m hearing as a common thread is this network, uh, that is the, you know, in the co-op it seems was really the, the planting ground for that, uh, understanding that you had.
So you were part of that community and you saw the potential of it. And then you started to bring that into wherever you went and obviously burning man seeing that version of it, and then now connecting it to gravitas recordings and so on. And, um, you know, you’ve, you’ve gone on to release some huge albums for huge artists.
Like closy like, BlueTech like just the, I mean the list, Mr. Bill, some, some incredible folks and. And the, the music has, has reached all over the world and you’ve touched the lives of tons of people. And your team has touched the lives of tons of people. And there really has been abundance trickling through the network.
And I think that’s important in the podcast world too, because the same potential is, is there the exact same potential. We have this ability to reach out and expand our network, make these connections, create, create creative abundance, you know, by making these audio recordings by making these sounds and blasting them out.
And, and there’s literal money available and beyond money beyond profit. As I like to say, there is us connecting with our purpose and, you know, gravitas recordings really became a really, they became a launchpad for artist. And, and to catapult them into whatever the next phase of their career is. And so I’m curious for you now, now with post COVID with the music industry, as it, as it is, you know, you have, lion’s share digital, which is a, uh, marketing digital media and website, um, company agency.
And you, uh, you, you have that, obviously the music industry is, is struggling right now. Where do you see that going? And how can artists, both podcasts, hosts and music artists better market themselves better set themselves up for success in this ever-changing crazy. Landscape that we find ourself in.
Jesse Brede: [00:32:48] Well, I w I want to go back on something of, of first it’s it’s I know you’ve hit on this before, and it’s just delivering value, bringing value to people, sharing things in a way where it can help them is such an amazing way to like bridge connections and create opportunity for yourself leading with that.
Not, not waiting for the opportunity to come to you, but putting, putting content out into the world, releasing music, putting out podcasts, and really working hard to, um, make those valuable to people. It’s it’s so it’s such a great strategy. It’s such a great thing to do with your time, where even if it, even if nothing comes of it, it’s still like, you can be proud of it.
Right. Um, and so I guess with, with the music, what we found is by putting it out for pay what you want on band camp. So if you didn’t have a dollar and you wanted to download this music, you could, and all that we asked was exchanged for an email. That’s something that we did and have done since we started.
And that allowed us to grow a very, very healthy email list. And what we saw is. Facebook cameand went MySpace came and went Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, whatever it is, those are you kind of beholden to the algorithms of those things. And through email, you can at least hit people in a way that is on your, mostly your terms, right?
I mean, not to say there aren’t challenges with email, but that was something that I had learned in my job. And I was really like, wow, this is great. And pretty lights as somebody that he really kind of did that early on. And I loved it. And I had a conversation with edit from the glitch mob, and I said, well, man do you get bummed out when people, you know, download your music or steal your music.
He was like, no, because. If they want it, they can have it, they can go get it. And then hopefully they become a fan and then we’re off and running. And if they’re not a fan, then it doesn’t matter. So that fear or that, um, sadness of like, they, they took it without giving me something like just letting that go and leading with the faith that what you’re creating is good.
And then that will come back to you. So putting good things out into the universe will create good things to come back to you, I guess, is the long and short. So when we’re talking about the music industry, uh, I mean there’s two different things. There’s what’s happening on line and the streaming royalties and licensing and people at home consuming music that hasn’t been that affected by COVID.
If anything, what I’ve seen across the board is some of the numbers are up. Um, in terms of touring. Yeah, it was a really, really hard year, um, for more, for a lot of people. Um, and you know, some people left the industry, some independent venues just closed and went away and we don’t, I don’t think they’ll ever come back and there is a real sadness, a loss there.
It, it really does make me sad. Those are people that invested entire parts of their lives to create really special places where independent music artists could come and play music and special experiences and moments could be had there. Um, the reality of America is that AEG and live nation have, um, essentially a monopoly on the, the upper echelon of touring and shows.
They own a lot of the venues. Uh, they have very. Significant buying power. And, and when they can say, I want to book an artist for 20 dates around the, the U S in these venues, and this is the amount of money we can offer. Uh, it’s very hard for the independent artists or independent venues to compete with that.
It’s almost impossible. And there’s also sort of that. Efficiency of scale and sort of vertical integration, um, with the, with all that happening. So if like the promoter also owns the venue, they don’t have to worry so much about making money on the ticket because they’re going to make money at the bar, um, or whatever or everything, you know, and then there’s the production side.
