“You’re always reading the room,” he said. “That’s the whole job.”

It sounds like a cliche until he unpacks it. A DJ doesn’t just execute a set—they watch. Is the crowd building or flatlining? Are people dancing or checking their phones? The track list is provisional. You throw it out when the room calls for it. The skill is attention, not taste.

Anton brings the same instinct to business. When a campaign or product isn’t landing, he doesn’t push harder—he pays attention to why. He described watching founders stay committed to their original plan well past the point where the feedback was obvious. “It’s the DJ equivalent of playing hard techno to a room that came for R&B,” he said. “You’re technically doing your job. Nobody’s dancing.”

The mixing analogy runs deeper than you’d expect. Individual tracks can be good and still not work together—key clashes, tempo mismatches, energy that doesn’t build. He’s seen the business version of this play out more than once: every function performing well on its own, the whole thing still falling apart because nobody was talking to each other. Product builds something marketing can’t explain. Sales promises what product didn’t make. “You’ve heard that track,” he said.

Timing is the part he’s most honest about. The drop is the obvious example from DJing—too early kills the buildup, too late and you’ve lost the moment. In business, he thinks about timing constantly and still gets it wrong. “I’ve launched too early and I’ve sat on things too long,” he said. No formula, just accumulated judgment and still imperfect.

What strikes me about talking to Anton is that he doesn’t romanticize the parallels. He’s not arguing that DJing secretly teaches you everything you need for business. He’s describing specific situations where the same reflex applied: staying calm when the equipment failed at a festival, figuring out how to work with what he had while three minutes ticked by. Most people in the crowd didn’t notice. He thinks about that when something goes wrong with a client or a launch. You can’t prepare for the exact crisis. You can only build the habit of not falling apart when conditions aren’t what you planned for.

One thing he returns to is the question of identity. He has a sound. It’s not always what a crowd wants. He’s had nights where he could have chased what the room wanted and chose not to. His reasoning isn’t principled in a grand way—it’s practical. Drift far enough from what you’re known for, and you’re nobody’s first call anymore. He applies the same logic to business: he’s turned down work that would have required him to operate in ways that didn’t fit what he’s built. The short-term money wasn’t worth what he’d have to become to get it.

“You dilute yourself,” he said, “and you become nobody’s first choice.”

Anton Wirjono
Hey, what’s up? I’ve been long time no see, long time no see in real life. We see each other on social media.

Robin
How you doing, man! I’m yeah. I mean, but I see you, like really, you’re a really busy man. Like crazy. How can you, how can you, how can you spare your time with doing everything? Your family, business is growing so fast lately eh!

Anton
Yeah, I just like to keep busy, I guess. I wouldn’t know what to do otherwise. You know, we had two years of being at home that whole time. As we grow older, I just thought that there’s not a lot of time left, so let’s do things. But no, it’s exciting times. mean, lots of things happening in Indonesia. We’re a country of lot of young people.

Robin
Right! Right!

Anton
Everything’s growing, yeah. So we’re just taking the opportunities as they come, you know?

Robin
Yeah, that’s great. Okay, so let’s start from the beginning. When we first met, 2014 I believe, it was in the British Council event in one of your restaurant in Goods Dept. And before that we met… So you were DJing there and then you were DJing…

Anton
…in Brighton. Oh yeah yeah that’s true.

Robin
Yeah, there’s British Council Award and then after that we met again in Brighton (UK) for the Great Escape. Yeah, it was a great time, man. It was a great time.

Anton
The great escape, yeah, exactly. It was a great time. It’s a great event, right? An event for new music, so it’s exciting.

Robin
Yeah, it was exciting. There’s always something new in The Great Escape and there’s always life changing moments where your brain is like, oh, this exists? Then, oh, so it’s like really, really great time. It was great to spend time with you there. We share a lot of like, like common, how we call it… Uh, we want to, each of us want to be progressing and then we want to build something and then you build your part of community, I built my part (of my community). But the thing that struck me was seeing you combine a lot of things, but then you don’t seem to lose focus. You seem to still like doing this one line and then the line is just growing bigger and bigger. So tell me how did you start!

Anton
How did I start? Well, interestingly, I think everything I do now has been inspired by music. Even though I’m doing things outside of music, I think it’s all been inspired by music. So I think my thing with music was when I was in boarding school, know, sad that I was stuck there, unhappy with my parents, feeling like they were trying to get rid of me. I was 12. My mom came around and I said, buy me the best set of headphones that you can find, you know, because at nine o’clock the lights go out, you can only wear headphones for the next one hour and then 10 o’clock you have to go to sleep. So I had this one hour that I can listen to music and my headphones were not good. So she felt bad for me, she bought me really good headphones, right? And so every night I listened to the headphones I had was really good, it was electrostatic, whatever. I don’t even remember what headphones they were. But they were so good that I was so inspired by a lot of different kinds of music. This was in the 80s, you know, there’s like a lot of weird things going on with music, exciting times for music, you know, from across the board, from early hip hop to like new wave coming at that time, interesting rock and punk and stuff alike.

So from then on, music is my thing. And these kids would come out, the seniors would come out usually to like beat you up in a pillow fight. They came to my bed at night. They’re like, hey, can you DJ, can you play music for the school dance? So as this kid that I thought was going to beat up by my seniors. And then instead they’re like, oh, we think you listen to good music. You know, we play the music out loud, boom boxes and stuff.

Robin
Hmm, okay.

Anton
From that time on, was like, wow, it’s interesting that it seems like other people also like the choices I make around music. So I think it was an important, I just realized…

Robin
When was that? How old were you?

Anton
12.

Robin
Oh, around 12, alright, that’s quite early.

Anton
I was 12. Yeah, 12 until I was about 15, I was in the boarding school. But I think foundationally (as a foundation), that’s what kind of set me on this journey until now. And I’m applying this thing where I think I have this kind of ability to curate interesting music. But it’s music I like, right? But it seems, you know, from that time, I realized that there’s quite a bit of other people that like my selection of music. So this, you know, little 12 year old Asian kid in boarding school gave me a lot of kind of confidence that, you know, that I was doing something that was like something on par with everyone else. mean, everyone liked my music.

Later on I picked up playing the drums. I had my drum teacher. I was trying to play in bands, but you know not that easy. I would go into nightclubs, and then I would see this DJ, this person playing other people’s music, right, which was super interesting. And he was controlling the whole room with music played in his way, right? It was like mixed together. I said, hey, maybe I can try to pick this up. I know beats and stuff like that, basic music theory. So I picked up my first turntables and records and I was living in the States, one dollar bins, right? Like the music that people didn’t like, but they’re super interesting. And then I went on that journey of selecting. music even in the states and I…

Robin
So you’re always DJing, you’re like curating. That’s how you describe yourself. You’re a good curator.

Anton
I, you know, the thing is, I think….

Robin
How do you describe your musical identity?

Anton
Maybe what I learned when I was 12 by being not confident and me being this Indonesian kid in boarding school that my selection was good for a lot of people from a lot of different countries. And so I thought, yeah…

Robin
Hmm. Oh, where was that? What, what country was it? Was it in the state?

Anton
I was in Singapore and boarding school with a bunch of people from….

Robin
Oh, Singapore. Okay. Gotcha. Gotcha. And then you, and then after that you moved to the States?

Anton
Then I moved to the States for high school. Picked up drums, bought my first turntables. And in college, started doing I was trying to DJ. I couldn’t really DJ anywhere. You know, it’s hard to break into the business, especially in the States. And then I got into the…, I was living in the San Francisco Bay Area and I got into the Bay Area kind of rave scene, underground rave scene.

Robin
Oh, gotcha!

Anton
And that really, really inspired me.

Robin
What year was this?

Anton
Yeah, early 90s.

Robin
Oh, gotcha.

Anton
I had my record collection, I had my turntables and mixer at home, playing at home. And, you know, had my friend who in college, he’s like, hey, let’s do an event. So I okay, we’ll put our money together. We rented an airplane hangar. We couldn’t get permits, so we did it illegally. We did it illegally. We hired security, we hired people for the door.

Robin
Oh, nice!

Anton
…our friends, you we didn’t really hire other people. We hired security. We asked our friends to guard the door and everything else. And we had about 5,000 people on the airplane hangar. We booked the DJs that we liked…

Robin
Oh, that’s not… That’s… a good number!

Anton
Yeah, about 5,000 people, but only about 2,000 paid. 3,000 went through the back. The security, there was, you know, the hangar had two gates, had two doors, big doors. And the security was letting people into the back. They were getting like $10 to get in people through the back and we were charging $20 at the front. Rookie mistake, lesson learned. Lesson learned. But we were still make a lot of money. We still took some people paying $20 US. So we made some money. But we got busted at 5 AM, so we were supposed to go until 7 AM. The best DJ was going to come out at 5 to 7. We would open the hangar doors. The sunlight would come in.

It didn’t happen. We got busted at five o ‘clock in the morning because it was illegal. But that was my first foray into like, you know, business basically. And, know, that night that I started DJing, I DJed in front of people on the rave scene. It was my own event because obviously I couldn’t get a gig. Who was I? But from that night on, I had bookings. Other promoters, et cetera, would come to the event because it was a pretty big event. And then I had other promoters call me for bookings. So again, I was like, hey, I think people do like the selection of things that I do. And then people like the event that I did, that we do. And actually, interestingly, that event, someone just bought me this. San Francisco Rave Flyers. It’s like, you know, out of England. And my flyers are in here.

Robin
Oh, that’s nice,

Anton
I guess you remember my flyers are in there. I mean, if somebody can get a hold of this book, it’s all they’ve documented all the flyers from the rave scene from the early nineties. And yeah. And our few of our flyers are here. So to me, it’s a big, big kind of achievement.

Robin
Oh, that’s so cool.
Dude, that’s so cool.

Anton
I wanna show it to you!

Anton (showing the booklet)
I took it for it. Oh, this was here. That’s one of the things I did. My name’s on there. But there was a production, I mean, I think that we did this, you know, this one here. But there’s some other ones, some super underground ones. We were doing like warehouses and, you know, super underground, underground subculture parties, which I really enjoyed and got inspired by. Get down. That’s our culture!

Robin
Oh, that’s… Dude, that’s so cool.

Anton
…and then this thing with subcultures was that I thought was interesting. Things that are weird, know, from the headphones that I used to have, music that was weird become super interesting because, you know, good fidelity and everything else. that was that.

Robin
Right, right. As you know I’m a metalhead. But I know there was a rave movement as well going on, going on in, at the same time in like everywhere, because I know my friend in Australia, was into that kind of scene as well. Then I think it’s happening also in the UK. Correct me if wrong.

Anton
Yeah, I think it actually went really big in the UK. I was in San Francisco and I found again with these things, super underground, super subculture. Someone met me and said, hey, I think you would, the music that you like and the way you are, might like the rave scene. You can come and check it out. There’s a party going on, you know, later than, oh, actually the first one was like a full.

That’s one of the things that inspired me. It’s, uh, until now is that there’s this thing that happens every full moon in San Francisco by this, this one group and, uh, no flyers, no promotion basically. It’s all word of mouth. And they tell a few people at, uh, let’s say midnight and they say at three AM the party is going to start at a beach somewhere, you full moon, full moon night. And, um, you would hear news at like 12 o ‘clock, one o ‘clock and you, uh, you… you get news that it’s on this beach, Santa Cruz or whatever, you head down, you head down and by 3am there’s like 3,000 people there. And everyone is there because they knew someone, they knew someone. It was like super word of mouth before social media, way before social media. And you know, it’s a community of people that are into like, seeing the music.

Robin
You just get there. Oh, shoot. That’s cool!

Anton
…and the Full Moon Parties as a brand, know, community latches on to. So that’s like for me, it’s super, super inspiring. You know, in business you have customers, in music you have, you know, from having bands and all that as fans, right? And I think fans are just like super, super, they’re super charged customers. They will travel whatever time to come to gig because they really believe in what you do and you you do it from the

Robin
Right, right. So what next after that? Where did that bring you?

Anton
After that, yes, so I was this Indonesian kid in the States dreaming of becoming a DJ and a promoter. I was well on my way. I was getting booked by the big events and the big promoters. Record shops would let me into the special room. The scene accepted me. And then the partner I was doing my events with, he had a job in LA and he had a motorcycle accident, he passed away. Right? That was like one night before my graduation, graduation from college. And actually, you know, I was supposed to be coming back to Indonesia after graduation, one year after that I would come back (to Indonesia). And I was just talking to him the night before he passed away. I was like, yeah, I’m going to go back to Indonesia. I don’t think I can do what I do here. And he kept going like, no, you know,

Robin
Oh, shoot!

Anton
…you’ve brought all of us, you’ve introduced all of us into the scene and we’re doing this and we’re doing something really special. You should continue it. When you go back to Indonesia. I’m like, Indonesia is not the same thing as you know, It’s just not the same. I don’t know if I can do it. I have to go back and be responsible, be an adult. The next day, he passes away. So that was stuck in my head. You know, maybe a couple of years later, my parents called me and said, I have to come back, help us out here. Financially, you know, they needed help. So I didn’t even blink. I came back.

