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Clyde Lieberman
Sr. Director/East
coast Creative Services for BMG Music Publishing
Interviewed by Michael
Laskow
Where did you grow up?
I was born and raised in Indianapolis, Indiana and lived there until I was
18.
And did you move to New York then?
No. I went to college at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
As a kid, I wanted to be a professional baseball player. But then, like so
many other people my age, the Beatles came on television and changed my
life.
"I
didn't really know the music business existed ... But I really
wanted to play music."
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So how did you get from there to the music business?
I didn't really know the music business existed, because my family was in
an entirely different business. It had nothing to do with entertainment or
music or anything. But I really wanted to play music. I went to the
University of Pennsylvania, but two summers before that I started cruising
around the country and encountering musicians from outside of my home town
for the first time. In the summer of 1969 I went to a series of pop
festivals that culminated in going to Woodstock.
At what point did you get your first real job in the music industry,
and what was it?
My first real job in the industry was a year and a half ago.
Really? You'd better give the short version of what you did for the
last twenty years.
It's really a simple story. I went to college. Two years into college, the
American government bombed Cambodia. I quit college. I traveled around the
world for three years. I had my guitar with me. I discovered songwriting
while I was traveling in the backs of buses through Central and South
America. I met people from Los Angeles, and they said, "You know, you
have some talent. If you ever decide to go back to the States, come to
California and you can stay at my house." Three years later I took
them up on the offer, and drove a Volkswagen squareback to California. I
parked it and walked in--my friend said, "What do you know?" I
played my six chords and he played his six chords and said, "Well,
let's make a band."
Eventually,
I discovered a music school in LA called the Dick Grove School of Music. I
was a student there for three years. I was a grunt, working the front
office. I eventually became the head of Financial Aid, then I became the
Registrar, and eventually I became one of the key people running the
school.
"
... I took a mailing list, and started inviting these top music
industry people to come and do seminars. I met the people in the
music industry who eventually helped shaped my career."
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Did you use that as a springboard?
Yeah. During that time I was given the task of booking all of the seminars
for the school. I saw an opportunity to network. So I took a mailing list,
and started inviting these top music industry people to come and do
seminars. I met the people in the music industry who eventually helped
shaped my career.
In
the 1980's I started writing songs more seriously and I got a break. I
submitted a song through a fellow named David Landau to Mel Brooks for the
movie Spaceballs.
Did you get the gig?
Yes, and I got to meet Mel Brooks. It was the first cover I ever really
had. And I got to see how the process worked, and what covers meant, and
what the recognition could do for my career. One of the songs that I wrote
made it to Arista Music Publishing. They pitched it to Clive Davis, and he
put it on hold for Jermaine Jackson and they offered me a songwriting deal.
So, in 1986 I was signed as an exclusive staff songwriter and a
co-publishing deal to Arista Music Publishing and I stayed there for four
years.
I'm glad I asked for the short version of that story! Just kidding.
It's a great example of how a kid from the sticks can make it to the big
leagues. What happened next?
At the end of those four years Danny Strick came in to run BMG North
America, which was the parent publishing company that bought Arista Music
Publishing during the switch over. Danny and I knew each other from when I
used to bug the hell out of him pitching songs. He listened to what I was
doing and asked me to stay on. I discovered a songwriter named Rhett
Lawrence and brought him to Danny's attention. Danny signed him to a deal
and shortly after that Rhett worked with Mariah Carey and that sort of
alerted the company to the idea that I might be good behind a desk. I'd
like to go on record saying that almost everything I have accomplished, I
accomplished because I was a songwriter.
Consider it said. What's your title now?
Senior Director of East Coast Creative Services for BMG Music Publishing.
"
... the hardest thing in the music business is to explain to your
mother, or your father, or your friends back home in Indiana what
the hell you do for a living."
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I may have to shorten that to get it under your picture! What's the
range of responsibilities in your job?
Well, my mom asks me this question all the time. You know the hardest
thing in the music business is to explain to your mother, or your father,
or your friends back home in Indiana what the hell you do for a living.
Because it seems ridiculous.
Well, give it your best shot Woody (laughter), I mean Clyde.
I'm responsible for all creative decisions and events that occur in this
office. That includes signing new talent on the pop side, overseeing the
signings and new talent on the urban side. Working with all BMG writers
whenever they work in the New York area. Signing new writers in the New
York area. Developing relationships with all of the A&R people in the
New York area. Looking for talent all up and down the eastern seaboard,
including Canada in certain circumstances. Liaising with all of our
European brethren at BMG Europe. And obviously, administering all of this
paperwork that you see ( I saw plenty! ed.) that is part of the job.
