Indie Artist Music Hustle
Indie Artist Music Hustle Podcast with Blonde Intelligence is where you will experience exquisite cranial repertoire. The podcast (Available on your favorite podcasting platform) provides entertainment news, thoughts on celebrity gossip, independent music artists, as well as businesses that contributor to the music and entertainment industries. The purpose is to provide exquisite cranial repertoire. Don't forget to hit that subscribe button!!!! follow me @BlondeIntelligence @RRoneice. Also the channel name is That Blonde Broad.
Indie Artist Music Hustle
Collaborative Magic in Modern Music with Asher Laub
Asher returns to share his journey as an independent artist facing the rapid technological changes of the music industry. Discover how he balances the allure of advanced tools like AI while staying true to his artistic roots. Asher opens up about the intricacies of collaboration, revealing the necessity of producing fully-realized tracks to engage other artists meaningfully. Delve into the potential pitfalls of AI, and learn about the tightrope walk of maintaining artistic integrity amid evolving industry practices.
This episode also brings you behind the scenes of a captivating collaborative project with renowned artists like Ginny and Johannes. Asher recounts navigating record label complexities to secure Ginny's participation, known for her work alongside big names such as Dave Matthews and Jay-Z. With contributions from the talented drummer Johannes and Lucas Sater from the Pentatonix, this musical endeavor is filled with rich, creative synergy. Asher shares reflections on past collaborative challenges, emphasizing the importance of respecting each partner's creative vision and celebrating the diversity of genres he’s excited to explore in upcoming projects.
this week we are going to let agus introduce himself again. Go ahead, how are you doing?
Speaker 2:I'm doing fine thanks for having me of course I, um, I guess, uh, I have great debt of gratitude for having me twice, I think, in a year can't get enough of this show why do you keep mentioning Ashton Robbins? Well, you know I've done about 100 shows this year and this by far is the most memorable, really.
Speaker 1:Well, probably because you get really good advice. Know I've done about 100 shows this year, and this by far is the most memorable really?
Speaker 2:oh yeah, well, probably because you get. You give really good advice I try yeah, absolutely. I mean it always helps to kind of bounce your ideas off other people and uh and I know you've, uh, you've been around the block in the music industry.
Speaker 1:You think so?
Speaker 2:Well, you definitely come off as that.
Speaker 1:You just stay up on the information. You're bad in the middle.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, just staying up on the information is enough to just take an enormous amount of time out of the very limited period of time for independent artists to focus on the music, myself included. In addition, I have support, I have assistance, management, but that's stuff that I also have to manage. I have to manage the management. So it's just between that and keeping up on the latest. I mean, you could spend all day watching YouTube updates on the gurus and, oh well, now AI is changing this and there's new like Google updates and there's Facebook updates, and now, frankly, I'll go for months.
Speaker 2:At a time where I just I'm like you know, I got to focus on my music. At a time where I just I'm like you know I got to focus on my music, I can't just keep checking up on on every little micro change um, that happens on a literally a weekly or monthly basis. Uh, it's exhausting and oftentimes it's not even all that useful. Um, when it boils down to the end, the end goal for me, which is really to just produce good, high quality content for my fans and, um, you know, encourage them to support me and go out and do my, do do my gigs um, I feel like a lot of the nitty-gritty details. I just need people to manage for me as an independent artist, and I would assume that a lot of other independent artists need the same kind of support so talk to me, tell me what you want to talk about uh, well, I guess.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean you. You just opened up the whole bag of worms with the ai thing, because that is uh that is just never ending. And now and then I'm like seeing uh, these, these like clickbait, uh titles like chatPT5 is out now and I click on the ChatGPT5 video which is gonna hopefully tell me what it's all about, and should I install it now? And it's like it's gonna be out very soon, like, oh, come on.
Speaker 1:I'm a fan of the AI. I am, but I have worked with artists that need a collaboration. With the voice recognition, you can really create. I'm not saying in all situations that that's the way that it should go, and you can create with the sound that you're looking for without it.
Speaker 2:You know, I think that's really optimistic of you to say, and I hope that you're looking for without you know, I I think that's really optimistic of you to say, and I, and I hope that you're right um, being the pessimist that I typically am I have to counter with, uh, potential negative um, I don't know negative outcomes from this sort of like.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's totally, totally. I can see that being a possibility. That, okay, instead of having to like work for hours crunching out a track for collaborative option, you know, just sending this quick AI sample. But you know what, the more I kind of get involved with the collaborations and I've actually been fortunate enough to just pump out a new, amazing, probably one of the most exciting collaborations I've worked on um in a long time um miserloo this past week, which I can talk about um, I did not, I did not land that collaboration until I had fully produced the track.