So when I came back here, it was like, do I get a nine to five job or, you know, or try to do what I do there (in the States)? Right. And so what I did was I, you know, I came back with a few suitcases and a couple of boxes of my best records that I
you know, back in the day then, anywhere I go, I was this new kid that was playing a lot in the events. You know, every time I played it, people would like it. So I come back with these records, I come here and I try to play in different places, in clubs here. And every time I would play 15 minutes, they would kick me off the decks. I would go to another place, play 10, 15 minutes, they would kick me off the decks. They would say, your music is too weird. That’s not what people want. In Indonesia, you know, here at that time it was, uh, you

Robin
Oh really, okay. Right. It was house (music)…

Anton
I was also playing house music, but it was house music that is like, yeah, you know, the one here was a lot more commercial. Was a lot more catchy and people actually culturally, like Indonesians are used to requesting songs. You know, it was before DJs, was bands playing in cafes and they would just play the hits and like you have a request form and pay the money and they would play the song, whatever song that the customer wanted. And here they wanted the DJs to be that. Like it’s this kind of Asian culture, Indonesian culture. And so DJs would just play songs that people would request. Kind of top 40-ish, top 40 stuff, you know, and the same song, the same hit songs could be played like six, four times in a night. And I wasn’t about that. I was about like people coming to a DJ performance.

Robin
The top 40, top 40 culture.

Anton
…because that DJ is performing his set, not playing music that you (the audience) like. Most of the music I will play will be things that people have never heard. I would throw in some classics, of course, to keep them happy, but 90 % of it will be music you haven’t heard, but that you would like. But it’s all about the energy and the selection and putting it together. That’s the whole kind of DJ.

Robin
Gotcha.

Anton
DJing is half knowing all your shit, like knowing all your music, but half improvising, right? Because you’re playing a selection of music, especially in the vinyl times, maybe you have 100 records you have with you, you know what they’re like, but when you’re in a club, it’s always different every time. So you don’t know what you’re gonna start with, what you’re gonna play in the middle or end up with. It depends on the club and the people that are there, the energy, et cetera. So it’s half improvisation. You know, I was getting kicked off the decks and everywhere I went, you know, I like, why come back from the Bay area where I was playing all the time, but not here. So, yeah, I was depressed for a bit. I was like, maybe I just go back to doing like, you know, to make a living, kind of working. And then I said, no, I remembered my friend that passed away, like you should continue it. And so,…

What I did was I actually opened up a record shop using a credit card to buy all the records, because I knew people back in the States. I opened a record shop with the credit card and it was the best record shop in Jakarta because I sell things that were different. I had friends in the States telling me what to buy. I had like the most rare stuff. My first foray into retail and again curating the best. It was probably at one point the best record shop that was here, even though it was not big, but I had the best music. From there I met some…

Robin
What was the name of the name of your record store?

Anton
Ritma was the name of the record shop.

Robin
Okay, in Jakarta, yeah?

Anton
In Jakarta, it was in Grand Wijaya where our office until recently, we just moved until recently. And one night, one day, a DJ came and goes, oh, I have a resident DJ. So I started working at this venue. They bought new turbo sound system. It’s all set up. It’s an old club in the park. In Thamrin (name of one of the main street in Jakarta), it’s called Parkit.
Wahid Hasyim, that’s the place, right? It’s an old kind of lounge, bit sleazy, but they just bought a new sound system, but they could not get anybody there. Right? So I’ll be like, oh, And he goes, oh, there’s a second room that’s in the back. So the two rooms interesting. So I go, hmm, interesting, right? Turbo sound in the second room. So I went there and I said, okay, let’s try to do something. And I…

Robin
I heard that (about Parkit), yeah I heard that, right right…

Anton
I’ll bring in the DJs, I’ll fill the second room with like, you know, play house in the front and funk and at that time like, know, funk, disco, like all the classics, soul, and also drum and bass that was coming in then. Drum and bass is getting big again now with the Gen Zs. And I go to the club owner and say, look, you give me 50 % of your take that night, door and bar. And they said, yes. They’re like, okay, we cannot get anybody here, take 50%. So we did. That night it was a Saturday night and we had about 700, 800 people. I had like all my friends promoted and my brother and sister and their friends promoted. Yeah. And so from that night on, I told the club owner like, look, let’s just do this every Saturday, you know, and they go, okay, but not at 50%, maybe, you know, there’s a 30%. So I said, okay, you know, we shook hands for the next year we would do this.

I would be 30% of the takings from the door and the bar. And they became like the business model of how I would do things after that. So I was making good money. I was like, you know, was getting 900 people on average. Yeah. On average, 750 people through the door every Saturday. So I was making a living. I could pay the other DJs. I had like artists do kind of doing visuals. I I had other DJs playing music in the back room. So I was able to make a living for myself and for the people that I would take in to kind of do this night. And it was something super, super different than the other clubs. In the end, getting more attention than the other clubs and the other clubs sending police out to us to bust us and all that because traffic, because of all these things. So interesting times, but you can do that. You can pay the police to do stuff like that here.

Robin
That’s right, right.

Anton
Less known, maybe less known, but even more back then. The other clubs would send out police to bust them. But it was interesting. from that time on, I figured out there’s this model where I can… venues need revenue, they need customers, they need content. So I would go to these other DJs and say, look… There’s this club that, you know, because we had so many people every week, they’re like, hey, can you also fill up our club? And I said, okay. And then I would send out other DJs and even other kinds of music. I would get DJs, I would get the people doing promotion. I would hire a graphic designer. Before I would just do it myself, went to the printers myself. You know, we still did flyers back then. But I was, you know, I was running four clubs at a time. I was sending DJs out.
you know, promoters and, you know, making interesting money. And then sponsors came. They were like, hey, you have this kind of community of people. I was early with like emails and everything else. And we had the early adopting customers. Many people didn’t use emails back then, but our customers did because they adopt early.

And so it was easy to reach out to them. I was using SMS machines and things like that. And so, I was running an operation out of the office. I had like eight people just were promoting different clubs one night and sending DJs out to play and promoters to promote. And then sponsors came.

Robin
So how long did it take from the start of that you managed the clubs to you start getting orders and then you’re starting (DJ) management and then sponsors?

Anton
One year. One year.

Robin
Oh crap, that’s fast.

Anton
As fast actually even before that, but, you know, I didn’t want to leave my Saturday night at Parkit. You know, I wanted to dedicate because it was just super special. I didn’t want to do other nights, but you know, at the end of that one year, I had a fight. I had a fight with the manager because, you know, I was taking all the glory basically. So he was trying to make it like, make life hard for me. So after one year, I had a fight with him basically one morning. We left and we just started managing the other clubs. And I started doing DJing in different clubs instead of just one because there was a quest from other people. So it built onto that. And then the sponsors came and they’re like, hey, can we tap into the things that you do? Because you have the market that we need, this influential communities, Indonesians would say, people in the know, we want to tap in.

We started doing things with sponsors and it became more substantial. Something was still underground. It was still the music that I wanted. I didn’t compromise because, you know, people came for us, right? But it was backed by sponsors. So it was the best of kind of both worlds. I mean, that’s the whole thing with the nights that we did in Par-kit was that I put up a sign in front of the DJ booth saying that “NO REQUESTS”, right? You know, if you want the songs that you want, there are other clubs play them. So go ahead and go to the other clubs to listen to the songs. We play the songs that we want here. And it worked. It was a concept, you know, because it was just so different and the music was different. And we built a community, a community of early adopters and people that was into subcultures as well around us.

We built that community, sponsors start coming in, more venues start coming in, and it became interesting. And that’s when we started the company called Future10. That’s when we started doing that. I took in some more DJs, in people doing promotion and things like that. And the sponsors after that, first was tapping in with sponsorship, and then they came in like, hey, wait, can you produce our events? And so for a long time, I mean, for years, was not easy work, but we were doing events for cigarette companies and at the height of it, like we had Sony electronics for like two years. Had drinks companies, we did events for BMW. All these things that I didn’t chase it, but they commissioned us to do it because we had a pool of talent around music, DJs, musicians, artists, visual artists, you know, to do our parties. And we started producing like corporate events that was interesting and different. We didn’t chase, we didn’t pitch, you know, we didn’t go for pitches. It was all commission work. So, yeah, so we got a lot of kind of experience and network and portfolio, right?

If we’ve done events for these big companies, then, and they’re really cool events too, like Nike, we did Nike for years. Adidas before that, some really interesting clients that we built, right? From doing these kind of really underground music events that had a community behind it, to doing interesting kind of events for, you know, for more people. But all that time, like there was no compromise. was the things that we… Well, I’d be compromised a bit if it was like big corporate events, but it was still the things that we like to do with the people we like to do it with. So, consider myself lucky that we it that way.

Robin
Right, so how did you get interested into retail?

Anton
First actually is because of

Robin
Or is there any other things that you did before you go there (retailing)?

Anton
Yeah, no, it’s an interesting connection. Then looking back, it’s interesting of like connecting the dots with it. Again, the first exposure into retail was the record shop, which I thought was interesting, you know, like, and it’s all the same, right? I think to me retail or music or the show business, it’s all about entertainment. We’re all in the entertainment hospitality business.

A customer comes to a record shop, buys a record that they’ve been looking for for their whole life and it keeps them happy. It makes them happy. It’s just like me being on a beach, on a full moon with a few thousand people that are in it with the craziest music I’ve ever heard. I was a happy person. It’s the same. You come to a store, you find things in a store and you purchase it, bring it home. It’s the same kind of happiness. And so that’s what we try to deliver in the record shop.
So with that experience and also the thing with curation, people like the music that I selected and maybe even the decorations that we did, et cetera. People then would ask me about other things like, hey, what’s that shirt you’re wearing? What’s that hat you’re wearing? So I was like, hey, wait, there’s some interesting things going on. So they trust you with selection of things. It means that you can maybe curate more things for people. Like, so there’s this trust of like, me not compromising on things and me showing, like, you know, showing people the best music that I can find, right? In a way that I put it together. And they would ask me at the vintage and I say, well, maybe we can do something with this. And so then this is like another kind of dot connecting.
And then after that, actually the jump before retail was that I I got picked out by this big venue, the biggest venue in South Jakarta, actually called Bengkel Night Park. Well, I named it Night Park. This big pyramid building as a multi-purpose venue, doing like live music and DJs in the weekends. And they’re like, oh, can you manage this place? I was like 25 or 26 at the time. 25.

And you manage this place, we’re doing like, you know, some bands, some live acts, some international, smaller international acts, and then you DJ every Saturday to, you know, this venue of like 7,000 people. So of course, yeah, I said, yeah, so I’m like, you know, that’s another challenge. So I did that, in the United States for a few years, and I got my hands into like, kind of promoting, you know, doing live shows and like promoting a venue at that time, one of the biggest in Asia and in ASEAN. So I did that for three years. So I got a lot of experience in running a company. I was managing 350 people, a lot of people older than me at that time. So that was an interesting experience. And after that, I

Robin
Is this still in the Future10?

Anton
Oh no, it was me personally. Yeah, so Future 10 was still happening on the side. I was doing this. But you know, this club was so big and that everyone was going there in the weekends would fit. We had 9,000 people in there one time, one weekend. We emptied out like the whole of most of Jakarta nightlife. Every Saturday night. And so, you know, anything else that’s going on was, I didn’t feel good about it, but it was just what happened. You know, because it was so big. The building is still there. If you Google map it and you go to SCBD in the middle of Jakarta, the pyramid building is still there.

Robin
Right.

Anton
And so after that, after three years, I quit that and I started doing music festivals. This idea where, you know, in Singapore, they have ZookOut, you know, they already had it at that time. How come Jakarta doesn’t have its own? So was like, hey, maybe we can try to do music festivals. So I teamed up with the investors. I was running a radio channel, I think it was Prambors, company behind Prambors radio. And so we did, I had this idea called Jakarta Movement and they go, oh yeah, let’s do it. And so we did that. We had 25,000 people. We did well, we did okay, but permits and like, oh, the whole police thing here is hard, You know, the government doesn’t have any, know, Singapore government supports like the music festivals the DJ festivals, et cetera. But yeah, Indonesia, again, different story. So our event was not getting busted, but they had like police out in front of our gates and stuff like that. And so, you know, we lost money in the last event and, you know, we stopped the business basically. But yeah, I put together like DJs and even before like the other festivals did it, we had bands, we had DJs in one festival. You know, because all the things that I like basically in place. We brought people in from Europe, from America. We had the best indie bands playing. Had all kinds of music. But that ended because the whole permit, it was just difficult. And after that, started going into this connection to retail. So I had a friend that I knew from music. He was working at a big shopping center. And I said, can we have the space? Do you want to do a music event there?

Let me look at it. It was like a thousand meters squared. And I said, wait, I have this idea. So one time we did an event where we had, it was a Sunday event where we had DJs bands, et cetera, playing. And then in one area we had retail, you know, because we had friends that were making like t-shirts and all these really cool things. We didn’t know where they would sell. We would do this kind of market on the side on a Sunday event. We had a few thousand, couple of thousand people.

And people were selling things. I mean, was the same people that are interested in really good music, really different music, are interested in really cool and different products and fashion and all these other stuff like art and vintage stuff. And so I go, maybe we can put all these things together. Like my whole experience of selecting things and people asking me for things because they trust in my selection.

The experience of putting events together and people together to manage it. I say, maybe we can do something. So when that friend asked if we can do music, I said, yeah, maybe we can try another type of festival, but not of music, but of this creativity in general. You know, things, people selling other things, you know, there’ll be music there for sure, because that’s what we do. But there’s people selling the best food that they can make and that we can find and selling the best clothes and at that time, like fixed gear bicycles and like art pieces. You know, there’s this girl that went to a culinary school in France and she’s selling these cakes that were like super expensive, but really good. Couldn’t find a market for it. You know, we put all these crazy people together and we had to assemble 25 brands into this thousand meter squared space. We couldn’t find 25. We had to make up a few booths. We have to pretend that we filled all the booths. I basically paid people to fill it up basically. And we had 5,000 people come to it. We called it BrightSpot Market. At the time it was just at the end of the recession that we had in Indonesia. So there’s a lot of empty spaces and malls.

