Tommy Mottola: Hitmaker

Tommy Mottola headed Sony Music Entertainment for 15 years as CEO, and during that time he was one of the most powerful men in music. During his time in the business he helped to develop so many great artists, including Hall and Oates, Carly Simon, Mariah Carey, Destiny’s Child, Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel, Shakira, Jennifer Lopez and so many others.  He recently stopped by the SiriusXM studios to talk with Ron Bennington about his new book, “Hitmaker: The Man and His Music.”  Excerpts from the interview appear below.

* * *

Tommy Motolla Talks About the Love of Music

Ron Bennington:  I say the truth – when I picked up the book, I’m like – good, I’m going to read about wheeling and dealing and kiss stealing, the whole thing.  But what got to me, right from the beginning and every page all the way through – this is a guy who loves music.  Honestly loves music.  And I don’t think we ever really get that from record companies.  People don’t realize that about record company executives.  

Tommy Mottola:  Well, the thing about me is it all started as a musician for me.  And so at an early age of 5 or 6, I started playing instruments.  And then all the way through, in the bands and making records and being in the studio.  And so always being around it and coming to what I ended up doing – from that perspective.  So it was much different and I think it gave me a little bit of an edge as well in helping me with my work going forward.

Ron Bennington:  Because you understood where the musicians were coming from.  You understood that it wasn’t just about business.  It can never be just about the business.  

Tommy Mottola:  Oh it’s always about the music. Period.  It always was.  It always will be about the music.  And for me, everything starts and ends with the great song.  Once you have that – then it’s all about production of the records and ultimately and no matter what, the music will carry it to where it’s suppose to be.

* * *

Tommy Talks About the How Selling Music is Different From Other Products

Ron Bennington:  The thing is – in any other product, if you’re running Nabisco or whatever, there’s Oreos – this is what they taste like, this is how you make them once they go out.  When you’re dealing with artists, they suddenly want maybe their next record to sound exactly different from everything.  So it’s like if suddenly Oreos were peanut butter or something.  

Tommy Mottola:  Well, we had to deal with consumer behavior and understanding the consumer on an hourly basis.  And at the same time, artists being artists – and they are quote “artists” because they are allowed to create whatever they wish.  Of course, right?  It’s their vision.  It’s about them. We’re a conduit to get that out to as many people as possible.  But some times, just when they sort of hit their groove with an audience and that audience is really enjoying what they’re doing musically – one would think, from the audience’s point of view that the music might have certainly a progression, but have similarities to that made them like the prior album.  But sometime they would come in and it would be completely different.  I remember a few different times that that happened.

Ron Bennington:  Well, you bring it up early on with Hall & Oates.  One of the great duos of all time.  And because Daryl is Daryl and he’s interested in a lot of different things – you thought maybe establish your audience more before you go in different directions.  

Tommy Mottola:  Well, I mean there were so many changes that evolved in their creations in their career.  From “Abandoned Luncheonette” to “War Babies”, I mean it’s like a different universe.  Again, I backed them and supported them because of my total belief in both of them as an artist. But certainly, the audience didn’t feel the same way.

Ron Bennington:  And then you’ve got to make sure they can pick that audience back up again.  In their case, of course they did.  They became bigger than ever.  

Tommy Mottola:  Back then, there was much more room for growth and development.  And people were more tolerant, the audience was more tolerant.  The record companies actually thought that a career should develop over 3 or 4 albums.  Of course today, your career could develop in 1 or 2 singles and then you could vaporize and be history or maybe you’ll have a hit.

Ron Bennington:  And if that thing doesn’t hit right off the bat – they’re done these days.  

Tommy Mottola:  It could be that way.  That happens.

* * *

Tommy Motolla Talks About Developing Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen

Ron Bennington:  When you look at Billy Joel, Bruce Springsteen – I mean most musicians…

Tommy Mottola:  Each one of those took 4 albums, 3 albums, 5 albums in a lot of cases,  in Bruce’s case.

Ron Bennington:  How do you find out how somebody has a career like Bruce Springsteen’s – that lasts 4 decades, other people, terrific – kind of come and go? 

Tommy Mottola:  I think those authentic singer – songwriters who write about personal experiences and stories that hit the heart and soul and minds and ears and all the senses of people – always have an opportunity like an artist like Bruce and Billy and Bob Dylan – to tell those kinds of stories to their audiences.  And like any great painter of canvases – be it Picasso or Warhol, right?  You’ll have canvases that people love and like and are more valuable, which means you could sell more as a record.  And they’ll have canvases that are not as appreciated.  Same thing with an artist – with a recording artist.  So maybe people didn’t want to buy “Nebraska” as much when it first came out as they did “Born to Run”, but certainly their love for Bruce as an artist didn’t change.   Not one bit.  Simple as that.  

* * * 

TALKS ABOUT HIS IDEA BEHIND THE BOOK AND NOT WANTING TO JUST BE AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY  13:34 IN

Ron Bennington:  The new book is “Hitmaker: The Man and His Music” and you bring up as part of this, “From Elvis to the iPod” which is really your lifetime and what a ride that you just happened to find yourself on.  I mean you could say – okay, you rose to this, but all the circumstances of the world were there for you to have the kind of career that you had.  

Tommy Mottola:  Yeah, absolutely.  I mean the reason that I thought about that was I really didn’t want to do this book.  I wasn’t going to go forward and do it and I thought – well, what could you do to create something that’s much more important than you are or ever were and what would be an interesting umbrella story where you could be a narrator inside telling your story with a much larger point of view surrounding you – about the whole picture of what happened to music in the golden age, from Elvis to the iPod.  Which was a very unique period in popular music.  I mean people were inventing this stuff then.  So I thought it would be much more interesting than just a normal boring biography.  So that’s the way I approached this.