Speaker 2:I mean we're talking like a full, like cinematic orchestral rock, kind of upbeat, miserable and like pretty much good enough that like the movies would, would be cool with it and I ran it by a bunch of artists and the people that were like really interested. But then well, let me just get cut to the chase. Cut to the chase. Ginny, who I pitched, this by Ginny Luke and Johannes Gritschoff, are out in LA. They agreed to it because they love the piece so much. So I think if I had sent them a skeleton like oh, here's the general idea, and here's who I am, or my management sent it out, whatever, I don't know. That's the pessimistic Asher talking. I hope I'm wrong, but that's just been my personal experience.
Speaker 2:I feel like a lot of people just kind of look at the numbers it actually could be fully produced you know, I gotta tell you, I was watching this, this sync like movie, sync type like workshop, where they were pretty much warning against, uh, artists who produce music like myself from getting paid or getting up accepting opportunities from companies like pond, for instance, that, um, they, basically they, you know, I don't know if you've heard of that pond like they, they use a raw what's the word I don't know why that the word's escaping me but uh, just video and and uh, audio and then and then photo, um, just pre-produced photos, stock, yeah, stock, that's the word I was looking for. So they discourage that because Pond and these other types of companies are using that stock, the photos and the videos and the audio, and building AI off of that at the expense of the artist building AI off of that.
Speaker 2:So at the expense of the artist. So I don't know if, again, I think it's one of those things where it's inevitable, but it's. It's hard to know, it's hard to sort of stop that game from from developing because there's so much money being pumped into it and so many people want to use the stock.
Speaker 1:So tell me, what have you been doing this last year?
Speaker 2:Oh, just twiddling my thumbs. Well, as you know, I'm a workaholic, so I've just been doing a lot more of that stuff. I've probably, since last we spoke, I've produced about at least 12 to 13 singles releases, five of which were full symphonies like classical symphonies, two of which are hip hop singles. The one I the most recent probably thing I'm most excited about is Miserlew, which is based on a traditional Greek piece that probably most people have heard, but I made it more a contemporary, upbeat cinematic type of production, and that is what I was mentioning before. I reached out to some really amazing artists and I had to go through some red tape to get through Ginny's record label to have her sign on to collaborate on the song. And then I got Johannes. He's been on international tours. He's been on the Tonight Show, the Day Show, pretty much every show you can think of America's Got Talent. It's really an honor to have even met him.
Speaker 2:Just to work with him has been pretty cool. Ginny's worked with Dave Matthews, bernie Spears pretty much Jay-Z anybody you can think of been pretty cool. Ginny's work with Dave Matthews, bernie Spears pretty much Jay-Z anybody you can think of.
Speaker 1:So yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm the smaller of the artists, if you will. It's just been an honor to be able to build the backbone of the song and then to just have them kind of do their thing on it. She added some violin, electric violin and even some classical to kind of do this dueling thing with me and Yohannes is a drummer. So he turned it less of a, he turned it more into like a rock type beat. So that's been pretty cool. And we have the producer of the Pentatonix, the musical director, lucas Sater of the Pentatonix, who worked on the song. That was pretty cool. So yeah, that's been kind of labor of love, just getting it on different platforms and working on the write-up and the blogs and magazines and the influencers and so on and so forth. That's what I've been busy with this past week All the gigs and concerts and stuff like that. It's just it's been about 150 gigs ago that we talked there's been a lot of events.
Speaker 1:I've been traveling.
Speaker 2:I'm trying to remember anything in particular that was unique. I've been out to LA, texas, did some events in North Carolina, atlanta. It's been a busy year. Busy year, a blessed year.
Speaker 1:Okay, so I'm going to ask you a question then Do you think that because you had such a great experience with this collaboration that you may have been spoiled or not knowing what to expect when you get the collaboration from hell?