Robin
So it’s late 90s…

Anton
This is 2008, 2009. So this is the 2007, 2008 recession. A bit later. I forget when the rupiah…. Yeah.

Robin
Yeah, so (the economic crisis) it’s 1998, 1999, and then again 2008. That was a global recession and stuff. Because it happened in America too. Yeah, yeah, I remember that.

Anton
That was a global recession. Yeah, exactly. So was a lot of empty spaces in these shopping centers and a lot of people not having jobs and trying to do something, but not finding the market for it, not finding the channel for it. So I figure, yeah, we can try to do something. So we did the first one, 25 vendors, 5,000 people came. You know, 5,000 people that we knew from music or the database from before, which is, interesting. The developers were happy, but, you know, other developers heard of it and they contacted me and said, hey, we have space, come and do it. So the next event, we have 35 vendors, we had 12,000 people. And then it went on and went on. I said, so it was like 2009 or 2010 we did the first one 15 years ago, 2009, 15 years ago. First event, 25 vendors, 5,000 people. The last one we did, we took over a dead mall, Rate Plaza, you probably know it. We had 200 vendors on show. We actually had a thousand apply. So we said no to 800 and we had 130,000 people. We had 130,000 people!

Robin
…for one weekend, for one day, for…

Anton
Yeah. Again, inspired by kind of music festivals. the recurring theme, this thing with music. Glastonbury would happen over two weekends. Coachella would happen over two weekends. And I go, wait, if our mission is to get these vendors to sell more things, what if we do it for two weekends so we can get more people to come and buy stuff from these guys, right? I suppose more people. So ever since two years ago, I said, you know, let’s just go and try two weekends.

It was a big move. But in the end, you get more people, the vendors get more sales, and we can have more bands playing, more DJs playing, more artists do things, and it works out, and it’s crazy with that many people. And then, so we’ve done, over the 15 years, we’ve been doing BrightSpot Market. We’ve been doing it in different places all the time. Again, inspired by the rave scene where they would just go to, they go find like an empty warehouse. Find all these like crazy places, outdoors and caves and beaches. My thing was like, we could go to a convention hall and do that every year there, but it’ll be boring. And so I think it’s this kind of adventure of this curation of everything, including the space we do it in. So we would try to find raw spaces, empty spaces, underused spaces.
throughout the city, becomes part of the whole experience. People follow us because we travel around every year, different places. So the dots are connecting.

Robin
So when did you start to think that, okay, I’m going to like settling in, like building like the real retail shop and then focus on that.

Anton
You know, actually, three or four years into BrightSpot Market, right, it was obvious that there’s this kind of marketplace of people making cool things for, I’m saying cool for the lack of a better word, it is just people doing different things, non-mainstream things. People from the subculture doing like fashion, doing food. Because of our platform, right? People started making things for it and more people appreciate these kind of interesting things and it grows. Like it becomes like a flywheel of just like cool things like creativity, people doing big sales during the event. And so it built up. So after three or four years, it was obvious that we were onto something. And there was like a lot of brands becoming big, getting invested going into like proper stores because of our platform. We had this idea, we need to do something more permanent, right, on the site because then they’ll have a place to sell on a daily basis. And so we did that. The first few years, we just had like friends and family invest, like, you know, a few friends and it went well, but it big, it got big and it’s like again, know, saying like there’s a lot of compromises because he got like too big and then investors came in and there was a lot of compromise. In the end, it’s not something that we wanted to do. And basically the investors took over, the people took over. But actually I’m in the process of buying that company back. It’s called The Goods Dept. It’s a place for retail, but as a different retail. We do music events there, we do art events there.

But it’s retail and dining. It’s like a community center, it’s transactional. It’s a place to shop. But again, it became something that was more compromised than passion. I lost a feeling for it. It was not something that we wanted to do. And we thought we didn’t do it well because it was not what we wanted to do at the time. We didn’t have full control.

Robin
Okay. So you give up?

Anton
But it’s coming back to us. It’s coming back to us in the next few, in the next month. So, think about what to do

Robin
Right, right. Okay. I missed that story.

Anton
I haven’t made it public, right? It’s in the process, but it’s coming.

Robin
Gotcha. Okay I see you were like walking in this line. It’s not a fine line. Like all the events that you mentioned. I was a teenage kid in Bandung, a metalhead in Bandung. When you did all I heard about Jakarta movement, heard about Parkit. I heard about all the events in BEngkel. I didn’t know it was you. Like a hundred percent. I just know that like half an hour ago. And it was amazing because we, cause I was in the different market. I wasn’t the folks that, you know, attend your shows. But we hear that like it’s like amplified by other people that is not even in your target. So the noise is like really loud.

Anton
Yeah, it was loud. Actually, just for the fact that it was something different. Actually, back then there was MTV Trax magazine and they put me as one of 10 people with the Midas Touch in Entertainment. I forget who the others… They were all big people, but they put me there because of Jakarta Movement, because of the nightlife scene and how it changed people’s perception about nightlife. And that’s just the thing too.

Back then, if you hear DJ now, he’s getting paid $100,000 a night to play for a couple of hours and fly private jet. But back then it was just really very underground, very small and very negative, especially for Indonesia. What are you doing DJing? But it applies to maybe a lot of people in the creative industry.

People don’t think that you can do something beneficial for a lot of people. You know, the more I get treated like that, I get people, what are doing? DJing. you know, I went to business school or whatever, but I became a DJ. And I was feeling that, like with other people trying to be DJs, you know, again, the same as saying, why are you in a band? Why are you DJing? Why are you doing paintings? You know, why are you doing graffiti? Like make something of your life.

And so I just wanted to do my part to show that like, you know, creativity can be meaningful, can be beneficial for a lot of people. That you do something different, but you do it as well as you could. It could be something. Then, you know, MTV Trax Magazine put me on that thing. So that’s why it was like a lot of noise. People from other scenes that was not from that scene, but have the same kind of this kind of subculture underground mentality would support us because we were something basically, you know, very kind of similar in a way, even though the music was different. So interesting. It was interesting. And then, you know, I applied that to basically people making things like, you know, curators in different fields, you know, at work. There were all these like in music, like all these kind of younger kids will come up to me and say, Hey, you know, I want to be a DJ too. You know, I want to start doing a night’s day. Can I join your crew? You know, I was like, wait, just do your own crew. Right. Then with, you know, it’s open source, man. Yeah. Go to clubs and ask them for a revenue share. If they won’t pay you for it, you know, if they won’t hire you, just say like, you can bring the crowd, get a cut from their bar, the door. You know, we did it that way. You can do it too. Start like a crew, start a brand. You know, we would say, no, these kids coming to our crew, but, you know, I said, like, do your own. And so a lot of kids started doing that, you know, like built up the scene for venues and for DJs at that time until now. That was the model that has been used, you know, from then until now. Like a lot of clubs actually then open clubs and have nights where they would do revenue sharing with promoters with the DJs. So yeah, interesting to see. And then you would see these guys now they’ve become like big producers or big DJs or they’ve grown to become like business people, et cetera. And you we’ve known them from back then. It’s all network, right? It’s all great. it’s a good practice in like, you know, making money from your passion, right? And so, I mean, that’s what I do. That was this Indonesian kid in a field or a beach going like, holy shit, this is the best thing ever, With music and with the people. I thought I do that to the city that I didn’t really want to come back to Jakarta. But I was asked to come back from my family and say, the best of it. A lot of things were not here. So I figured I have to leave this place better than I found it. So I do my part.

Robin
Right, right.

Anton
And that’s what I’ve been doing.

Robin
Right, that’s a good one. So, what other ventures are you pursuing now in music or in other fields?

Anton
A lot of the things I do is again, maybe kind of outside of music. I still actively DJing at my age, still being asked to DJ. I think actually after the pandemic, I DJed more than I ever did before. Like I was playing two times, three times a week. Yeah, that point too, was like, you know, before, we would chase it (DJ gigs), but now I would get people asking me to do it and I said, okay, I will do it for a certain fee, you know, because otherwise I just, yeah, I’m tired too, at this age to be going out at night because DJ gigs are late at night. But the thing is I enjoy doing it, right? I don’t think I will stop. Like a lot of people that started with me have kind of retired or are not relevant anymore. They don’t get asked to play anymore basically. But I’m lucky that I still can do it. That’s just one of the best things you can do. It’s the best job

Robin
Right.

Anton
And that was my thing too, right? If I didn’t get paid, if I didn’t get paid, I was still DJ, right? Because I like doing it.

Robin
So, okay. Now, how do you define yourself? Are you entrepreneur first or are you artist first? I don’t know if this is a fair question…

Anton
Yeah, no, it’s actually a good question, right? I don’t…
I don’t think I’m a full business person, because whenever I feel I’m compromising, I don’t feel like I’m doing great work. Right? I would rather not do it. And I’m not in my element either. So I think I’m more of a entrepreneur…

…Yeah I would say artists first. Just for the fact that… I’m uncomfortable when there’s compromises.

Robin
Yeah, that makes sense.

Anton
So I would say I would never be a really good business person, in my opinion. Because I cannot fully be that. It’s all these things that would stop me from doing things only for money.

I’m not driven by that. It’s great to do it. It’s great to be able to make money for yourselves and people around you and other people create like what I do with Brightspot Market, creating opportunities for hundreds and hundreds of brands. It’s great. But it’s not, that’s the result. That’s not the activity.
The activity is doing, creating something interesting for people to come and enjoy and be entertained and happy about, be inspired by. And, you know, and I think if you do that well, you will make money.

And if you don’t, you’ll still be happy because you’re doing what you like to do, right? Or you’re making other people happy. That’s what I think. So I would never be a really good business person, entrepreneur, I think, because I’m not fully driven by that. Partially, maybe.

Robin
Yeah, no, it all makes sense now. So, where did you acquire your business acumen? Where did you find those?

Anton
You know what?

You know, I don’t know. That’s a good question. I don’t know. You know what it could be? It might be from playing music. It might be from… I think it could be that, as I said before, that it’s (DJing) an interesting art. I’m lucky to be able to do it. I make some of my own music. I don’t make enough, but I don’t have too much time, but I love doing it. But as a DJ, you’re playing other people’s music, right? So basically you’re promoting other people’s music and you’re putting it…

Robin
Hmm, interesting.

Anton
…together in a way where a person can enjoy it from beginning to end. Let’s say a DJ set is two hours. That’s where you start and where it goes and where it ends, right? And throughout that time, you have to make sure that the whole journey is interesting, right? And music have different intensities, different feelings. And putting it together, programming it… It’s like, you know, when, when you’re playing a live set, you have your repertoire, you know, you think about what you’re going to play the first song, the third song is super important. The second song is very important. And then the last song is going to be really important. Right. So it’s a bit like that. Uh, but even more intense when you’re DJing, because then it’s a longer duration. It’s other people’s music is half improvisation. Cause you don’t know what’s going to go next. You know, we were doing like live band sets. We know we’re going to play beginning to end, know exactly what, we write down the setlist. When you’re DJing, you’re not writing a setlist. DJs that do are horrible DJs. I shouldn’t say that maybe some DJs are great by doing that, but I think the best DJs are the ones that play from the heart and are the ones that actually can read a room or a festival or, you know, now they’re playing to 50,000 people, whatever.

You know, depends what you do, depends on what is happening around you. So I think I’ve been able to read that. I’ve been able to read the room because when you’re DJing, that’s what you’re supposed to do. It’s not about you. You’re just channeling energies from this different music to these people, right? You’re a good DJ if you can do that well from beginning to end. People love your set.

People want you to come back, venues want you to come back, you build up your kind of following and then more people come, more people come, more people come, more people tell other people about you in the age of social media than it’s people posting about you. So I think that built up my kind of business, I think, I don’t think I’m great. I think I’m far.
There are more things that I could have done better or more things that I could do. But being able to read that room and being able to use the tools that you have and it’s different every time and you have to respond to it every time, I think it has maybe made me a better person in business. This is what I feel.

Robin
That is great. So you transpire what you learn or what inspires you, you don’t even understand that you’re in the process. You’re just doing it, and then you catch the things that you see, all these things happening in front of your eyes, and then you connect the dots.

Anton
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It’s feelings, right? It’s not a set list. That’s what I find. We would perform in our band and we would have a set list, right? We know what we’re going to start with, we know what we’re going to end with. And actually the last song on your set list, you’re done. You don’t. The encore has been planned.

With DJing it’s not. I used to practice two hours a day, but I don’t anymore. But back in the day, it was my discipline to practice two hours a day. Even if I stopped enjoying doing it, I still had to do my two hours a day to make sure that I can perform well when I perform in of people. So I know exactly what the arsenal I had in my music… my record box, I know exactly what I can do with them and what each song does. Practice until I know them really well. And when I play out, it’s a lot of feelings and intuition and… …Peka, Bahasa Indonesia, Peka, I don’t know what it is in English (being sensitive to surrounding). Like you have to be so aware with the feeling of the room, the energy and like people’s faces and people’s reaction and people’s reaction in aggregate, in total. But even sometimes you look at individuals, they’re (looking) happy, they’re not happy. It’s all these things processing. Obviously, maybe AI later on can do this a lot better than us. But, you know, it will not have kind of that feel that humans do. But it’s just kind of analyzing that I just do on the back of my head, even without thinking. And it’s not thinking. It’s never like the best nights I have DJing, don’t think about, do it sometimes, I don’t remember what I played, but somehow automatically I just picked the right things. And sometimes a lot of it I feel is like magic, but that happens when you absorb other people’s kind of energy. That’s what I feel. I mean, it sounds like strange,

Robin
No, think it’s just a process of you acquiring the ability of reading the room, as you mentioned. Because how to read the room is different every time. The more you’re in the room, the more you can read different situations, right? That’s the nature of it.