So, I mean, without getting too, too far into it, when at the end of the night, when you settle a show with a promoter, there’s going to be a list of expenses. There’s going to be, um, the, uh, security fee or rental room, a room fee and all of these things. But if you, as the entity own all of that, then you maybe didn’t actually cost you all of that, that money.
So it’s tricky, it’s hard. And you know, I don’t want to like paint them to be completely the bad guy because. In some ways it’s sort of the way that capitalism or the way that the industry works very naturally, because without it, it’s so hard to make money and make these events work without some of that happening.
So it’s a tough industry and it’s gotten all, it’s going to be really hard. It’s um, thankfully our government has put together what they call, um, the shuttered venue grant, I believe, or, uh, act. And so there is money for independent promoters and venues, managers, and agents who basically had no income for the last, you know, year and three months.
So you’re a fish. So it’s tough. Where do I see it going? It’s going to take a while for things to bounce back. There’s there’s only so many dates. There’s so many only, only so much. Nights when people want to go out, there’s only so many venues, uh, there’s only so much money that people can spend on tickets.
And so we’re kind of gonna see calendars extremely full probably. Um, you know, there’s still the idea of like, are people gonna show vaccine cards? Are they going to have to get their temperature check? Like there’s. Relatively significant part of our population that doesn’t want to get vaccinated or doesn’t want to wear mask.
Uh, I’m not going to get into all that, but that makes it hard for us for, for, for maybe the people that are willing to do that, to feel confident that people aren’t maybe lying or presenting fake cards. And so, uh, as a promoter, I guess on that side, like it’s very difficult to have an event and put that on and take on yet another level of, um, risk.
I mean, just hosting the event financially as a risk because maybe people don’t buy the ticket and you’re on the hook for whatever you told you were going to pay that artist. But now there’s a potential that you’ve hosted an event that spread COVID and you could be in some sort of crazy lawsuit. So it’s gonna be tough.
It’s tough. Um, you know, anytime there’s hard times, maybe there’s a great opportunity for things to be, uh, improved.
K.Lee Marks : [00:40:11] Phoenix from the ashes, you know, and so we, you know, you, you saw this opportunity with the creative resources, with the producer resources through Gravitas Create. And that’s really how I started to work with you, um, in a, in a more like business entrepreneurial side.
And, you know, I think that’s a really exciting, uh, facet of what y’all do and, you know, for the listeners, because of, of Jesse, I was able to go to India and record the sample pack. We’ve grossed, well over 60 K uh, it’s a digital product. And it was an incredible journey. We got to collaborate with Ableton live the, the, you know, the company behind Live, the program they make.
It’s one of the largest electronic music programs. Well, most well-known most used by touring artists and that really opened doors. Plus it brought in this whole other kind of community of people that couldn’t be released through the label. So you have this label with a, with a standard. A quality standard that you have to uphold, but then you have all these other people that you want to help and, and, and contribute to.
And so the Create brand really opened the door and brought in so many interesting folks. So maybe you could talk a little bit about, a little bit about create and building online community?
Jesse Brede: [00:41:26] Yeah. That’s, that’s very cool. So this has been a, a really fun part of, of, of just gravitas. And when I initially visualized gravitas in landmark, I drew, we had, they had to draw this thing.
They were just like, we want to draw all your vision for it. And I drew these pillars of what I saw as the music industry. And one of them was the label. Another was sort of touring merchandise. And at the time, uh, There were people like Mr. Bill and ill gates who are doing a lot of education. And so I drew that as a, as a pillar of something that I wanted gravitas to do, and I was inspired by them and excited for that.
And it took us a while before the label. Well, I’ll say it like this. Like we started doing the label and it started going and being something that people were excited about. And so we definitely focused on that for a really long time. And at one point we kind of stabilized and sort of got to the point where, you know, we knew what we were doing and we had learned the lessons we needed to learn, and we had a lot of the kinks worked out.
And so we kind of looked around and was like, what’s next? And we started asking people, are you through, like, if we would connect to them on Twitter or Instagram, we sort of had an automated bot that would say hi, Are you a music producer or a music fan or both, and most people above, sorry, 50% of the people that would respond to these messages would say, well, I also make music.
