New Noise Santa Barbara is a new music industry event in Santa Barbara. It runs from October 8th, 9th and 10th at three different venues. It includes panels and topics from industry powerhouses including the founder of Pandora, inc. It's being touted as the festival for everyone, and it appears to be living up to the hype. Yesterday we had an opportunity to interview the founder of
New Noise, Jeff Theimer.
Here is our exclusive interview:
Q: What was the impetus that drove you to create this event? How long has this been in the making?
Jeff: New Noise started as an idea my now partners (Matt Kettmann and Tim Boris) and I all had individually for a number of years. I worked in radio as the Marketing Director for
92.9 KJEE and then more recently in LA doing Publicity and contests for Alternative
106.7 KROQ-FM. For years I have gone to
Austin's SXSW, which is probably the best run music , film and digital conference/festival in the world. However, on recent trips I began to notice that it was getting TOO successful & TOO big. Where in the old days agents, managers, A&R people and fans could go to Austin in March and stumble into a bar/club and find something really great & new, now there were seemingly thousands of bands playing and a million corporate sponsored events. It just seemed like more of a promotional hype piece for labels and bands that were already signed (which in my opinion is fine), but not what I was interested in seeing while there. I'm not dissing SXSW. They are the the gold standard of all music conferences. Anyone who tries something new must live up to the expectations set by them. We're just trying to do something a little different (and smaller).
We also felt that because the music industry is going through such huge changes, a conference that really hyper targeted three main topics: digital technology, the basics of the music business and sustainability in music was important. Santa Barbara, being 1 hour plane flight from the Bay Area and 90 miles from LA seemed like a perfect fit. Plus... we live here, dig it and think people from out of town would want to come vacation and (hopefully) learn something + have some fun. Did we bite off a little much for a 1st year event? OF COURSE! We tried to keep it small, but when we had the opportunity to get some great speakers (Tim Westergren, Founder of Pandora Radio, Jay Faires, President of Music, Lionsgate, Ethan Kaplan , VP Tech, Warner Bros , Jason Calacanis, Mahalo.com & Aaron Ray, Partner, The Collective, we couldn't help ourselves. We have over 40 speakers coming to Santa Barbara! Alas. We are VERY proud of them and the bands playing. Some of these people are literally going to define music in the next decade. It's a great opportunity for Santa Barbarians and we hope they take advantage of the opportunity even if they are not directly related to the music business. We have been working on this project for over a year, but really didn't have the resources or ability to work more than part time until June or early July. It came together really fast.
Q: With the West Beach Music festival just finishing, this event caught many by surprise. Is Santa Barbara getting a reputation as a music mecca? Jeff: I grew up in Santa Barbara playing in bands etc. I used to go to the Underground,
Coach House,
Living Room, Anaconda etc and we had a truly amazing scene. I think we lost something with the demise of ALL AGES venues in this town. That is something New Noise would like to get back. I think you are right. There is something abuzz lately. I think the SB BOWL,
West Beach Fest, and Club Mercy have a big role in that. We hope to fill in the gaps between some of those events and help convince people in town that live music is something worth paying for and something Santa Barbara cannot afford to ignore. It is only with the support of people checking out new music and local bands that SB will continue to get the shows people expect SB to get. We have a lot of local bands playing New Noise and we are happy that NONE of the bands are required to sell tickets etc. We are really relying on the community to support and the bands to promote. That is what a scene is to me. Relying and supporting other musicians, even if you don't have to.
Q: You have many big names in your events, including the founder of Pandora most recently. How were you able to get such great talent?
Jeff: Actually, Pandora was one of the 1st to join in on New Noise. Like most things, it was a little luck and some diligence. I actually went to Pandora HQ (In Oakland, CA) and met with the head of their video series (Kevin Seal) who is a friend of a friend. (His band Griddle is actually playing New Noise Friday as well). Great guy. In any event, I told him about the conference and he thought it was something Pandora could/should get behind. He put me in touch with the person who handles Mr. Westergren's schedule and it turned out it fit. Honestly, he probably loves to come to Santa Barbara as well so that helps! It was like that with a lot of our speakers... Getting over 40 speakers and panelists to Santa Barbara (who have their own schedules etc) is a pretty daunting experience. I have gray hairs (as does our Conference Director, Tim Boris) after trying to work with peoples schedules. Matt Kettmann (my other partner) helped create some of our sustainability in music panels as well. It was truly a team effort and we all pulled out any resemblance of a connection we had to make it happen. Like I mentioned, we are pretty proud of how the line up of speakers turned out for a 1st year event.
Q: What is your favorite event and why?
Jeff: Hmm. That's tough. We have a lot of great music I'm excited about. I've always respected but never seen Michael Franti & Spearhead so I'm looking forward to that on Thursday... Mad Caddies, Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros, Har Mar Superstar... the list goes on. Speaker wise I think Tim Westergren's speech will be VERY interesting, as well as some of the publishing/licensing talks on Saturday. The whole point of New Noise is to experience a bunch of great stuff in three short days. That is why we are encouraging people not to just by tickets to one or two shows, but to get a wristband or badge and really take advantage of the whole conference/festival while it is here.
Q: It seems like the big labels are becoming obsolete, but they are still there with all the big names. How has the Internet changed the music scene, and what do you predict for the future of the big labels?
Jeff: The playing field has been leveled and bands have more power than they ever had in the history of music. Pretty amazing when you think about it. The old machine is literally dead. Good riddance. Labels do not have the power they once held over bands. They are still a very important piece, but it's gotta be exciting if you are in a band, think you're good and now have ways to find your audience and get them to check you out without spending promo $$$ via labels or indie reps working your music solely to radio and retail stores. If anyone says they can tell you what will happen to the music business in the next few year's I'd call them out on it. That is why we are doing this conference. A lot of VERY smart people have differing views on how the music business should and will act. Should music be given away? If so, how can bands and labels still make money? If you think free is good, then HOW do you most effectively give it away? As far as what I'd like to see the big labels do? I'd like to see them go back to actually DEVELOPING bands... ya know? Call me old fashioned, but I thought it was pretty cool to see a band develop via their albums. I think the idea of the 'smash hit, no brainer' is done. You can't just take a band, squeeze out a single, and make the label tons of $$$ these days.
Technology has made bands and brands become indie. Even corporations are trying to figure out how to 'social network' etc. It's a really fun and exciting time to be in a band or start a new business. I know a lot of people already who are musicians and doing their own licensing of songs and getting great placements in TV, movies etc by just using YouTube, Facebook and good ol fashion networking (whether that be direct to your fans or with people in the music business). When an independent artist or songwriter can get on MTV or E! without a label, it HAS to be encouraging to independent artists. I guess it comes down to how bad you want it and if music (as a career) is something you'd like to pursue. It's definitely not for everyone and I don't think it should be. I believe playing music for the sake of playing music is most important. New Noise will just help people find out what options are out there even if you don't necessarily want or need to make a sustainable career out of it.