Anton
Yeah. It’s different every time.

Oh, then also one thing was that sometimes I would have residencies. Remember I would say at Bengkel Night Park, I was a resident there every Saturday night for a couple of years. Every night is kind of different, but I know the room. Um, it makes it easier when it’s familiar, like all the time. Right. But when you’re a traveling DJ, you’re not, you know, when I was a resident that was happening, if you’re not a resident DJ and you’re like a DJ traveling around, it’s different rooms every time, different people, different needs, you know, even if you say, okay, my first song is going to be this, my second song, this, my third song, this, it could completely change because you don’t know what’s going to happen. You know, I’m playing in a different country. I used to actually play around the region, (including) in Australia. They know different songs, they like different things. The room is set differently. It’s big, it’s small. It’s packed, it’s not packed. It’s different every time. It’s like life. Different every time.

Robin
Right. So, how do you think running a business, like running a show or performing, there’s a risk on doing that, right? So, what if you miss? How do you getting back to the rhythm when it, like oh shoot… I read it wrongly or your solution just doesn’t work?

Anton
Yeah. That’s a good one. You know, you correct yourself. That’s actually a good one. I mean, there’s times when you are not on it, right? Maybe you play the wrong track. It’s supposed to be like this. After that, you think people going to respond in a certain way and they don’t, right? You play like banging track after that and people didn’t want that, people want something still mellow. You know you’ve made that mistake and after that in DJing you have to kind of fix that. The next song you have to make sure that you don’t go again in the wrong direction, you kind of go back to what they will enjoy, right?
You correct yourself.

I think in business the same thing, it’s owning up to what you’ve done wrong. And what I find being in a band or maybe DJing, especially DJing, is basically you yourself performing in front of these people. When you’re a band, you have your drummer, have your bass player, you have your guitar player, vocalist, keyboard, whatever. So there’s more people as a unit doing it. In business, especially if it gets to a certain scale, it’s a lot of people.

You’re responsible for, especially that you’re responsible for a lot of people to be performing. And so it’s harder. Being in a band is harder than being a one person DJ. Being in an organization with a lot of people, a second orchestra. There’s someone on the oboe, a bunch of people on strings, on horns.

It’s harder. You know, imagine you’re the conductor, you have to make sure that everyone, you’re not playing an instrument anymore. Right? That’s the big difference. This is what I challenge to. I’m still learning and that I maybe feel that it’s, you know, somebody else could do it better than me. I can come up with the concepts and strategy direction, but operationally, you know, I’m not, I don’t think I’m the, I’m learning. I want to. I don’t think I’m the best conductor. It’s hard being a conductor,

You have to put all these people together and to play in harmony, they have to play, know, their skill has to be right. You know, cannot have a bad oboe player. You can’t have a bad pianist, you know, in your orchestra. It’s going to ruin everything about your orchestra. And so you have to assemble the best people you can find. They have to play in symphony with everybody else. And that’s the best analogy for business in music, I think.

So the one man DJ person, maybe with the advent of AI, think possibly they could be a one person company with AI, they can be big. That’s probably coming soon. But as it is now, it’s an orchestra. And it’s It’s hard. I’ve made my mistakes.

Robin
Alright, is it lonely up there? (in DJ booth, or as the big boss of the company)

Anton
Yeah, it’s definitely that.

Robin
Tell me about it.

Anton
You know, as a conductor, again, the music analogy, as a conductor, you’re possibly the most responsible for anything that happens in your orchestra. Right? If you have the string session go bad, it’s on you. You’re on the pedestal, you’re by yourself, you know, everyone is working for you. And so it’s tough to be in that pressure, like all the time. If it’s going well, it’s going well. Some days it doesn’t go well. And it’s on you.

So better to be the lone DJ guy.

Robin
Right, Okay. Um, wow. This is eye opening. Man, I learned so many things today. It’s amazing. One of the thing that I like doing this is that, remember when you start your story, it was in early nineties or in boarding school even, and then up to today where you’re in a month away to acquire back your company. That’s like 25 of the best years of your life, you know, compressed into one hour. And then I absorbed those stories doing this and it’s amazing. So I used to be a person who got…

Anton
Yeah, the best and the best and worst, The best and worst. mean, you know,

Robin
Yeah, yeah. I mean, the best meaning the top or the bottom, the extreme top or bottom. And that’s really like a journey of back into one hour, 20 years since you, know, flyering back then until someone doing the flyering for you. And then at the time when you just announced something and then people were just…

Anton
Yeah, the best of both. The extreme, yeah.

Robin
…you know, spread by its own. That’s like a journey, iteration cycle that is, like, you know, getting bigger and bigger and bigger. Then, you take where you are at now. It’s been amazing. I couldn’t connect that. Like, I don’t know if there is one place where people can know your story, that you were this guy and then you’re still the same guy now, it’s just that you manage bigger things. What is your, what do you, what would be the ultimate question? Like not the ultimate question, something that, what is your best learning?

Anton
You know, the thing is I feel even though I’m at my age, right? I don’t know, I still feel that I don’t know enough. That I think maybe I’ve done a lot of things. Pretty much an adventure. I’ve been lucky to be able to do these things. And then, I probably take a lot of lessons from it. Good and bad, right? And a lot of learning. I mean, scar tissue from all the mistakes I made, you know, in music, in business, you know, a lot less mistakes in music because it’s mostly a lot of feelings. But in business is, you know, making that feeling
going to more people and having more people probably have the same vision as you, have the same excitement, have the same competence to do this together. It’s not as easy. Right? I’ve lost control of my company because I don’t think I’ve done it well. Luckily, we’ll be getting it back. And again now, I’m saying I don’t know if I am able to then scale it to a certain level. Maybe I can bring it up to a higher level, but then, you know, should be other people running it operationally. Because I say, maybe I’m not a conductor. But I’m also not just a violin player, right? I don’t know where I should be. If we’re talking about a business or an orchestra. There’s, I mean, there’s a lot of learning in my part, but I learned… maybe the thing is if I’m not comfortable with the situation, if I’m not in my element, if it’s a lot of compromise on what I think is right in my passion, then a lot of times it will not go well. That will not end well. There’s been some ventures I would say, let’s do this. It’s not exactly what we should be doing, but I think there’s opportunity in money. So far, I think I’ve failed all that. That if I take an opportunity for purely for money, but whenever it’s an opportunity that I feel that we can make impact, then it goes a lot better and you trust that the money will come. Right, so that’s what I learned. And I don’t think it applies for everyone. I think there’s other people that are better than me in other things.

But from my perspective, I think what I’ve learned is that kind of your intuition and your gut, especially as you get older, like when you’re young, you make all the mistakes and it becomes your knowledge, becomes your intuition. But as you get older, I think you just have to listen to your gut, it seems like. So, and put yourself around the best people that you can find.

Robin
Right. Yeah, that’s the best one. So what next?

Anton
You know, don’t… I’m thinking if I… Yeah, I think there’s a lot of things that I feel that I want to do and I’ve done it. So, you know, I’ve been lucky that I could. And I think, you know, part of the reason why I could do what I do, I think if I were still living in the States, I don’t think I’ll be able to do these things as many things as I could do in Indonesia. Again, coming back from another country here, my thing was, all these things I saw there, I tried to bring them here because it wasn’t here yet. I was trying to make my city as good as other cities. I’ve been to more established cities. We were in England together, et cetera, like all these things we were talking about. You know, infrastructure and like social, you know, society wise and government and even society, like all these things are happening much better in other places. But, you know, my thing was coming back here, like, you know, we need to catch up, right? You know, we need to be doing things culturally that maybe can speed up that progress to become on par and have our own identity.

I think we’ve made good progress in that way, but we still have a lot of ways to go. I’m happy with what I’ve been doing. actually, there’s other people now that are doing… When I started, there was not really anybody else that cared about a kind of like culture. But now I think more people are into it. I think it’s just the times are different too. And it’s the era of social media and TikTok and everything else. Things are spreading faster and there’s just a whole bunch of people doing really interesting, interesting things. You know, we were there early, you know, happy to have started, kicked everything off, but there’s some interesting people doing things nowadays. So maybe I don’t have to be doing them. Maybe I can just enjoy going forward. We’ll see, you know, I don’t think I can keep still at the same time, so we’ll see.

Robin
You will create something, you will create something. I can smell that. I mean…

Anton
Hahaha.

Yeah, Maybe, but that’s interesting about creativity. It’s like sometimes you don’t know what’s… You know, it’s all these little happy accidents that will happen and then, hey, maybe this is interesting. Hey, this haven’t been done before. So we’ll see. Again, I cannot keep still. Just, you know, with two years we stayed in our houses during COVID. So it’s nicer to be doing things.

Robin
Right. Yeah, of course. OK, I think we talked so many things today and I believe I learned a lot today.

I didn’t know, like I genuinely don’t know what you did. I just know that you were successful and you make all this. like, cause when, when I try to find a guest for this podcast from Indonesia, I find it hard because I want someone that is covering other parts that I didn’t cover, you know, or something that, that I cannot achieve or, you know, so something or something else that I can learn.

Anton
Yeah, other scenes, yeah.

Robin
Um, and then, I mean, I made the right choice. You know how hard I chase you, like, Anton come on, come on. I emailed you so many times and then, and then finally you are here and then, yeah, I made the right choice. And then I think, it’s really great to have you here, man. It’s, it’s an honor to have you.

Anton
Yeah. No, I feel like this has been as much for me an interesting time as well. Because yeah, sometimes I don’t go in depth with, you know, with other people when we’re discussing, let’s say, something particularly in business or particularly in retail. But this like conversation of putting it all together with this inspiration from music and being able to kind of tie everything together. It’s not a conversation I have often and as deep. So I find that I’ve tonight also learned tonight… my time. What time is it there? Morning. That I’ve learned as much as you probably learn as much as you about this whole journey. Sometimes I don’t even think about it as well. So thank you!

Robin
It’s morning and it’s 10:30.

That is cool. All right then. All right then. We’ve been here for one hour, twenty minutes. So I guess I’m going to edit a bit, but I think I got the best bit. It’s a pleasure again. Thank you so much. We’ll stay in touch. And if you want anything, yeah, if you want to like, hey Robin, I have something that I want to talk about. Just reach out and then let’s see what we can do together! Awesome!

Anton
Yeah, that’s it. Okay. Yeah, yeah for sure for sure for When are you coming back to Jakarta, never coming back, right? Yeah.

Robin
I still don’t know. I mean, I just got started. You know how it is moving to a new country. I moved after my forties. I have a family, so I have to, you know, survive first. So I learned all those things in the first six years (in the US). And then in the past couple of months, I was like, hmm, I need to go back to music. Spend a bit of my time doing this. So here I am and it’s it was the best decision ever. It’s been great so far. It’s been great.

Anton
Yeah, you’ve been a man of music, that doesn’t go away,

Robin
Yeah, yeah. So, so it doesn’t go away, correctly. That’s the best way to put it. It doesn’t go away. It just stay there. It just, you’re sleeping somewhere, and then you just wake them up and then, you know, it become part of your life again. And it’s great. I embrace it. I embrace it a hundred percent. I enjoy it so much.

Anton
Yeah, exactly.

Robin
That’s it for now, it’s not the end but we’ll talk again. But thank you so much Anton. Of course, of course man, of course man. Peace!

Anton
OK. Thank you for the time. I’ve had a good time. Alright, see you, Robin.

Robin
Peace , bye.

Anton has been throwing parties since the early ’90s — starting with the rave scene in San Francisco, including at least one illegal event in an abandoned hangar in the Bay Area. He eventually brought that same energy back to Southeast Asia. In Jakarta, he converted a dead shopping mall into an event space that drew 130,000 people.

We crossed paths again at The Great Escape in Brighton a few years later. He was there for the music.

This interview covers how he got started — the boarding school years in Singapore, the move to San Francisco, the long road from going to raves to being the person who builds them.

Didier Zerath
Hi, hi Robin, how are you doing?

Robin
I’m very good, I’m very good. How are you? How are you? You look great, man.

Didier
Great, fantastic, fantastic. Absolutely happy to be here and happy to reconnect with you. It’s been quite a while, isn’t it?

Robin
Yeah, it’s been quite a while. since 2017 in Mu:Con, South Korea. That was the last time we met. I mean, we met only once probably there. But…

Didier
Wow. Yes, we did.

Robin
Yeah, but it was a great few nights because we have a lot of free beers at night. So we always hang out in that…

Didier
Ha ha ha ha!

Robin
You remember that place? So we always hang out there and with others. I remember James from Southwest Southwest also a regular there. And then, and then it was Martin from…

Didier
Yes, yes, yes. There was a guy from Glastonbury. Wasn’t there a guy from Glastonbury?

Robin
Yeah, no, James is from South by Southwest. The other one was, yeah, from Glastonbury. He’s the booker of Glastonbury, also the founder of the Great Escape. Martin, Martyn Elbourne. He was also a regular (in the pub). And then, yeah, and then David Pichilingi from Liverpool Sound City. (Read: Showcase Festivals: A Launchpad for Emerging Talent“),

Didier
Yes, exactly. Cha cha cha, you have such a wonderful memory, tell me.

Robin
Yeah, because it was memorable. It was a great one week in South Korea. It was my first time visiting the country. I was amazed with the people that they could afford to invite. It was world -class.

Amazing week, amazing week!

Didier
I loved every minute. I loved every minute of it. And the only regret I have is that I would have loved to say a little bit longer because there was this festival starting, this independent music festival starting, I think the day I left all… And I think it was very, very…

Robin
Oh, okay. Yes sir.