And then from there, the bot, the bot would be turned off and we would just engage with like, kind of a, uh, uh, a personal conversation, but asking people questions through those, uh, automated DMS rather than promoting something, which is what most of those bots were doing. We were just asking questions.
What’s your favorite release? Are you a music producer? So then things like that. And so we were asking a bunch of questions, but that question for whatever reason really triggered me to go, wow, there’s a big opportunity or half of the people that are following us on Twitter that are responding to this are awesome music producers.
And we had done things like remix competitions that had led to big opportunities for us discoveries. So you had mentioned CloZee, so CloZee has gone on to play Coachella Lollapalooza, national tours, um, you know, millions and millions of streams on Spotify. There’s, you know, there she’s, she’s a, she’s a star and she she’s going to continue to rise and grow.
Um, and we discovered her through a remix competition. And so we learned that that was something that. Could work really well. And I don’t, to be honest, I don’t really know how this applies to the podcast world, but we’ll just keep going and hopefully people can, can, can get something out of it. And, and so what we decided is that we wanted to launch a brand sort of a sister brand to go along with the label.
And the idea was that when you’re creating content, I guess this is how it ties in when you’re creating content. There’s a lot of effort that goes into that content. And it’s really a smart idea to repackage it and reuse it and reformat it in ways that gets more mileage. Right? And so as a music producer at a music label, you do pre-marketing and then you have your release day and then you do post-marketing.
And so there’s only so much that you can say or do about a song and, and we’ve looked at it and studied it. And we have a list of all the things that you can do. And. Some of the ones that were on the list were a remix competition or release the stems. You know, the pieces of the songs. We have a baseline or, you know, uh, guitar, keys or whatever, and they’re isolated pieces.
And then another music producer could take those and make a remix. And so we found some good success with that. And so we really started to see the vision for gravitas create, could be, there were all of these other companies out there, but they were sort of just trying to sell you a sample pack or just trying to give you, you know, show you tutorials.
And so we thought, well, what if we sort of extended gravitas? And we made this other brand so that if the artist on our labels released something, then they could also offer the stems or a sample pack or remix competition from that release that was just done. And so there was this sort of, um, additional.
A marketing plan that could be bolted on and run through this community. And we wanted to make it a new brand so that producers could understand that this brand was for them. They were fans of gravitas, but then they want production content. They could go into gravitas. And I think initially the idea was to be gravitas labs or gravitas.
Do you remember what?
K.Lee Marks : [00:46:34] Gravitas Studio
Jesse Brede: [00:46:36] gravitas studio. And this was actually a pretty contentious thing because I was very set on gravitas create and I was very excited about the idea of. Using a verb for this like extension. And I want it to call people to action and other people in the team, or more excited about the idea of studio.
And so I consented to do studio and then we went to go, we created the logo. We did all of the branding work, everything was finished and silly. I don’t know, that’s not even a word, but, but like in a silly way, we went then finally went to go buy the domain and it was not available. And we were like, oh, and so we went and did gravitas create.
And now looking back, I am so happy. Like I’m happy. Couldn’t be more, I couldn’t feel, I it’s not about that, but I couldn’t have feel more validated and right. That I w that I was like, so excited about that name. I still say it, and I feel compelled. For myself to create and do something and be in action around that versus studio is a place.
K.Lee Marks : [00:47:51] I always hear the verb thing. Now, when I do copywriting, I’m always like, I like verbs, you know? And it’s because of that moment where you’re like you said that on one of our calls and you’ve really lived into this brand, right. I mean, this is, this has become a thriving online community. We’ve built the Facebook group up huge.
We were doing the production challenges and yeah. I mean, it’s, it’s a house for many people now.
Jesse Brede: [00:48:13] Yeah. So that X has gone and it has been really cool because we’ve got the collective. And so we created some, uh, free downloadable, uh, Packages that with a common tool called serum, a synthesizer called serum, and we’d have, uh, producers from the label contribute three or four of their patches, their sounds to this pack.
And so we ended up having these packs that would have. 120 free sounds that were very recognizable from a gravitas artists. And so that collective brand and the, and so for each one of those artists, that was, it was easy. They would just export a few sounds and send it to us, but then we collected them all and put them out.
People were really, really excited. And so once again, that was an email collection tool, a brand. And so once people would download these free, these free patches, they would get a welcome email. They would get introduced to the brand. And then the, in three days they would get a, another story and another, you know, opportunity to watch a tutorial and things like that.