Speaker 2:um, you know, I I think it's bound to happen, actually, because I keep seeking out collaborations. Uh, I think it's bound to happen. I think the redeeming factor is that, even if I do end up with the collaboration from hell I'm not sure I think the only way to really have a collaboration from hell is where you know, like I work extensively and like invest extensively in a single and all of a sudden, like this person wants to completely flip the song upside down after having invested time and effort in it. Um, I mean, I've had some. I've had, like I had one collaboration that was kind of a joke. In contrast, she was really talented singer, really into herself and thought much more of herself than she actually was. Like she thought she was this like major celebrity than she actually was.
Speaker 2:Like she thought she was this like major celebrity and, um, I mean, I, I worked on the song and the track and we just sort of like went our, went our own ways, like we never got in an argument or anything. Uh, we just didn't like finish the project because I was just thinking like, like this is not the type of person I really have an interest in working with, because she really thinks she's like the shit and she's really not. I mean, she's got a good voice and I don't know if she so and she it's funny because she reached out to me first and then. So anyway, just to kind of give you an idea of like the exchange, that one of many exchanges that I had, that maybe just sort of like roll my eyes. Um, it was like where she made, she made it. I'm trying to remember, actually I'm thinking out loud here she made it, she. She had a track that she recorded with another artist. She said she asked me to record over it my violin. I said, sure, I didn't ask for anything because it was a call. I saw it as a collaboration. I recorded, I sent it to her.
Speaker 2:She disappears for like two months. Nothing happens with the song. She comes back to me. She's like hey, could you record on this song, like well, um, what happened with the last song? She's like, oh, it wasn't like, or the label, like um, said that it wasn't ready or wasn't good or something was missing. Like, ok, and you want me to record on this for free? So that was just like.
Speaker 2:That was like kind of step one in the process of many steps where I was sort of like that's really entitled to sort of like go to another, like an established professional musician and sort of ask them to like work for free, after you didn't do anything with the previous recording, you know. But the next one was like, okay, maybe just to like humor me, I'm just maybe I'll start working. I gave her a little clip just to kind of entertain myself, see what would happen with it. And I'm trying to remember. It's like a number of months ago, like many, many months ago. She's like this song, um, oh, yeah, it sounds good, let me just run it by the label. And then, and then, oh, that's right.
Speaker 2:And then I said, well, so if you want me to finish up the recording, uh, I'm either going to need 50% split, uh, in the royalties, which is asking like we're not talking an artist who's getting millions of streams. We're talking like an artist who gets like a few thousand streams, like has whatever, uh, some screwy stuff on on their, their social media platforms and I was like I just look at 50, I think, or just an even split, or maybe a third split, some percentage. She's like I'm sorry, if you can't accept basically 0% with the distribution of with this label, I'm not going to be able to allow you to play this at your concerts or performances and I'm like, oh my god, she really doesn't understand reality. I can't believe I even got involved with her.
Speaker 1:I was just about to say that's not correct.
Speaker 2:I haven't thought about this in so long since now, since I've just brought it up, but now that I think about, like I can't believe that I actually wasted my time. But yeah, so that's just kind of give you an idea as to how insane one of my collabs was. So you could say that could have been the collab from hell. Normal people like like hardworking people, people who care, who have respect for the people they're collaborating with, people who actually have a resume, that's like legit. Yeah, it was definitely a dream, but I've also had, like you know, working with Porter Singer was a dream, was a privilege. I'm gonna say you know, that release was a few months back. She's awesome, she's out in Washington. Anyway, I've had some real what's the word Real great opportunities.
Speaker 1:Tell me a little bit more about your latest project or process, what you loved about it, what frustrated you about it and anything else you want to say now.
Speaker 2:What I'd like to say probably the most important point, um, first of all, is again it was just a privilege working on miserloo and and I hope that more of the world gets to hear it it's doing really well as far as the far as the playlists are concerned, it's um you know, uh, landing on a lot of like for me.
Speaker 2:I care about targeted playlists as opposed to like, oh, it's on three million random playlists. It's kind of targeting rock and classical and some electronic. So, yeah, it's working. Anyway, nobody wants to hear about this stuff. It was I'm going to say I know, oh, I'm touched. So if you want to hear, yeah, oh, I'm, I'm touched, so that that. So if you want to hear about it, I, I, I care, I care that the playlists are targeted, because what you see in the stats is that maybe on chart metric or within the Spotify for artists, for instance, or even iTunes, you see that the same people are listening to the music over and over again. So it's like two, two plays per per per listener, or three plays per listeners. Um, my last, my last single um, had eight and a half plays per listener and that's like that's exciting to me, as opposed to like a hundred thousand people who just kind of brushed by it once and then they're done. Um, so, because the people that are want to support you or they want to meet you, the people that are streaming your song two, three, four times anyway. So that's just one little point. Another point is uh, I, I learned, I learned something important in terms of, uh, what it means to collaborate with other artists that are of equal and, if not greater, stature. If you will, um, maybe longer, resume, more talent, I don't know Is taking a step into this group, this effort, this team effort, with humility, and I think that that really leads to better outcomes. So I didn't.