Yeah, so I was… I extended the stay until three or four more days because there’s another festival, Zandari Festa. So we continued the party over there. It’s crazy, crazy night. It’s just amazing. Yeah, I love… I love… Yeah, that’s…

Didier
Wonderful wonderful. Well anyway, happy to be here happy to talk to you again and you know…

Robin
Yeah, welcome. Thank you for being here. Thank you for spending the time, this time with me. Okay, can we start with the question, Didier? Here’s the thing though, I read your profile and it’s just amazing. That’s a long time you’ve been here. There’s a lot of things that you’ve been achieving in this industry. It’s amazing that we’ve done the music industry, I don’t know where to start probably you could start with telling me how you get here to the music industry

Didier
So a little bit of… Well, you know, I have always, always been passionate about the music industry, about music. I’m a music fan. I’m a music passionate since, you know, young age, you know, since my teenage years, since I was 15. And my dream when I was at school was to become a sound engineer. Well, it didn’t turn out the way I wanted.

I was told back then that in order to become a sound engineer in France, you had to study mathematics and physics, which I did. So I have a degree in physics, you know, and I just found out that that was not the way to go. So basically I left university, I quit university and I started working in a record store. I did work during a year and a half and then this German company launched its operations in France and it turned out to become BMG later. So we launched BMG in France in 1980. And I was a sales rep for BMG during six years until 1986. I was let go then.

And I started my first independent label. So I signed a few European labels and I had a distribution. I went quite quickly bankrupt. I was totally unexperienced, but trust me, setting up a company and hitting the wall is the best good that you can have, basically. So I got lucky and I was hired back then at EMI in Paris as a marketing manager in charge of developing artists. I did that during a year and a half and then I was promoted as a marketing director of Capital Records Continental Europe. I did that during three or four years then I was let go as they do.

And I did stay in London. I was offered positions in Brazil or in Nashville which I turned down because that was not my thing. Basically I started my first management company back then in London in 1993, 1994 and I did that during a year until I got a call from Warner in Paris looking for a head of international and a marketing director in Paris. And I thought it was about time to go back home and basically I returned to France. And I did work for Warner during three years, from 1994 to 1996 actually. Again, change of MD, change of people, new team coming in, old team out, again let go.

And I was tired at the time of this major record company, HR Policy, and the changes and the musical chairs. And my son was born. I became a dad in 1996. And I thought that it was time for me to make a big step forward and do what I always wanted to do, and that is to work closely to artists and to set up a management company. I did have my first experience in the UK with a band called the Dogs d ‘Amour. They used to be signed to a label called China Records. China Records was at the time distributed by Warner. And while I was in London, I did attend some training, some classes provided by the International Music Forum.

It was called the IMMF at the time. So basically, I realized being in Paris all of a sudden that I was on my own, that it was a very lonely job and that even if I had 20 and some years experience in music production, I was quite ignorant of the live music industry and the publishing industry.

And I thought at the time that the best way to go was to set up a professional organization. And I set up IMMF France at the time. That was in 1999. And in the year 2000 with my Austrian, German and English friends, we did set up during Midem and Cannes, the IMMF, the International Music Manager Forum out of which I became quite quickly the treasurer at an international level, worldwide level, and the head of the European committee. Being involved with the IMMF and with the IMMF in France, I was invited to speak. Hence, me traveling the world, attending music industry events, speaking and talking. St. Petersburg can obviously meet them, Paris.

Toronto, Seoul where we met, Taiwan, St. Petersburg, Bari in Italy, Israel as well, Luxembourg. And that gave me the opportunity to meet people from the European Commission. So I went to Brussels and I set up a meeting with them, went to Brussels, and that’s how I became an expert for the Directorate General for Education and Culture from the European Commission. And that’s how we decided to launch Music Moves Europe, which was a program to help the music industry to grow. And it became bigger and bigger and bigger. And that’s the way it was. And so basically, I’m now a manager in France, I did set up another professional organization called AMA, the Artist Managers Alliance, which I have left. I’ve left AMA as the presidency. After 20 years being an activist for managers around the world, I decided it’s time to take care of my own projects. And I moved my company from the UK because my company was based in London, was an Ltd, a limited company in London. I moved it to Paris and I created my label and I created my publishing.

Robin
That’s the DZ factory.

Didier
My company is called the DZ Factory.

Robin
Okay, okay, um… So you’ve been living in the… I saw you educated in Babson College. Is that the American Babson College?

Didier
It’s Babson College in Boston.

Robin
Yeah, yeah, because I had my master’s degree in entrepreneurship and one of the like the bible of entrepreneurship was released by a professor from Babson. I cannot remember who the name was but that’s how
how I know Babson College. So you’ve been in America for a year, yeah?

Later I remember that it was Jeffry Timmons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffry_Timmons

Didier
No, I studied at HEC in Paris. HEC being actually ranked number one executive MBA in the world according to the Financial Times. In HEC, they have partnerships with a university in the US. And this one was Babson. That’s how I came to spend a week at Babson. And I spent a week in Japan.

Robin
Oh, okay.

Didier
…and I spent a week in Japan as well. So we had just one week seminar in Babson about entrepreneurship. But that was a wonderful experience. I loved it. I loved every minute of it.

Robin
Gotcha. So how does education help you to decide (where your career is going to)?

Didier
Education, the education I had. Basically, the reason why I wanted to study, I did an MBA at HEC is because I felt, okay, I had somewhat considerate vast experience, amount of experience, from working in record company and being independent and blah, blah, blah. But I was missing really mastering a toolbox. And basically taking education and training in terms of strategy, finances, accounting, IP laws, management, leadership, they sort things out, they put things in order somehow, you know, ordered my world. And I can now rely on tools, you know, if I want to put a business plan together, which I did recently.

Okay, I can really put something really serious together, market research, strategy, marketing, etc. And I think it was something that I needed to go through in order to become a better professional. And I would encourage everybody at some point to follow some courses, some training.

I’m a strong advocate of ongoing training during your career. I mean, we probably will talk about the evolution of our business, our trade, and we will talk about probably new technologies. I could easily now take a course in Web 3.0, in NFT, in blockchain, in cryptocurrencies. I could take a course
take a class in artificial intelligence, et cetera, et cetera. We are in such a fast-paced world, and you need to keep focused, and you need to be at the forefront of every new technology, and you need to. So going back on a regular basis. We did even discuss it at Midem during a year where if we want to be a trusted third party like a lawyer or like an accountant, lawyers in France have each year to follow some classes to keep up to date. And I think that this is also an obligation we have. It’s not a legal obligation, but it’s at least a professional obligation I think we have to keep updated on all new technologies and what’s going on.

Robin
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so you mentioned that you wanted to work closely with artists, yeah? So how did you choose or how did you choose to work with an artist. What did you see from the artist?

Didier
That’s a tricky question. I mean, I’m a very emotional person. So first thing I need is to feel confident I can work with the human person. So choosing human being, putting human relationships above all comes first to me. Then the music comes second, surprisingly maybe, but for me the music comes second. And obviously emotionally same thing, you know, I mean, you don’t listen to music only with your head. You listen to music with your head, with your heart, with your stomach, with all your body. And if I feel something, you know, and if on top of it, I feel that I can have a great human relationship, okay, with the artist, then I will give it a go. It would be easier for me to work with a human being. I get
always. But I might not be a fan of its music rather than being a fan of the music and not get on with the person.

Robin
Hmm, interesting.

Didier
My priority goes to human relations.

Robin
Right, right.

Didier
…and to very, very strong value.

Robin
So you’re kind of (believer of) man management.

Didier
I am into artist management and I think that it’s a role, a position that is really central in nowadays music industry. I’m very happy in this position because it’s an evolving position. It’s not the artist management as it was 20 years ago. Those days are long gone. But maybe we discussed in depth what artist management means to me. So basically, I love the whole set of periods talking to artists, the positioning, the music, the recording studio. If I want to make it short, basically, it’s very difficult for me to explain to people what I’m doing.

Okay, because I don’t write, I don’t compose, I don’t record, I don’t take pictures, I don’t shoot videos, I don’t make the promotion myself, etc. So people are always wondering, but what are you doing? What is it you’re doing? And basically the best answer I can come up with is I’m the one who make things happen. I create the conditions for things to happen.
So basically I’m involved from the very, very early stage, from the writing stage until the finished product and it can be manufacturing CDs or vinyl and distributed in South Africa or in Australia or in New Zealand and I control everything from A to Z.

Robin
Okay, so you are the… the other member of the music group. You define yourself as a manager.

Didier
Absolutely, I consider myself as a band member. And the beauty of the way we work today is that every decision is made in common. Everybody, even the musicians, the days where you said to the musician, just make music and let me deal with the business, those days are gone. Those days are gone. Basically what happens, I mean, that’s what I found out over the past 20 years is that the risk, the entrepreneurial risk and the financial risk have gone up the value chain to the artist and to his manager. So it’s an artist as an entrepreneur and manager as an entrepreneur. My job nowadays is to set up labels for the artists I’m working with, is to set up their publishing is to set up their touring company, their structure, and it’s to run all of this. So I’m involved on the creative side, but I’m also very much involved on the business side. I create companies, I’m in charge of contracts, I’m in charge of finances, I’m in charge of marketing, I’m in charge of promotion, I’m in charge of strategy, of life, publishing, social media. I mean, that’s all my responsibility. I drive all of this.

Robin
Okay, so you work mostly in Europe, yeah? So UK, I mean France, and then…

Didier
My playground is the world. I manage actually two bands. One band is based in Canada, in Quebec, that’s Around Joshua, and another band based in France called Bukowski. Around Joshua is an alternative rock band, and Bukowski is more hard rock band.

Robin
I follow the industry in the UK and then the US and in Asia But I have no idea what’s happening in Europe, but I know that France, Germany, and UK are in the top five as well as Scandinavian countries on the top six of a music market in the world. How do you see that this market evolved from your time when you’re in the label and then you work with the EU and government and then international alliance and international organizations. How do you see that (the market) change or evolve

Didier
People outside of Europe or with little knowledge of Europe would make a major mistake thinking or considering or approaching Europe as one market. Europe consists of 27 countries, 28 with the UK. Well, you know that the UK has left Europe, has Brexit and they are on their way. But basically we have 27 in 28 countries, territories as I call them in Europe for the music market, for the music industry.

Those are 28 totally different markets. There is no unity in the European market. You have 28 different territories. You have 28 sets of different IP laws. You have 28 different sets of collective management organization. You have 28 different sets of labor laws, of working laws, of accounting systems of languages, of promotion, et cetera, et cetera. Let me give you an example, if I may. If you have a US band touring Europe for promotion, for example, they come to Paris over a weekend, you will reach 80 to 90 % of your target. In Germany, you would have to go to Berlin, to Hamburg, to Cologne, to Frankfurt, to Munich. So you would spend a week to achieve the same kind of volume that you would achieve in France over two days. The French market is 70 % French speaking, 30 % international. Germany is much more international.

South of Europe, Italy, France, I mean Greece, Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, we are very domestic repertoire driven. Northern Europe, which is Germany, Belgium, Holland, Scandinavia, the UK, are much more international music driven than we are. The French market is the slowest market in the world.

Any US band coming to tour Europe, they will still promote the first single in France, they will promote the second single in Germany and probably the third or the fourth one in the UK. In the UK, the lifespan of a single is very quick, up, down. In France, you can work a single during a year, a year and a half.
If I start promoting a single, if I want to have a hit single in the summer in France in 2025, I would probably release it now.

So basically, every single territory in Europe is totally different. We don’t have the same structure for our collective management organization. We don’t have the same set of IP laws. So it’s not the same. I mean, SACEM is not the same as GEMA, is not the same as the PRS in the UK. They have different rules. They have different ways of calculation, calculating the rights that needs to be paid to publishing companies and the creative community. The average revenue per stream is probably different in every single territory for a very simple reason. In every territory, you have a different market share structure for the various platforms, streaming platforms. Spotify is massive in Northern Europe. Deezer in France is much bigger.

So if you calculate and take into account the market share ratio, you have an average price that is completely different in France or in Germany or in the UK. The UK now is very complicated now for us and Europe is very complicated for them because of the Brexit. So now, for example, young acts who want to tour Europe they have to apply for working permits.

They cannot tour Europe as they used to before. So in terms of admin, in terms of paperwork, in terms of visa costs, it’s much, much more expensive for young English bands to come and tour Europe.

So basically, if you are based in Asia or if you are based in the US or in South America, I mean outside of Europe, again, considering Europe is one single market would be a major mistake. And you wouldn’t have and I would strongly.

I would strongly advise you to really select the territories and the strategy you want to apply in Europe. Because you’re never going to break a 27 or 28 markets overnight. You’re going to stretch yourself too thin, you’re going to waste time, waste energy, waste money. Select your territories, decide you’re going to start first in Germany or in Scandinavia or in Italy or depending on your music genre, depending on your relations, depending on the team that you can put together, on your budgets. But you have to be very, very careful in terms of strategy and in terms of planning.

Robin
I think I now remember that you told me about this, especially about the IP, because I now remember that you explained that. But we were like intoxicated back then, so it’s kind of blurry. Hahaha. But yeah, yeah, now I remember that. And so now in the in the global stage because you have those experiences in the global stage as well. What is something that excites you most at this point? And then what is, what do you think the challenge is?

Didier
I’m still as excited as I was 30 years ago or 40 years ago. I think we are going through a very, very challenging, difficult period, but very exciting and very challenging.

Robin
Right.