And so, I mean, you know, K.Lee, you were instrumental in that. And so by launching gravitas create and having that be sort of sit next to gravitas, it became something that other labels. I guess other labels had done that too to that extent, but it was a huge thing for us to have a whole nother kind of ecosystem and world.
And like you said, the Facebook group and things like that. And now we have a discord server with over 2000 members. Oh wow. We have some, some of our, you know, articles that we’ve written on create rank really well, how to make a sample pack. What serum presets like ranked like number two or number three on, on Google.
So, um, you know, don’t ever underestimate the power of SEO. I encourage any content creator to do some homework on that. It’s is a pillar of, of online marketing for sure.
K.Lee Marks : [00:50:17] Yeah. Yeah. So I, one of the things I want to underline here and real quick, do you have a hard cutoff. No,
can we go a little over? Cause I want to, I want to get trippy, one of the things I want to underline here is this power of network and this, this thinking that Jesse is demonstrating, that he has, that he has shown with the label for podcasters, for podcast networks, because there’s so much potential for collaboration and compensation and just sharing, sharing our resources in a network.
And it really makes me think of mycelium. It really makes me think of, of the, or of the natural world, right? And one of the, one of the common things that we, we both share is a love for, uh, the new research on psychedelics and that maps is doing and its instrumental role in trauma recovery and overcoming depression PTSD, obviously.
And, and you know, the, the electronic music world. Kind of goes hand in hand, especially festivals with the psychedelic world, with this consciousness expansion. And what is consciousness expansion? It is this networking, networking mechanism by which we are curious and interested in. We, and we, we gain more insight about our surroundings, our world, our inner world, our outer world.
And so, you know, you’re, you’re someone in this space, you’ve, you know, so many people in this world, both the music world, the art world, and, uh, the, even the shamonic world using plant medicine and, and all this. And so I’m curious, kind of, what is your what’s, what, where are you most interested right now?
Where are you excited about where we’re going on this consciousness expansion ride?
Jesse Brede: [00:52:00] Yeah, I mean, I think it, I mean, wow. Yes. Um, I mean, there’s so much opportunity. The stigma is starting to fall away. The scientific research is being presented in real. Yeah. You know, John Hopkins and people like that, or, you know, institutions like that are doing clinical trials and studies, you know, phase three trials.
And, you know, people like Tim Ferris, Aubrey Marcus, Justin Beretta, uh, Paul Stamets, those people I follow and look up to around their thoughts on plant medicine on, um, like true medicinal use therapy, therapeutic use to treat depression and PTSD. Um, in my own personal life, psychedelics have brought me so many, um, I, you know, just inspiration and freedom being able to let go of things.
And like you said, that neural neural pathway than neurogeneration when you know the influence of, of these, you feel like a child again, you feel like. You’re seeing the world for the first time. And that’s how it’s so powerful. And so, you know, I want to say necessary and, and it’s, it’s, um, you know, these are not for partying.
These are not for, um, you know, just good times. This is for doing work on yourself to explore the inner parts of yourself that sometimes we don’t address. And when you strip those things away with psychedelics, Or, you know, in anything meditation or yoga or, you know, a good workout or running there’s, there’s many ways to reach that, but obviously the psychedelics are very powerful and very consistent with the experiences that they bring.
Um, it can just give you so much new perspective and, and you, I mean, I, I can, I, I can’t say it enough, like, or at least for me, I’ve had moments where I just see the world in a whole new light, and that allows me to go after something that I had been previously scared of, or not really sure on. And, um, either just letting go of the fear or just seeing it more clearly in a new way.
And, and that’s, uh, I mean, you know, would you say psychedelics have been instrumental in you reaching the success that you’ve reached with the, with the label on your business? Ah, yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s like, well, I will say this at a very early age. Um, even in high school is when I had some of my first many psychedelic experiences.
And so, yeah. I don’t even, I honestly, at this point I can’t imagine who I would be without them. And you know, it’s not for everybody. And I don’t, I want to be really careful like this is, this is not, I’m not encouraging anybody to do anything. This needs to be research and thought about, and they are, you know, illegal and this, this country.
So it’s, you know, but yeah, I mean,
K.Lee Marks : [00:55:26] at least in many states, right? I think Washington, it’s starting to open up and this speaks to the point that you’re talking about and definitely listeners, this is a personal choice. This is something that needs to be taken very seriously. I’m not, uh, I’m not recommending either that anyone do anything, but, but we can’t, we can’t pretend that there’s not this incredible tool out here for consciousness expansion, for creativity, for trauma healing, for, um, overcoming the fear of death and the.