* * *

Tommy Motolla Talks About Pop Music

Ron Bennington:  In this country, pop music – for some reason, we do feel like it’s something that’s disposable.  Where England, I think they hold on and they cherish the music a little more or treat like an art form, treat it like film maybe.  But in this country, it’s surprising to me of how little of the history we know of our music. 

Tommy Mottola:  Well, you have a lot of things out there diluting it.  Like the music industry now, the economics today – it’s hard to support developing artists for 3 or 4 albums.  Because even if you have a number one record and you have a hit record and maybe you’ll only sell a 100,000 opening week – that’s not enough to keep the lights on, so to speak.  So it becomes a difficult challenge to be able to economically develop an artist over a long period of time.  And then you have a lot of dilution out there.  I mean there must be 8 or 9 music competition shows.  Where music, in some sad ways, becomes fungible and the talent is fungible.  And the judges are the stars and the contestants are there almost as props.  So what does that say?  What does that say?  It says – I think it adds to the disposability and the vaporization of the art form in a lot of ways.  And by the way, I’m a big fan of “Idol”, but I think now with 9 shows or 6 shows, whatever – I’m exaggerating – there’s a lot out there to digest.  And the funny thing is in fact, the public…some public looks at that and goes – they think that’s the music industry.  I mean it’s so powerful and strong, they think that is the whole music business.

* * *

Tommy Mottola Talks About Reality Television and Music

Ron Bennington:  Well the thing is – if you look back, these kids are on these TV shows seen by 20 million people, by the time Elvis or the Beatles got to Ed Sullivan – those guys were ready.  

Tommy Mottola:  Right.

Ron Bennington:  I mean they had chops.  You take some of these kids, they might have a great voice…

Tommy Mottola:  But that’s like the gladiators.  They’re being thrown into the arena and saying – okay here, survive.  And you’re going to have 15 wolves attacking you.  (laughs)  So all of sudden, you have to rise up – which is okay too.  It’s a challenging opportunity to be able to do it.  And some great voices, by the way, have come out that.  The sad thing is – tell me who were the winners were 2 years ago of any of the shows.

Ron Bennington:  That’s how it goes away, yeah.  

Tommy Mottola:  That’s the sad part of it.  You can name 1 or 2 people who have lasted still, but it’s hard now with all the shows and I don’t think there are any of the shows other than “Idol” where you can name me 1 or 2 of the stars that had sustaining power.

Ron Bennington:  And that’s what goes back to my other point.  The Beatles were ready when they got that.  They were ready to follow it up.  They were ready to grow.  

Tommy Mottola:  They played gigs.  They were developed.  They were ready to go.  They were on stage.  They were primed.

* * *

Tommy Mottola Talks About Changes in the Music Business

Ron Bennington:  My whole life, people bitched about the record companies – whether it was “Rolling Stone” or the artists or the media.  Everyone has.  And now that they’ve been weakened, everybody comes through here Tommy, worried, bitching.  

Tommy Mottola:  Yes.

Ron Bennington:  Some of the biggest stars that I’ve ever heard in my life, going – I can’t believe this happened.  

Tommy Mottola:  They’re all wishing we were there.

Ron Bennington:  Yeah, a 100%.

Tommy Mottola:  Yeah, yeah.  Look, I just said this before to somebody.  Our strength was – we had the ability to control the supply chain.  And by that, I mean we found the artist, we developed the artist, we signed the artist.  We worked closely with them in developing their art and supporting them with the imagery that they wanted.  And then helping them get out on tour and make videos and be there.  And then we had a lot of leverage at retail and we had a lot of leverage at radio and all the other sources of exposure in marketing and merchandising.  That does not exist now because the artist is much more in control of his career.  Because he could just shoot something in his house and upload it and there you go.  And he’s on Youtube tonight.  Now how do you monetize that?  How do you put that together and galvanize that into a cohesive body of work that is compelling enough to make a consumer go out and buy that?  Put down the money to buy a whole body of work?  It just doesn’t happen.  So when you can’t do that and you don’t have that compelling work then everything suffers.  And why do people even want to go out and see you perform live?  It’s like 1 song.  Or whether they want to buy your merchandising.  All the things that go into all the revenue streams that consist or did consist in an artist’s career.

Ron Bennington: Well and most of us consumers had no idea how many times we needed to see a billboard or hear the song, whatever.  

Tommy Mottola:  Absolutely.

Ron Bennington:  Till we finally went – hey, you know what?  I really do like this record.  

Tommy Mottola:  We paid for all that.  I mean when you saw those signs up on Tower Records on Sunset, we paid for those.  When you saw the billboards that were up on Tower Records and it was the artist up there – it wasn’t because they liked that record.  It was because we paid for that.  So all of that was happening and all of the mechanics of that were happening from this big machine.  So the appreciation of that now when it’s gone is obvious.

Ron Bennington:  And because you’re now getting, let’s say – okay, everybody can upload – somewhere in that mix is a new Tom Petty and the chances of us finding it now…you know Bob Geldof, he goes – where’s the filtered excellence these days?  

Tommy Mottola:  There you go.  Right.

* * *

Ron Bennington:  It’s an amazing story.  It’s the story, not just I think of Tommy’s life, but really the life and times of the music industry over the last couple decades.  One of those books you just can’t put down Tommy.  Thanks so much for coming in.  It was really fun.  

Tommy Mottola:  Thank you for having me.

==================================================================

Click here to order Tommy Mottola’s “Hitmaker: The Man and His Music“

.

You can hear this interview in its entirety exclusively on SiriusXM satellite radio.  Not yet a subscriber?  Click here for a free trial subscription.

.

You can learn more about Ron Bennington’s two interview shows, Unmasked and Ron Bennington Interviews atRonBenningtonInterviews.com.