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March 19, 2001
Getsigned.com Presents A Conversation With Music Industry Veteran Danny Goodwin
©2001 Getsigned.com. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Should you sign a publishing deal? What do A&R representatives want and how do you get them to want you? Danny Goodwin, who has played the music industry game as a publishing executive and A&R man for almost two decades, has at least some of the answers to these and other crucial questions.

Currently an A&R executive at Restless Records in Los Angeles, Goodwin spent the greater part of his career in several capacities at the Virgin conglomerate, starting in 1983 as an A&R exec at Virgin Records/Music Publishing in London.

During his five years there, he signed artists such as Culture Club, Big Country, ABC and Maxi Priest. Relocating to Los Angeles, Goodwin became VP of A&R at Virgin Music Publishing, and made deals with Warrant, Jane's Addiction, Winger and the Indigo Girls. He ran the A&R department at Virgin label Charisma from 1990-1993, signing and developing acts including Enigma, Jellyfish, Right Said Fred, Gary Moore, Maxi Priest, Southgang and Nia Peeples. Goodwin was Vice President of A&R for Virgin Records America from 1995-99, responsible for Virgin associated labels and artists such as Brother Cane, Les Nubians, Gilby Clarke, Body Count, dcTalk, Luther Vandross, and Boz Scaggs.

A native of San Diego, California, Goodwin worked at local radio stations while still in high school, and after graduation from Southwestern College, spent two years at Cox Cable Television and alter worked for several companies in London. He co-founded Peninsula Music Ltd., managing record producers Trevor Horn and Rhett Davies, before entering his long association with Virgin.

Goodwin, who served as a Vice President at the Internet digital distribution company Supertracks prior to joining Restless in January, 2001, originally wanted to be a radio DJ but abandoned that plan due, he says, to having “no talent.” Instead, he has spent his career recognizing, nurturing, and developing others’ talent, and shared some of what he has learned in a recent interview.

G: You’ve been in A&R and publishing, and I suppose you operate under a different agenda in each. Let’s start with publishing.
D: My mandate was to find acts that have deals on major labels that you think will sell records. It was never plug songs, or license music to soundtracks or baby-sit writers, it was to find artists that had major label record deals. There was more of an angle of finding non-Virgin recording artists because we were out to establish a separate identity. In the things I signed or we signed collectively, the biggest hits were Warrant, Winger, West Arkeen, the Guns N' Roses writer, The Indigo Girls, Jane's Addiction, Tool, Stone Temple Pilots. We also had most of the writers that were signed to Virgin Records.

G: How did you find acts, go to clubs, talk to people, go to rosters, look at charts?
D: All of the above and more. You dig deep and find out who's doing what. I got to know all the A&R guys at all the labels. I bought a lot of lunches. I got them to spill their guts.

G: From the artists’ point of view, what should they get out of a publishing deal? If they want to get one, or have been approached with one, what should they know?
D: Publishing deals are pretty much the same with respect to your royalty split. The publisher takes 25% of the overall income. That's standard. Then it depends on how desperately you want them. We paid Warrant very little but they started earning royalties right away. Some other acts that we paid an awful lot of money didn't pay off as well.

G: A lot of artists have told me over the years to pass on the advice, "Keep your publishing. Don't sign a publishing deal." What do you think of that?
D: When you sign a publishing deal you're signing away your rights to that song even though you'll always be compensated for it. You're signing away the rights to have 100% control of it. The publisher can put it in a porno film or whatever. He can make deals you don't want him to or for the price you don't want him to or not make deals that you do want him to. So if you can hold onto your publishing, do so. You won't lose the 25% of the earnings, but if you get big you'll need someone to administer for you and that's gonna cost a fee that might be equal to that. Remember what you gain by making a deal with a decent publisher, too. A young band needs a leg up, needs the money. There will be an advance. There will be support, a network. If you don't have a recording deal the publisher can get you in films and TV. There are advantages and disadvantages. But it's so hard for a young band to be successful, the more people they have working for them the better off they are.

G: Is there usually a cap on the length of the deal?
D: It depends how badly they want you, but publishing deals are not in terms of years, they're in terms of numbers of albums. Five to seven albums is a typical offer, and with the delivery of each album there's an advance.

G: You shifted over to A&R after working in Virgin’s publishing arm in London and L.A.
D: Yeah. I enjoyed it very much but I didn't really get to roll up my sleeves and work with the artists. I'd hang with them but they had their A&R guys at the record companies. I didn't have a whole lot of input into the recording.

G: What qualities do you look for in signing bands? Is it songwriting, image, performance or a combination?
D: It's all of the above. Songs matter, certainly image and presence makes a difference. If a band has real good performers that's one thing, but it all adds up. There's the famous 'X factor'. They might not look that great, they might not even have a memorable song and they might be dreadful players but there's something about them. Take Radiohead. These guys are not good looking by any means and the songs are certainly not the standard hook-laden commercial songs and I understand in the early days they sounded like they were playing in different bands at the same time and yet people were staggered by them. Go figure. They're the exception to the rule. If there was a rule, it would be look for songs, image, presence, star quality, good playing ability.

G: Submissions from bands must cross your desk daily. What makes you pay attention?

D: I don't listen to everything I get. I don't have time to listen to the unsolicited stuff. I believe that true talent can't exist in a vacuum. Wherever you live, if you're really good, the word spreads. Someone related to the industry--a club booker or an agent or a lawyer will find out about it and the word will spread. Just sending out tapes blindly is a waste of time. The best thing a band can do is to build a local following. I don't care where you're from, you will be found out. A&R executives make a lot of money to find stuff like that. But if you think you're going to sit in your bedroom and make a tape and pray the world will discover you--I think you've got to take the bull by the horns. You play local gigs, you work around your neighborhood. People want to know what the magic answer is. There is no magic answer. It's either gonna happen or it's not but it's certainly not gonna happen if you don't help it along.