Music and creativity have consistently utilize these tools to bring forth this unknown, this unknown, uh, subject matter into materialization, into manifestation and to share with the world. And we all love music. We all love art. And so many artists seek plant medicines and seek these things to be able to access these other, uh, ways of thinking and seeing, and honestly, the, what you said, seeing the world, it was like seeing the world for the first time that that really describes some of my experiences better than I’ve ever been able to.
Like, it really does kind of. Give give us a refresh of, of what that might be like.
Jesse Brede: [00:56:33] And it’s, it’s true because what’s happening is new neural pathways are firing inside of your brain and you’re experiencing that, pop that feeling. It’s like lightening going off in your brain. And all of a sudden you’re new things are happening.
New, new, you know, thought patterns are. And, and in to some extent when, when you’re under the influence, you can feel those confusions and it’s because your brain is basically overlaying two different, crazy ideas with themselves. And this happens when you sleep too. And sometimes when you go to sleep and you wake up with the answer to the problem you’ve been working on is because your brain, when it’s not in sort of, um, problem solving left brain sort of regimented logic mode, when you go to sleep or you take a walk or you go shower, or you’re doing something like meditation or exercise, you’re in your right, brain’s sort of, um, you know, deeper level of consciousness, your brain is overlaying.
Problems with, with weird ideas. And then all of a sudden you’ll get that aha moment and you’ll feel like, wow, it came out of nowhere, but it’s not, it’s that deeper level of consciousness. So those, those, those are sort of similar states of, of being in my experience and beautiful, amazing, interesting creative ideas can come from that.
Um, and like you said, like this is, this needs to be done with respect set and setting, training, other people that have experience with it. Uh, this is not just, this is not something you can just shutter or embark on by yourself. This is a serious stuff. So, but it is. Uh, it’s powerful and it is, it is losing the stigma we’ve, we’ve gone through.
We’re seeing a huge shift in society where I think we are seeing probably the legalization at our federal level of marijuana and many, many states decriminalizing, and even allowing the use of psychedelics. So, you know, it takes a while and this, you know, the war on drugs, which I think we can all say was, uh, racially motivated and has put hundreds of thousands of people, if not millions of people in prison, um, for using, you know, marijuana and things like that, that are completely, you know, terrible ideas.
And I’m so I’m so sad, but maybe we can come through this as a country and really get back on track. And so, yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s an exciting time for all.
K.Lee Marks : [00:58:58] Absolutely. Absolutely. And, you know, dear audience, this is, this is just the first time that Jesse’s coming on the podcast. I wanted to introduce you to him, him, to you.
I want to get him back on because Jesse’s been a, a business strategist and coach for me and has, has just always been a huge source of inspiration, motivation, resources, connections, and, and just an amazing friend. And so I’m definitely going to have him come back on and as we wind up, uh, I do often ask a few rapid fire kind of random questions that I want to ask you right now, Jesse.
Um, and so if you’re game, the first one, , is I’m going to share my screen. Right now. So if you’re watching this, you will be, if you’re watching this, you will be able to, uh, see my screen. You can go over to YouTube and watch this. And if you’re listening, you’ll still get some value from this. So I’m about to share this.
Lovely. Can you see this, Jesse? Yep. So I’m about to share, this is where you can listen and stream for free the entireity of gravitas recordings, music across so many different genres. So many amazing artists. You can even find music from yours, truly boom, baseline drift. This is my duo. Many of you may not even know this, but, uh, this was, this was my band and we’ve released a couple albums.
And so Jesse, if, if you were going to share, and this, this is no way for all the gravitas artists listening. This does not mean that there’s not about favoritism, but Jessie, if you were to recommend one album for, for the listeners to go listen to right now, What would you, what would you throw at them?
Jesse Brede: [01:00:42] Oh, man, I would probably say that Emergence compilation right there.
It’s curated by CloZee. Um, it’s got. The purpose of that, the idea of that was to highlight emerging artists. It’s got some bigger, bigger quote unquote names on there, but to me there’s a cool flow. It’s a, it’s a really nice sample of, of artists that we like, that we want to represent. And yeah, I mean, it’s 15 songs and it, you know, kind of, it’ll take you on a nice little journey.