Didier
The inception of new technology of Web3 technologies; blockchain, cryptocurrency, tokenization of the economy, decentralized finances, restructuring of the various value chain, artificial intelligence coming, being launched, etc. This will deeply, deeply, deeply… impact of our industry. So it’s sort of an ongoing transformation process, you know, in a very interesting movement. And I think that nowadays it’s really fascinating. That’s number one. Number two, what keeps me excited, what’s keeping me excited is I read an amazing sentence the other day. I don’t remember if it maybe was on social media. And the sentence said, “you start growing old the day your regrets take over from your dreams”.

Robin
Hmm, interesting.

Didier
And I’m still dreaming. And I still don’t have any regrets and I’m still dreaming. And I still want to set up companies and sign new apps and try new, go down new roads and new productions and meet new people and travel the world and experience and meeting wonderful people. I met incredibly interesting people in my life. It was amazing. Amazing.
You know, this other sentence, you know, saying, if you’re passionate, you know, you’re never going to work one minute in your life. I’ve never worked in my life.

Robin
Right.

Didier
I’m a workaholic. That’s all I think about. You know, it’s music, music industry, signing new acts, new promotion, new strategies, new marketing, new ways of producing, new funding, how do I get money, new contracts, new everything, new pictures, new videos, social media. That’s an obsession. But I don’t have the feeling that I’m working. I’m just having fun.

Robin
Alright.

Didier
And as long as I’m having fun, and as long as I’m going to keep dreaming. I’m going to be excited. That’s what keeps me going.

Robin
So that’s the excitement part. Do you have any experience or I mean of course you do. Can you share what stops you sometimes? Like what makes you like, ugh, this can’t be done. I need to change something before I can do this. Because you… Okay, so here’s where I frame my question. Because you create an international association, organization. That’s for tackling something that you see in the industry, right? Because you want to change that and then you understand that you cannot solve it by yourself.

Didier
Yes.

Robin
…you need alliance, that’s why you create that (IMMF). So I think that’s something that you see challenging and then want to solve it.

Didier
I told you I’m a very emotional person. I would agree with you 100%, you cannot succeed on your own. That’s impossible. You need to meet people. Meeting people will broaden your horizon, will broaden your approach. You will discover new ways of working.

I love working with other people. I love making friends, making new connections, meeting different cultures. I’m very curious, very, very curious. And the older I grow and the more I’m opening myself to other people. I dislike self-centered
egotistical, selfish people. I don’t want to work with these people. I want to work with people who open up, who share their culture, their love, their smile, their knowledge, their connections. If we don’t help each other, being small independents with very scarce financial resources, if we don’t help each other, we fail. The experience I had from setting up the IMMF and traveling the world is I have friends in Canada, I have friends in the US, I have friends in Taiwan and I can turn to every major market in the world and ask in Australia, in New Zealand, who’s the best independent distributor? Who would you recommend for that type of music, for that music genre as an independent PR company or marketing guy or agent, et cetera, et cetera. And I can have access to worldwide information in a heartbeat.

And that comes from opening up. It’s called empathy. And that’s it. To me, it’s, I mean, you need to be generous. You need to be generous of your time, of your ideas, of your skills. And if you give, people will give you back.
And that’s how you meet wonderful people. Look, we met, we met, I mean, we met obviously seven years ago, haven’t been in touch since, you know. But here we are, you know, here we are. And if tomorrow I’m in LA and I guess you’re based in LA, you know, I’m going to make a phone call and I’m going to say, come on, Robin, let’s have a cup of coffee. You know, and I’m sure that things I do like this one project I’m working on called Bukowski.

Robin
Yeah.

Didier
I know a tiny little bit of your musical taste, but I think that that’s a band that you could appreciate. And I could well ask you and say, well, do you know any independent PR company for hard rock music? Or do you know any agent that would be worthwhile near me approaching? Can you introduce me? And vice versa. If you need any assistance, any help in Europe, just let me know. If I can help you out, I’m going to put you in touch with whoever needs, I mean, if I can, if I can. But I will do my utmost to help you out. And that’s, I think that’s the way it should be.

Robin
Yeah, if I may comment about how did I think of you when we met in South Korea? I think you were from that group of professionals, like very high level professionals, you were one of the most person that take me seriously. You take my words seriously. And I was like, this guy like really humble, like you are approachable. I was surprised to see the knowledge that you have and the experience that you have but you still like take this random guy from Asia seriously. I was struck by that. And then that’s why when I started this podcast, one of the very first person that I want to contact was you, because I know you are approachable. And that’s amazing, Didier. It’s a gift that not everyone has. And that takes you far so far.

Didier
Okay. I’m still in touch with students I had five or six years ago and who have gone back to India or to Japan.

Robin
Right.

Didier
You know, yeah, you know, this, okay, yeah, I like, I like quoting famous people, you know, it’s, I think it’s Nelson Mandela who said, you know, either I don’t know and I learn or I know and I educate other people. But I never lose. It’s important. You can give away. Who cares? It’s not important.

It’s not important. And what is important to me is to meet people, to open up, you know, and to have conversations. When I teach in my classes or if I’m attending a panel, OK, believe it or not, but I think I learn more from the audience or from my students than what I give away. It goes both ways, you know, so it’s important, you know, and being arrogant or, I don’t get it. I would have loved to have met 30 or 40 years ago somebody like me.

But, you know, so if I can help you take a shortcut, why wouldn’t I do it? What does it take away from me? It doesn’t take anything away from me.

Robin
Yeah. So how do you think, I remember your presentation was the Future of Artist Management. I mean, you’ve seen a lot. And probably in everything that it’s in (music) existence today. How do you think artist management will evolve in the future? How important it is going to be in the future in the music industry especially in where artists has needs to find a way to make money. The old way to make money is gone now and then to find new ways.

Didier
20 or 30 years ago, as I said at the beginning of our conversation, I studied mathematics and physics. When you study mathematics, you learn that for a condition to be true, it must be necessary and both necessary and sufficient. 30 years ago, being talented was both necessary and sufficient. Now for an artist to be talented, is necessary is not sufficient anymore.

Robin
Hmm. Hmm.

Didier
The artist needs to be market savvy. He must be an entrepreneur at heart. He must understand marketing. You must involve the artist in every single decision-making process because he needs to understand, and rightly so. He wants to understand and he needs to understand. And that deeply changes the relation you can have as a manager with an artist. Because basically, as you rightly pointed out, I’m an additional member to the band, but I can also set up a company, a production company, where I’m a shareholder and where the band members and myself, we’re all shareholders. So that changes completely the relationship. It’s a new definition of management. I mean, some people will tell me, but Didier, that’s no longer management.

Of course it is management to me. And then you set up the company. So basically you’re responsible for every business decision and everybody’s a shareholder and every shareholder knows exactly what he’s got to do. Some have had some, some the mission is to write songs or to write music or to play drums or to be a bass player or backup singer. And well, my, my job is, as I said, it’s legal finances, strategy, marketing, promotion, distribution, etc. You know, conflict sorting, planning, budgeting, raising finances, etc. etc. That’s my job. And that’s the way I work with artists. I need them to get involved in every single decision we make.

So we discuss everything. An artist will easily understand. Let me take an example. If you don’t involve an artist in the financial side of things, he might want to have a nice hotel.

If you make him clear that you can have a very comfortable hotel half the price, so that the money that is saved can be put into production and into hiring an additional musician or choosing a better graphic designer or whatever, he’ll understand it and he will accept it.

Robin
Yep.

Didier
So artists are mature entrepreneurs. They have to be business sensitive. Not to the extent that the market is driving their creative process. You don’t write for the market. You have an integrity in terms of artistic creation and artistic freedom and freedom of creation. That must be key and that is not negotiable. Artistic integrity is a very, very strong value.

So that’s the way I see things. That’s the way I, that’s the message I try to get across to the artists I’m working with. You know, they are, they are very intelligent and very understandable people, which is something that we might have ignored 40 years ago.

Times have changed, artists have changed, the market has changed, technology changed, artists have to change, everybody has to change. If you don’t change, you’re going backwards.

So you have to stay at the forefront of new technology, of all the issues, all the questions that are going through, all the challenges that the music industry is going through. And this is something that you can acquire, that you can do by attending music industry events, attending panels, talking to students, teaching classes. It forces you to keep yourself updated. I cannot afford not to be updated about the latest technology or the latest issue. That’s not possible. I have to have an opinion because people will expect from me to take a stand.

So I’m constantly working newsletters, magazines, newsletters, information sheets, reports, market studies, resources. I go on to every single music industry organization. They have all of them. They have resources, market studies, and government resources, cultural resources. So, you know… budget per capita, you know, cultural habits, you know, where do they go, where do they buy, you know. Our business now is very much data driven. You know, so I want to know everything about my market. I want to know where do you buy tickets, how many concerts do you see, you know, how much do you spend, how do you go there, when, what day, what place, what, you know. The more I know about the fans, the better I feel.

And this, for example, leads me to look into artificial intelligence because artificial intelligence will help me streamline and be more focused and be more efficient in terms of marketing strategy to implement, in terms of costs, et cetera, et cetera. I used to work in major record companies.

Robin
Yep.

Didier
We could lose some money, you know, was not important. I’m independent. If I spend one dollar, I must get one dollar back. I cannot afford to throw money out the window. So every tool I have that will help me, you know, being very efficient and controlling every return on investment I make, you know, and the efficiency of a dollar invested, I need to take it. I need to be aware of it. How to better communicate. I have set up with the bands I’m working with some collective management tools. Like I use Slack, and I use all those apps, for us to be constantly in touch, without sending emails and attachments and, collaboration, improve collaboration, use collaborative tools, et cetera. It’s amazing.

I can do nowadays on my own, on my little computer. I can book TV campaigns. When I was a marketing director at Warner’s, I needed to have a marketing manager, a product manager, an agency. I mean, I would employ 10 or 15 people. Now I can do it from home. I have much more tools, powerful tools, now as I’m independent, than the ones I had when I was a marketing director at Warner.

Robin
So, yeah, I based in San Francisco Bay Area, in Silicon Valley (to be exact). So this is where everything happened in AI, in the latest technology. And I see it’s a common theme here that people are talking about technology. I connect it with music as well. I’d like to ask your opinion about companies like Suno, and any other AI generated music. What do you think of those trending?

Didier
I was very, very, very, very angry. Very angry.

Robin
Okay.

Didier
I’m managing Around Joshua. I’ve been working with the band for three years. It took us two and a half years to write ten songs, to find the money to produce the ten songs, to hire a world-class music producer. We hired a Danton Supple who produced Coldplay, who produced lots of major rock stars.

We recorded 10 songs end of late 2022, early 2023. We have been promoting and raising the profile of the band during 2023, 2024, and the album is going to be released early 2025. So basically it took us a three year period between the moment where we decided to write and the moment we will release and deliver a 10-track album onto the market. Boomy, Suno, all these companies were talking 20,000 tracks per day. Per day. Okay? And they do this using the money, the music that we create. They don’t create anything. They just mix music. And it’s literally, literally shocking to see these people shamelessly using what we do, downloading it and mixing it into a new sound. These people are in the music business only to make money. That’s all. They don’t nurture acts, they don’t sign acts, they don’t work with creative people.

They don’t have no idea what it is to write a song, to produce a song. They have no clue, no idea. They’re only in there for the money. So I have a very simple and maybe very brutal way of thinking. Force people to declare when they use AI driven sounds and don’t pay them any royalties. Nothing, not one penny. And if the money drives out, they’re gonna go away. Those are not music industry. It has nothing to do with what we are talking about since the beginning of this conversation Robin. Nothing.

Robin
Hmm.

Didier
I can understand. It will not affect everybody at the same speed and with the same violence. But advertisements, music for advertisers, why the hell would they bother paying record producers and publishing companies money in order to use a track to sell cars or beauty products or whatever when they can just ask an AI at the chat GPT, write me a song like Madonna with Taylor Swift’s voice and looking like (whatever) And in five minutes it’s done.

Soundtracks, advertising, sync rights will be the first to be threatened.

So again, again, you know, the music industry was at the forefront when we switched from vinyl to CD. It was at the forefront when the internet was launched in the year 2000. It’s now at the forefront of artificial intelligence. Okay. We are always, always at the forefront of every major technology jump. And each time, you know, we get ripped off.

Robin
Hmm.

Didier
I’m sick and tired. It’s unfair. We need to be protected. We need lawmakers to step in.

Robin
Right.

Didier
So we have an artificial intelligence act in Europe being discussed and being implemented at European level. But it’s never going to happen in the US. Because the copyright is not the same as our droit d’auteur. It’s not exactly the same. Our IP laws, at the heart of our IP laws, are the writers and the performers. At the heart of copyright laws in the US is the circulation of music.

Robin
Okay.

Didier
It’s not the same. We want to protect people and we want to protect work. They want to make sure that it circulates, that it generates cash, money, quick, fast.

Robin
Yeah.

Didier
Art is emotions. It’s an emotional process. I don’t want to sound like I’m against any tech progress. That’s not what I’m saying. But it must help us become better. Artificial intelligence, if it helps me in terms of having a more efficient marketing strategy, yes. But artificial intelligence, I read, I mean, you studied, I studied, you know there’s an advertising on social media, write your master’s essay in 10 minutes, 100 pages.

Robin, it’s nonsense!

It’s nonsense. Technology as an end doesn’t make any sense to me. If it serves our purpose to create money, to create emotions, to share emotions, share a vision, share beauty, share smiles, share love, share ideas, I’m up for it.

But if the only thing it’s doing is that it’s taking my book or my music production or my video images and it turns it into something else and it makes shitloads of money and I don’t make nothing then I’m seriously angry.

It takes us, you know, creating the creative process is craftsmanship. It’s like something you do with your hands. Distribution is a global approach. You produce locally, you distribute globally. So the industry is the global bit. It’s the distribution, the marketing and the promotion on a worldwide level. But you create in the intimacy of your emotions.
and somebody will rob it and do something and even not tell you and make shit loads of money? It’s insane! It’s disrespectful! Am I an old fart having strong values like this? I hope not! And the funny thing is, when I talk to my students,
Well, they share the same feeling. They are very worried about all these technologies.