G: But you only pay attention to packages that come recommended by someone you know?
D: Yes. I've never opened a package from someone I've never heard of that turned out to be massive. Maybe that's just me. I've found stuff that's OK or interesting, but there's a lot of OK and interesting out there. That's not what we're looking for.

G: So no unsolicited tapes?
D: I don't encourage it. If it's great, I'll somehow get to it. And I'll certainly take a call from any lawyer, agent, manager, whoever.

G: Are you at all influenced by what a band puts on the Net, like a Web site or MP3s?
D: It's not expensive or difficult now to have a decent, functional Web site and a band should definitely be doing that. You can deliver me songs by MP3 but it's the same whether it comes to me by T1 line or in the mail, someone has got to bring it to my attention. But definitely use the Internet as a form of promotion. Spread the word. It's not A&R people you should try to reach but fans. I say to bands, "I don't want you to come to me, I want you to make me come to you."

G: Once you sign a band, how involved are you in molding them? And how much molding should there be?
D: I ask them how hands on they want me to be. Typically, I know the answer before I sign the group. You get that feeling early on. I tend to shy away from bands I'd have to find the songs and help them get a stylist. I generally respond to groups that have a very strong opinion of who they are and where they want to go. "This is who I am, are you with me?" I'm a little suspicious of groups that say, "I don't know, what do you want me to be?"

G: What do you tend to concentrate on most in terms of guidance?
D: Production. I might recommend one song over another or some chord changes or restructuring in a song. But for the most part I say "Let's get someone who can get the best sonic quality as well as the best performance out of you in the studio," and most of the time the bands are very open minded to working with producers.

G: What are some of the biggest mistakes that bands make and how can they avoid them?
D: Overspending on recording, trying to improve the demo. I've seen it happen a hundred times. "What is it missing?" Maybe it isn't missing anything. I've seen way too much money spent on production. A&R people have an expression: You can't polish a turd. If the song isn't there, you can't do it. Bands spend way too much time and money trying. It's rock n' roll for God’s sake! It's three chords. It's about magic. You can't manufacture it. Another mistake I've seen bands make is that the answer to everything is the recording contract. As my friend Vicky Hamilton once said, "A recording contract is only a ticket to participate in a very big race." It's not the answer to anything. I've also seen bands whose second record isn't as successful as the first and it's usually a matter of timing. That's the biggest element of success and you can't control it.

G: Where do you think the music industry is going?
D: If I only knew--well, I can give you some theories. Everything is cyclical. Right now there's a tremendous amount of successful pop bands, R&B and some of the rap stuff, but you'll find it will turn again, it will go indie again. But whatever genre people choose, if they're the best at it they'll have a chance of succeeding regardless of what the general lay of the land is.

G: A lot of bands complain that there's no artist development, that labels only care about the single. Do you agree?
D: I absolutely agree. We are running a business. We are in the business to make money. If you sign a little girl from Florida that nobody knows and in eight months you've sold seven million albums and the bottom line is 60-70 million, it's real hard to argue, "I want to sign a group like Korn that will lose money on its first three albums but we'll make money on the fourth album."

G: So what does a band do in the face of that?
D: The band can only be what they're cut out to be. There's nothing worse than a contrivance. Britny Spears was born to be Britny Spears. Same with the Backstreet Boys and Korn. If they tried to change their colors it would not work. All a band can do is stick to their guns. Any group operating in any genre that's very good stands a chance of making it regardless. They have to stay true to what they are.

G: While there are a few bands still active today that started in the '70s, do you think the current crop of artists have that staying power? Or are the cycles too short?
D: Yes, the cycles are shorter. With each year I do this I feel the scenarios are less possible. But these are cycles within cycles. I do think it will go back to the point where kids will start looking for greater depth and that will require artist development and the record companies will shift their business models toward something they can build. Clive Davis once said, "I can't tell what's coming, but I if I have a gift it's being able to tell what's arrived."

G: Do you have a 'one that got away' story?
D: There were a lot of them. Orgy, which I didn't like and passed on. Counting Crows. Papa Roach. I'm more interested in the ones that didn't get away, like Culture Club, that I didn't relent on even though everyone told me they sucked.

G: How important is it for a band to have a good manager?
D: Imperative, but I don't necessarily think you need to have one from day one. A manager is usually the fifth member of the band, which is why they tend to get 20%. But I don't think it's necessary until there's a deal to be offered. If a band is great, someone will come to them. They will be of interest. Lawyers shouldn't be used for anything but negotiating. The lawyer, the manager, the agent, the publisher, the record company is not the answer. The answer is in the music and the work that the group does off the radar screen. It's the grassroots build that if the record companies could buy they'd spend their money on only that. But it’s organic. You can't buy it or manufacture it. But we have a saying: "Once it walks, we'll make it run."



Gerri Miller has been a music journalist for 20 years, most recently as the executive editor of Metal Edge magazine, a post she held from its inception in 1985 until the end of 1998. Concurrently and since, she has edited and written six special-issue magazines on KISS and one focusing on the 1998 OzzFest. Born and raised in New York, she now lives in Los Angeles, where she contributes daily news reports and video interviews to the Metal Edge Web site, features to KNAC.com and Japan’s In Rock magazine, writes bios and liner notes for bands, and is collaborating on two book projects. She has contributed to Getsigned.com since 1999.


©2001 Getsigned.com. All Rights Reserved.

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