Um, obviously shout out and love to CloZee and Andrew Jones, the visual artists did that artwork and. You know, licensed it to us for just about, um, nothing, not, not nothing, but he was very generous and, and big love to him. And he’s an amazing visual artist. So that’s, that’s, that would be my choice of re uh, recent.
K.Lee Marks : [01:01:46] That’s awesome. I’m going to go digest that after we get off. And, um, the way that you all can get to that is simply music.gravitasrecordings.com as G R a V I T a S recordings.com uh, awesome. Awesome. Okay. Another question, another question, one book that you would like the world to read.
Jesse Brede: [01:02:09] Hmm, man, that’s a good question. Um, You know, I really like Malcolm Gladwell’s books. If those are up your alley, if you like his style, um, you know, the tipping point had a huge effect on me. I love how he approaches, um, things that we think are true or we know, and then he, he often reveals sort of our, um, logical fallacies about them.
So I really liked that book. That’s a good one. Um, I would S I would say shout out to Aubrey Marcus, his Own The Day um, Own the day on your life. And it’s kinda, it’s a fun way to approach structuring your day. And I think that, that the lesson there shows that if you wake up every day and you work on yourself and on your work and on your relationship and your health, and, uh, you kind of break it down like that and you make each day as good as it can be, that you’ll feel experience happiness and satisfaction and progress and opportunity.
And, and, and so. You know, I think some people on first look would kind of, kind of think Aubrey is a meathead or sort of this only around fitness, but he’s very wise and the truth. Yeah. He’s very wise. He’s got a lot of wisdom. He’s done a lot of, of work on himself and, and the book is, is powerful and, and there’s some cool stuff in there.
So I gave a lot of people that if you’re, I don’t know. Sorry. That’s true. You only got to go ahead one more, one more. Okay. Um, if you’re a musician, Ari Herstands, um, something about a modern, uh, how to become a modern musician or how to be a modern musician. I forgot what the title is, but Ari, her stand look.
His book up is an amazing playbook. And even for podcast creators, I think he shows a lot of a way of thinking to kind of break down how to. How to do this, how to do that, how do you get your first gig? How do you get your first guest? How do you do this? How do you, how do you, uh, you know, do your first release?
And so I really like his methodology for approaching creative, um, you know, creative process and, and, and marketing process.
K.Lee Marks : [01:04:39] Fantastic recommendations. Thank you. Thank you. And now the last question or not the second, the last question. One podcast. That you would like the world to hear
Jesse Brede: [01:04:48] Oh man, I mean, I’m, I am such a Tim Ferris fan boy.
I, I mean, it’s just, it’s so it’s so full of, of, of wisdom and he does such a good job of asking good questions and letting his guests speak and really share their story. And he know he’s just, uh, maybe it’s all done in editing, but I, it just seems to flow really well. So I love, I love his podcast. I would, I would be it,
K.Lee Marks : [01:05:19] shout out Tim. And then this last, this last phase, my motto is amplify what you love, that’s what I’m all about. So I open up this last segment so that you can amplify what you love, someone that you love. This is your time, your space, your airtime. Uh, so, so please share, share what you love.
Jesse Brede: [01:05:40] Uh, I mean, at the moment, my wife is just amazing.
She’s been such a rock and supportive person for me for so long, and I’m just, I can’t thank her enough. And she, you know, she holds it down in so many ways and she inspires me to be a better person and helps me with my health and my, um, yeah. Yeah. It’s been, it’s been this last year with her and, and COVID like, I just, couldn’t be more present to how much I love her.
K.Lee Marks : [01:06:15] That’s beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing that with everyone and Jesse, I love you, man. It’s so great to get, to spend time with you. I haven’t seen you. Physically since COVID. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. We’ve done a couple of zooms, but yeah, let’s, let’s hang out. We should hang out. I miss you, man. I miss you. And I’m so glad, um, that you are in this world, sharing what you do, sharin, good music, sharing, sharing, everything you’ve learned.
And you’ve been a huge mentor for me. So thank you so much for coming on everyone. Please go check out gravitasrecordings.com. Listen to some music. Check out connect with Jesse at, uh, on Instagram at Jesse.brede, which is B R E D E. And I’ll put all this in the show notes, check out those books, check out those podcasts.
And until next time we will see you. Peace. Thank you. Bye