Are you going to go to a concert and see a 3D image? Where’s the emotion?

Robin
No, I personally won’t.

Didier
I like the small venues, I like the feeling that when I’m at the bar, I’m having my drink, I paid my ticket, I’m part of the show. It’s because the artist on-stage feels comfortable, is happy. He’s going to deliver a great show. You’ve done it in your life. You’ve followed probably bands and did two or three or four concerts in a row in different cities following a tour.

But if you do it, you will see that every concert is different, even if it’s the same setlist. It’s different because people react differently, because the sound is not the same, because the emotion is not the same, because you might be tired, you might be happy, you might be whatever. It’s an emotional experience. It’s something we share as human beings.

I’m not against technology, you know, I’m against people exploiting technology to make a quick buck and then take the money and run. That shocks me.

Robin
Okay, so you mentioned about the government needs to interfere. What do you think the essential that needs to be regulated on this new era?

Didier
They are, in my opinion, when you use artificial intelligence, you should be forced to declare it and say this piece of work is based on artificial intelligence. And honestly, I’m going to make a side step here.

It is a serious threat to the music industry and to the cultural industry in general, if it takes pictures and if it makes videos and movies and write books and poems and whatever. But the use of artificial intelligence in terms of politics, in terms of rewriting history, deepfake manipulation,

It’s a nightmare.

It’s a nightmare.

The next step is mixing artificial intelligence and emotions and feelings. And having algorithms where the machine will be able to put itself in the same mood or emotional state as you and respond to it having a girlfriend which is a robot is not something very sexy to me. So we have to control it before it’s too late.

“But I’m experienced enough to know you don’t fight technology. I remember when major record companies tried to ban downloads, it turned into a total catastrophe. You don’t fight technology. You have to deal with it.

But a year ago, or 18 months ago, nobody was talking about artificial intelligence. All of a sudden you have it everywhere.

So we’re not going to fight it, but we must limit abuses or let it be detrimental to the creative community.”

Robin
Right. I agree. It’s a really, I don’t know, it’s suddenly appear and grows exponentially. And then companies like Suno, they got like millions (dollars) of funding only by taking,
lifetime thinking and work from other people and they make a lot of money.

Didier
Exactly. And meanwhile, we are starving.

Robin
Yeah.

Didier
Meanwhile, we are struggling to find the resources to produce an album, to write a song, to go on stage. It’s totally disrespectful.

So it depends what kind of world we want to live in. I want to live in a world where the creative community, where artists, where culture, where art is still exist. That’s what makes people free.

It’s education, it’s culture. That’s what’s making people free. It’s music, it’s art, it’s painting, it’s videos, it’s novels, it’s books, it’s poems, it’s pictures, it’s graphic designs, whatever. It’s wonderful.

Robin
Like freedom, we need to fight for it. That’s the key of your your ideas correct?

Didier
Yes, absolutely. Oh yes, absolutely. And we gave in to everybody. We gave in to the platform. So the music industry is, I mean, the recorded music industry, we don’t set the prices for our productions anymore.

Nobody’s asking us, you know, how much the monthly fees, you know, for these or Spotify or Apple Music. It started at 9.99, then it goes to 10.99, then it’s going to be 11.99 when it’s going to stop. We’re not being questioned. So we don’t control the pricing structure of our product. That’s number one. Number two, we didn’t even, we’ve lost control of the format.

Radios, FM radios were dictating we want songs three minutes ten, two minutes fifty, no intro, no outro, bang into the chorus, you know, because if the intro is too long we lose audience etc etc. One of my favorite bands, our favorite bands, but you will agree with me that Led Zeppelin is one of my favorite rock bands.

Robin
Hmm.

Didier
Right? Take a track like “Kashmir”. Okay? And take the music structure of Kashmir. When it grows slowly and it grows and it grows and it grows and it grows and it grows. How can you put together a radio edit? Radio will say no, but the intro is too long. We don’t want this. Who the hell are they?

So radio is telling us the format, platform is telling us the pricing structure, artificial intelligence, I mean the soon of this world ripping us off, hold on a minute.

Of course it’s time to be angry. Of course it’s time to be proud of what we are doing. We create value. We must be proud and we must stop caving in and giving in to all those big tech corporations or radios or platforms.

There are nine million artists signed on to Spotify. Can you imagine if tomorrow morning the nine million organize a takedown and there’s not one single fucking track on Spotify anymore?

Robin
Alright!

Didier
Of course we have power. We don’t use it. We don’t know how to use it. We are not organized to use it. We don’t think about it.

But we are creating a value. We don’t benefit from the value. That’s also something I teach to my students. If you look at the value chain, the value is created upstream, but the profit is captured downstream. So those who create the value do not capture the profit. And this is wrong. And this is wrong.

And I still have, after 40 years, this capacity to be upset and to be passionate and to want to fight these people and fight for the rights of artists and composers. All the musicians I work with, you know, they have real serious difficulties making ends meet. It’s difficult for an artist.

Robin
Right.

Didier
It’s only 0.1 % of the artists having released productions on Spotify, 0.1 % who are generating a turnover above $100,000 a year.

Robin
Okay.

Didier
And you’re going to say, yes, for $100,000, lots of money did you? No, it’s not. It’s less than $10,000 a month. And you have to fund your private life and the wife and the kids and the mortgage and the house and the food and the holidays and the school tuitions. And you have to fund your business and rent studios and hire musicians and write and come with less than $10,000 a month. It’s fucking ridiculous.

It’s 0.1%. Can you imagine? Something’s wrong.

Of course something’s wrong.

Robin
$100,000 a year gross income in where I live now in America Is considered as poor. For $100,000 yes in San Francisco Bay Area. There’s not even one percenter anymore, less than that. Okay.

Now…
Those problems aside, the work that you do with European Commission, with the governments, what you do currently in the industry, what project are you working on right now?

Didier
Well, I’ve been an activist in the music industry for the past 20 years, since 25 years. I stepped down from all the professional organizations I was involved with and I’m focusing on developing my label and my artist roster. I’m dedicating 100 % of my time into my artist roster developing my company.

Robin
Right. How does it go, Didier?

Didier
It’s difficult, you know, it’s financially struggling. This being said, I knew what I was going into. It doesn’t come as a surprise. I didn’t expect to make money, but I don’t care. It’s not my problem. You know, I’m not in this business to drive a Ferrari. That’s not what I’m in this business for. Every money I make, every penny I make is invested into music productions. I don’t take holidays.

Robin
All right.

Didier
You know, again, my passion is, are those sound and wise investments, it’s probably questionable.

I mean, but again, I’m not looking at the short-term return.
When I started working for BMG, we distributed a label called Arista Records. And we had this young band, English band signed on to Arista. First album flopped. Second album flopped. Third album flopped. We gave them the contract back. The fourth album released by Virgin, they sold millions, millions in the world.

Robin
Mm-hmm.

Didier
I’m a firm believer that great work takes time. If you like food, you have the quick food, the fast food, the McDonald’s of this world. It takes two seconds to make a sandwich. And then you have the great restaurant, where it takes hours of cooking.

That’s what I’m doing. I want to take hours and time and give myself time and give the artists I work with time to do things properly, to look back and say, I’m very proud of what we’ve done. If it doesn’t work. It doesn’t work. But what I’ve learned over the past 40 years is that there is no relation between sales figures and quality. It’s not related. It’s not related.

Robin
Right. Right, I agree, yeah.

Didier
I know albums who sold maybe 2,000 copies, you know, wonderful albums, fantastic albums. Honestly said, PSY, Gangnam Style, I wouldn’t have signed it.

Robin
Ha ha.

Didier
You know, and people were like, oh, Didier, you made a mistake. No, no, I’m not interested. I’m not interested. This is McDonald’s to me. I’m not interested. I don’t care. I’m happy people make it. I’m happy people enjoy it. I’m happy people made money. I’m not frustrated. I’m not jealous. I just don’t care. It’s not my world. My world is somewhere else. The first question I asked to a band, to a young artist I’m going to work with or I would love to work with is give me your definition of success.

Why do you want to do this? Why do you want to do this? It’s not going to be an easy road. Why do you want to do this? What are you expecting in return? You want success? Everybody wants success. Define success. You want to be like a boys band, you know, unable to go in the street without having 15 or 20, year old girls running after you?

Or do you want to be perceived as like quality, you know, and you have a little market here and there and worldwide, you know, you make a decent living. But you’re proud of your craft, you’re proud of your work. It’s not the same. It’s not the same attitude, it’s not the same culture, it’s not the same strategy, it’s not the same respect to yourself.

What do you want to do? Why do you want to do this? And are you prepared to face the consequences of your choice? I work with bands, you know, with whom I can develop it from the beginning, from A to Z, as I told you before, on a worldwide basis, okay, and developing 5,000, 10,000 fans in France, 20,000 in the UK, 20,000 in Germany, a little bit in Scandinavia, some in Canada, some in the US, and all over the world. 100 to 150,000 fans. And they will come to the show, and they will buy records, and they will buy vinyls, and they will buy merchandising, and end. And that’s what’s… And they can grow and we can grow old with them.

You know, that’s the kind of music I want to fight for, that’s the kind of band I want to be involved with. And that’s what is important to me.

If the one hit single happened worldwide, hey, welcome. Has it been anticipated? Has it been planned? Have we negotiated our integrity in order to achieve financial success? No. No.
No. Be true to yourself. Be true to what you believe in. Be decent. If you lie, your fans will notice.

Robin
Good!

Didier
Your fan will notice. And we are, and my job today is to build an emotional relationship and when you disappoint emotionally somebody it’s like a betrayal. It’s like a love story coming to an end.

Respect your fans, know who they are, reach out to them, co -create with them, take care of them, respect them, and you get it back. And you get it back.

Long term, long term, not short term, long term.

Robin
Right.

Didier
People are quite sometimes surprised, you know, people are sometimes surprised when I say, you know, in order to go to be fast, take your time. Somebody may consider what I’m saying old fashioned, old fashioned, out of date, blah, blah, blah. I don’t care.

I don’t care.

If you build it up, it’s like a house. Nowadays you want to start putting the roof. Build foundations first. Build foundations, take time, build something solid. That’s the kind of artist I want to work with in my rock, from alternative rock to hard rock. Right, space. That’s the identity I want to give to my label. That’s the identity I want to have as a person. That’s how I want to work with the artists I’m working with.

Robin
So that’s what you are doing with your artists Around Joshua and Bukowski. And then other than that, you also right now is teaching in Master program?

Didier
Yes, absolutely.
Yes.

Well, and I teach, right? And I teach in two Master programs, you know, and I would be happy. I mean, considering the way I work, I cannot manage 10 acts, right? That’s impossible because that would be way too time consuming. But I would be happy now to sign the third act. I’m still having space for a third act, you know. That could be, I do a tentative with a band based in Australia, it didn’t work out. Maybe a band based in California, it didn’t work out. It’s complicated, considering the way I work, that everything clicks.

But I still have some space for another act, you know, which could be tomorrow English, German, whatever. I don’t care.

Robin
Yeah.

Didier
Again, you know, I mean, my playground is the world, you know. It’s a world.

Robin
So that’s the label and then the teaching… How is the teaching goes, Didier?

Didier
The teaching. Well, I have two, I’m working for the time being with two universities, business schools. One, I mean, both, I mean, the level is a master two, okay? Master two or sometimes even between master and PhD. And one is a course in English and one is in French. But it’s about the music industry in general. And I love teaching to my students. I love my students. Because again, it’s interesting because I asked them to challenge me, to disagree with me. I don’t like it when they just take notes and are happy and you know. No, challenge me, tell me I’m wrong.

Robin
Who are they? Are they artists? Are they music industry executives? So who are they?

Didier
No.

They are students, they are 22, 23 years old, they are finishing their master’s degree, they want to work in the music industry later. Most of them, most of them, they want to live to work in the live music industry, more on the live side of things. A few want music productions, but hardly anyone wants to go into music publishing.

Robin
Hmm.

Didier
…which is a mistake. I think music publishing is very interesting as well, you know. And it’s a sector that didn’t go through any major crisis during the past 50 years, you know. In and out, but you know, I mean, there’s always a little bit growth, you know. I mean, they didn’t go through the same difficult times as the recorded music industry since, you know, since basically 1985 or the live music industry or the way the live music industry is going to evolve because, in my view, the live music industry has not totally finished its merger and acquisition process. And I think that the Live Nations and AEG of this world, I think you’re still going to have, like in the music industry, you’re going to have three or four major companies, you know, with controlling most of the market worldwide, and then some very small local producers, you know. That’s something that has to be monitored as well, you know, it’s the evolution of the live music industry.

Robin
Why do you think there’s less interest in music publishing? Is it too complicated to some or because it’s different generation?

Didier
No, because music publishing is the only B2B sector. So students do completely ignore, they don’t know it exists. They go to concerts, they buy records, or they listen, they stream music. But why would they be aware of music publishing and what a music publisher is? So I think it’s a profession, it’s a business that is unknown from young up and coming executives.

And that it should be promoted more because it’s a wonderful job. It’s a wonderful… I mean, you know, if you like writing, if you like composing, if you like words, if you like playing with words, you know, putting teams together, crafting songs, you know, it’s an amazing job. It’s amazing. And I’ve worked with Joe Cocker or Tina Turner. They never wrote a song in their life. They were just performers. So I remember when Joe Cocker’s manager wanted to schedule or started thinking of a new album and he was making phone calls to all the major publishing companies and saying, come on, send me songs, send me new material, this is what I want to do, blah, blah, blah. It’s amazing.