Speaker 2:The way that Miserlew ended up is different than I had envisioned initially, in fact, had produced initially. I produced it, I posted it on my was. It probably lent itself a little more, a little more close to my actual listeners, but because I I shut my mouth up when it came to their recording sessions and, you know, I made a couple of minor mistakes, like I tweaked some, I edited some, some notes, um, some rhythm, and and then they said, well, can you actually keep it the way it was? And I said, yeah, you're right, this is your baby, just as it is mine. And I'm glad that I made that mature step forward because it led to great outcomes. It led to a rock song I did not plan on producing, but it led to a really positive experience for all of us and, as a result, um, you know, listeners from all ends that are that are into the song.
Speaker 1:What did you bring from all those other previous collaborations to this collaboration to make it great?
Speaker 2:Um, probably just that, just like the, the understanding that that a collaboration is just that. It is not my baby exclusively, it is their baby. If I'm bringing them on as a collaborator, it's which is a very different ball game than hey, here's 300 bucks, please record your saxophone or your violin or your trumpet or drums at my direction. It's very different because you are stepping into their territory. When you are asking an artist to collaborate, you are no longer in full ownership of it's a partnership, it's a business partnership and you need to respect that business partnership the you, I need to respect that business partnerships. That's what I learned, that, um, I'm. We're sharing each other's audiences, so what they deem is important, if they think a rhythm should be a bit different, perhaps if it doesn't, if it doesn't resonate best with with myself or even my fan base, and might resonate much better with their families.
Speaker 1:So that is a.
Speaker 2:That is a reason to be flexible really, really in any business partnership. But this is like a microcosm of a business, business partnerships one contract, one song, you know. Another thing I learned is like, okay, it's one song, one contract, one song. It's not a full album, so what if it's not perfect? So what? You know, I obviously considered it to be important enough, them to be important enough, them valuable enough to reach out to them, to be a part of my project. So therefore, it's incumbent upon me to take the high road and to respect their decisions and to approach it as just one third of the project is mine. So the single is called Miserlew, miserlew, m-i-s-e-w. Who cares? Miserlew, you know what I think? Sing a lot. Oh, tell us, tell us, tell us. I misspelled it for months and I tell them like whoa. So that's the end of the single.
Speaker 2:You can find it on all streaming, on all major platforms. You can find it on iTunes. It is also on astrolabcom slash merchandise if you want to check out. Well, if you want to actually download the single, you can also check out all my music on astrolabcom A-S-H-E-R-L-A-U-Bcom, and my music is posting all these shenanigans on social media Instagram, facebook, twitter. Astrolab is my name and I hope you guys can send some love. You can send a DM or a comment on a post and I'd be happy to connect and you could just check out. You know, I'm just posting like pretty much recordings every day, every other day, to keep people engaged, and I go live every week. So anyway, I hope to connect with you guys in some some way shape or form.
Speaker 1:Okay, you also mentioned that you had a single to come out some months ago well, I released a few things, uh, two, two symphonies.
Speaker 2:one is called shamash, another one was a uh a medley, a four-song medley, a tribute to israel, which, uh, that actually, for some reason was the one that had like eight and a half streams per listener on spotify, which is interesting because I'd never seen numbers like that before, but it was pretty wildly popular among like intense listeners. So those are two other releases. When I say symphony, like 40, 40 tracks like like strings, uh, winds, percussion, uh, um, yeah, just a lot, of, a lot of instruments and huge labor of love, and I hope you guys, uh those of you who maybe aren't necessarily into like typical classical, might appreciate this, the cinematic nature, the beauty of the, the of the pieces Shemesh and and A Tribute to Israel, and I'm kind of like all over the map here. Genre-wise, I'm excited to release some hip-hop singles and some EDM classical, so something for everybody.
Speaker 1:Alright, well, show him some love. See you next week. Bye.