It’s a beautiful job, you know. And in France, SACEM, which is now the number one collecting society in the world, they take very good care. They have pension schemes, they have health schemes, they have training. They have, you know, it’s a very strong organization. very very strong organization. So it’s very important.

Robin
We have almost two hours already and it feels like only half an hour or it’s like really the intensity of the the talk is really really good. I feel like I’m growing a few brain cells right now.

There’s a lot of things that I learned today, Didier. It’s crazy. I think one of the things that I really enjoy doing this podcast is because I used to work with professionals, but on a capacity as a professional myself. So I need to pitch my thing to other professionals. Right now, I shut the fuck up. I shut up and I ask a lot of questions. And so I learned a lot more and I’m like, it’s mind blowing that you guys do is just crazy. The dedication, the…

Didier
Thank you.

Robin
…the passion, you give your life to your craft and that’s amazing. That’s highly respectable and I’m glad that I connect with you again and then I’m glad that I started this project because it’s just amazing. Yes.

Didier
But Robin, that’s my luxury. My life is luxury. It’s luxury. I’m privileged. Even if financially struggling, it’s complicated, it’s difficult. But that’s not the purpose. The purpose is to be, I feel privileged.

I’m rich of my experience. I’m rich with the people I meet, with the conversations I have, with the dreams I have. That’s what’s making me rich. It’s not a matter of having a big car and a big house and lots of money on your bank account.
No regrets. Never. And still dreaming.

Robin
Right, that’s amazing, that’s amazing. Okay, so what would you say to to your student or to people who wants to get into music industry now. Because it’s been, you know, it changed a lot and then I’m sure you have the vision or you’re seeing something in the future in the music industry. So if someone wants to get in now, what would you say to them?

Didier
What I’d say to my students is be passionate. Be curious. Be open. Take risks. Open up to other people. Build teams. Create your network of people. And don’t be afraid of failing.

You fail, get back on your feet, start all over again and start again and start again and start again. And you will fail and you will be discouraged and you will be frustrated and you might be depressed. There’s a lesson to learn from every mistake you make. Mistakes or failures are more educational than success.

Stay humble. Question yourself every morning. Every morning it’s a new day, it should be a new you. Be full of doubts, be full of questions. The day you stop questioning, the day you start being certain, thinking that you hold the truth, this day you’re dead because you stopped moving. And it doesn’t matter. Do it. Don’t do it for the money. If it happens, it happens. If it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t happen. You know. and give, give to people.

Be generous. And have strong values. I’m too old to work with people who will backstab me, who I don’t trust, who I don’t respect. I don’t want this. Trust your gut feeling. Trust your instinct. Develop your intuition. Nothing’s going to happen to you. Do it, it’s worth it. It’s a nice journey. It’s a beautiful journey. And you meet wonderful people. I spent a week with Quincy Jones. I spent time with Neil Young. I spent time with, you know with the Red Hot Chili Peppers, I spent time with Phil Collins, it’s just amazing. I spent time with Whitney Houston, I spent nights with Joe Cocker.

Amazing time.

It’s funny because at the time we didn’t have any mobile phones, so no selfies. There aren’t any pictures or anything left, you know. Thanks God, by the way. Thanks God, by the way, you know. Because something you wouldn’t like to show. Something better, best keep something secret, you know.
Never talk.

Robin
Yeah, yeah, oh gosh!

Right, I guess I need to close this here, it’s been wonderful. Do you have anything else to say? Is there something in your mind you want to talk about?

Didier
Hey! Let’s do this again in seven months time.

Robin
Okay. Okay. Let’s do that. Let’s do that. Yes. Okay. Okay. That’s great.

Didier
Okay, because I don’t want to talk about things I’m working on now.

Robin
Hehehehehe… Okay, seven months then it’s…

Didier
Yeah, early, early 2025!

Robin
Okay, I’ll put on my calendar now. So it’s going to be…

Didier
Okay, let’s do it again in early 2025, you know, have a sequel, you know, have a second conversation and then we can take it from here.

Robin
Let’s do that. Let’s connect again early 2025. Alright, I’ll do that. I’ll do that definitely. I’ll reconnect with you. At this moment we need to close.

Didier
Okay.

Robin
Yeah. I think it’s a perfect time to close this. I would like to thank you. This is a privilege to me. I can speak with you in my podcast. So I’m really, really thankful. Yeah, I’ll be in touch after this.

Didier
Okay, and I send you some music so we can talk music, okay? Perfect, okay. It was wonderful talking to you Robin, was wonderful catching up.

Robin
Please do. Thank you, Didier. You have a good one.

Didier
Wonderful talking to you and let’s keep in touch. Okay, so talk to you soon. Bye bye and bye to all your listeners and thank you for having me. Great time. Bye.

Robin
Yes, please do. Thank you, Didier. Bye-bye!

He started out wanting to be a sound engineer. That didn’t happen. He ended up at BMG, then EMI, then Warner, working through sales and marketing before eventually moving into artist management. He helped set up MMF France, and later got involved with the International Music Manager Forum (IMMF), the global body that represents artist managers.

This episode covers how that path actually happened — the early label years, the move into management, and why so much of his time now goes toward advocacy and building support structures for other managers rather than just managing artists himself.

It made me want to write down what actually matters if you’re trying to get into this industry now.

The classroom is not the point

Music business programs give you the structure. The internship is where you learn whether you can handle the actual chaos — the venue that overbooked its floor, the headliner who won’t go on until the rider is fully met, the sponsor who pulls out two weeks before the show. You need the theory and the real thing, but the real thing teaches you more.

Mak has taken on assistants over the years and walked them through actual negotiations, not role plays. That’s rarer than it sounds, and it’s part of why his name carries weight beyond his own shows.

Mentors won’t find you

Everyone worth learning from is busy. The way in is to be useful before you need anything. Show up. Help out. Build a reputation for reliability before you build one for anything else. Other people at your stage are useful in a different way — they’ll tell you what actually failed last month, what’s embarrassing to admit. A veteran might not bother.

Digital skills are table stakes, not a strategy

You need to run your own campaigns and understand what the numbers mean when they come back. Promoters who can’t read their own ticket sales data are guessing. TikTok changed how events build momentum before they happen — documenting the process over weeks tends to outperform straight announcement posts. That won’t be true forever, but it’s where things are now.

Try the thing that might not work

This is where Mak is pretty direct: if you’re running the same playbook as everyone else, you’re invisible. The promoters who break through try something that doesn’t obviously work on paper first. That requires some tolerance for public failure. It also tends to produce the events people actually remember and talk about years later.

Presence beats a contact list

Industry conferences are fine. The more durable thing is being consistently present in local scenes — knowing artists before they’re looking for a promoter, having real relationships with venue managers that don’t start with a booking inquiry. Referrals from actual relationships close faster and with less friction than cold outreach.

The audience is the community

Fans who feel connected to a promoter — not just a venue or a ticket app — come back. That’s not built with a marketing campaign. It’s built by showing up to events you’re not running, responding when something goes wrong, making it consistently worth talking about. It’s slow and it compounds.

Sustainability is a baseline now

A certain audience segment expects waste reduction, local vendors, reasonable logistics. Treating it as an afterthought costs you that segment — which also tends to be the most vocal one.

Find the money that nobody’s applying for

In Malaysia, Cendana distributes government arts funding. A lot of aspiring promoters don’t apply because they don’t know it exists or assume they won’t qualify. Worth researching. Local arts councils often have grants that go unclaimed every cycle.

Keep learning, but stay skeptical of the hype cycles

Certifications matter for some things. The industry moves faster than most curricula. The more useful practice is staying close to what’s actually happening — what’s changing in licensing, what promoters in other markets are doing differently, what’s shifting in how streaming intersects with live. Reading what experienced people publish beats most formal credentials.

None of this is a formula. Mak would probably say the same. The fundamentals matter. So does the willingness to figure things out under pressure, when the show is tomorrow and something has gone sideways.

In the late 1990s, during a rough period in Malaysia, political instability, economic crisis, Mak and a group of friends started a record label. They called it Huang Huo: “Yellow Fire.” The goal was to bring alternative and underground music to a Chinese-speaking audience that was mostly being given mainstream pop. They had almost no money. They booked gigs, recorded bands, worked with what they had.

The tensions inside the group built up gradually. A trip to Beijing, intended as a cultural exchange with Chinese bands, turned into the point where it became clear how differently everyone involved thought things should go. Huang Huo fell apart.

Mak started Soundscape Records after that. The instinct was similar, support local artists, bring in people from elsewhere, but the operation became bigger and more organized. Chinese indie bands were still central, but the events grew to include artists from further afield.

This conversation goes through all of it: what Huang Huo was trying to do, what actually happened, what Soundscape turned into, and how Mak thinks about the whole arc now.

His central argument is that the next shift in music isn’t about production — it’s about presence. How you’re inside the experience, not just listening to it.

Moshpit

Moshpit started as a VR platform for concerts. Give people who can’t be there a way to be there. Straightforward enough. It’s since grown into something messier: a tool for virtual music environments that don’t really have a physical analogue. Not a workaround for not having a show. More like a different kind of show.

Swann pushes back on the idea that virtual concerts are a pandemic-era fallback that never quite went away. His argument is that they do things a physical venue can’t — artists reaching audiences in markets they’d never tour, interactive layers that would fall apart on a real stage, smaller acts with no budget suddenly accessible globally. Whether that’s the future or an edge case is the open question.

It all depends on headsets. He predicts VR and AR eyewear become as common as smartphones within a decade. That’s bold. It’s also been bold for longer than people usually admit.

AR at live shows

He’s also watching augmented reality — digital elements overlaid on real stages, avatars alongside physical performers, visuals that shift based on where you’re standing. The pieces exist in fragments. Nobody’s put them together without it feeling like a proof-of-concept rather than an experience.

Swann thinks that changes. I think he’s probably right about the setting if not the timeline. Concert audiences are already agreeing to be absorbed by something. AR has a lower threshold to clear there than almost anywhere else.

3D interfaces for music discovery

He sees 3D interactive websites — virtual spaces for browsing catalogs, watching content, interacting with artists — as the next phase after streaming. Honestly, this is the one I struggle to picture. Streaming interfaces are already too much. But the argument isn’t about complexity, it’s about structure: flat screens have limits, and if headsets become normal, the interface question reopens entirely.

Blockchain, still

Swann is a genuine believer in blockchain for rights management. The pitch is familiar: decentralized ledgers let artists control royalties directly, remove intermediaries, tokenize assets, issue collectibles. The music industry has been hearing this for years. Swann thinks it eventually lands. He might be right. The gap between the promise and what’s actually deployed has just been wide for a long time.

Quantum computing is different — he’s watching rather than predicting. Faster audio processing, new composition approaches. Still theoretical. Worth tracking.

One thing to keep in mind

Swann is building Moshpit. He has a direct stake in virtual concerts working out. That doesn’t make his arguments wrong, but it shapes which ones he leads with.

The music industry’s track record is reacting to technology rather than steering it. Swann is trying to be early. I’m not sure all of his bets pay off on his timeline. But being early to the wrong idea isn’t actually that different from being early to the right one — and he’s been in the room long enough to know the difference.

He spent that time building Moshpit — a platform that combined music and gaming, eventually adding VR. The first version collapsed. He rebuilt it. Version two is what exists now.

This episode is about all of it.

I had a long conversation with Jeremy Wallach recently on my podcast. Jeremy is a friend — and an ethnomusicologist who has spent years studying metal scenes around the world, including Indonesia. He comes at this from both sides: the research and the fandom.

Metal as a social outlet

Jeremy’s work pushes back on the idea that metal is just noise for angry teenagers. In our conversation he said: “Heavy metal often reflects societal issues and provides an outlet for expressing frustrations and aspirations.” That matches what I’ve seen. The genre tends to attract people who don’t feel addressed by whatever the mainstream is doing.

It’s most visible in places under real political pressure. In Iran, bands record and distribute covertly, working around censorship. In Indonesia — where I grew up — metal has been a space for addressing corruption and social conditions that other genres approach more carefully, if at all. I remember this being true before I could fully articulate why. The music was saying things that weren’t being said elsewhere.

A genuinely global scene

What still gets me, after all these years, is how international metal actually is. Not just that people everywhere listen to it — that they’ve built their own versions of it, shaped by where they’re from.

Jeremy has studied this specifically in Asia. He said: “Asia’s heavy metal scenes are fascinating because they blend local cultural elements with the global metal sound, creating something entirely unique.” Indonesia is a real example of this. The influence doesn’t flow cleanly outward from the West — it goes in multiple directions and comes back changed in ways you don’t always expect.

Wacken Open Air and Hellfest pull fans from dozens of countries every year. I’ve been to enough shows in enough places to notice that metal crowds have an immediate orientation to each other that’s hard to explain and easy to feel. You walk in not knowing anyone and you still know roughly where you stand.

Where the genre stands

Bandcamp, Spotify, YouTube — these changed the access question in a real way, especially for bands outside the major markets. A metal act from Bandung or Jakarta can reach listeners in Germany without a label deal now. That didn’t used to be possible.

The subgenre situation is worth watching. Metal has always fragmented and recombined. Djent or symphonic metal would have been unrecognizable to someone at a Black Sabbath show in 1972, but the lineage is traceable if you follow it. The genre keeps expanding its own definition without losing whatever it is that makes it metal.

Jeremy put the community thing directly: “The community aspect of heavy metal is incredibly strong; it provides a sense of belonging and identity for its fans.” Having been in it since I was a teenager, I don’t think that’s an overstatement. The ones who get into metal tend to stay in it. I know I have.