And just for the record, you've got at least 200 cassettes and CD's on
your desk.
Somebody asked me the other day if all the stuff on my desk had been
listened to. The answer is that pretty much of it has, but ultimately it
won't get a shot at BMG, but it was interesting enough to stay on the desk
for the time being. And five times that much didn't stay on the desk!
Also for the record, there are at least another 200 cassettes over
there.
Easily.
"
... the music has to come from somewhere and if you just accepted
all music from all people, you wouldn't get your job done. So most
music comes recommended by someone ... "
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Where do most of the tapes come from that are the ones that you
actually do listen to?
When I was a songwriter and people would say to me, "It's better if
your tape comes from a manager or from a lawyer." I used to really
bristle at that. Then I realized that the industry was bigger than just
its components. There were cogs. There was a wheel turning. And when you
were told, "Gee, listen kid, if a lawyer that I know brings me this
tape, it's more likely to get listened to." I would think, "Why
lawyers?" I mean, they're not musicians. But a lot of things I've
found out are really kind of surprising in a cool way.
Almost
every lawyer I work with has some musical background. And the thing is
that those guys like music, and they are knowledgeable and no one said
their knowledge is any more or less right on than mine. The only
difference is that if they're going to get their jobs done properly, they
don't set aside as many hours in a day to listen as I'm supposed to.
However,
the good news and the bad news is that now that I have a 9:00 AM to 2:00
AM job. My phone starts ringing at 9:00 in the morning at home. My writers
from L.A. frequently call me at 2:00 in the morning, which is only 11:00
PM for them. It's just an accepted part of the business.
You
discover that the music has to come from somewhere and if you just
accepted all music from all people, you wouldn't get your job done. So
most music comes recommended by someone who you have a personal
relationship with. It's always from somebody you know.
What's BMG's policy on unsolicited material?
We don't accept unsolicited tapes, and also to be very, very, very blunt,
they won't get listened to.
Editor's
Note: This interview took place in 1994. The music industry was
just being exposed to the Internet. Nobody realized then how much
music online would change the music industry, especially in how
music was delivered. Although many issues in the music industry
haven't changed much, this one has!
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How do you see the roles of publishers and/or A&R people changing
as the information superhighway makes its way into the music business?
If you're talking about how things will be delivered to me, it doesn't
make me any happier if somebody can send me their music by modem or over a
fax line on my commuter as opposed to me having the CD. It doesn't effect
what I do at all. It is meaningless. It's either music or it's not music.
The
issue is will my profession of music publishing or that of a record
executive become obsolete? That's the issue, and that's important. Will an
A&R executive, whether in publishing or records have a significant
role to play? If you can go into your garage and on a great ADAT system
make a wonderful mix-down-to DAT tape, which you will go out and press
5,000 CD's and send it over the Internet or whatever into all of these
people, and people say, "I want to buy it--how do I buy it?" And
you send it to them by a modem over a telephone line... Those issues are
being looked at by executives at a much higher level than me.
Those
people are sitting in board rooms right now saying, "How do we
control the copyright usage if somebody records at home, and sends the
information by computer to another computer? How do we get word of this?
It's
not going to affect the established major artists such as Sting or Barbara
Streisand. But it will affect how music is purchased and hence, how
royalties are paid in the future and that directly affects my business.
What do you love most about your job?
The big advantage of being where I am right now is that I can be involved
in the education of young musicians at the same time that I get paid to be
a creative source for my company while still being an executive. I get the
opportunity to give something back to people who mirror who I was twenty
years ago. In some cases I help them miss potholes that they were going to
fall into or sometimes help them out of that hole. Or sometimes, hopefully
block the hole and give them another route to go. That's what I love about
what I do.
Are there any potholes that you can warn our readers about before they
fall in?
Everybody overproduces their music. It's absolutely unnecessary.
Especially if you are trying to write songs to be noticed by music
publishers as opposed to being in a group. But even in a group, whether
it's R&B, hip hop or alternative, or soft rock or whatever, almost
everything we receive that doesn't come from savvy people is overproduced.
Production is not what we base our decision on.
"Everybody
in the music industry will tell you that it if you let your
personal taste constantly interfere with what you sign you might
lose your job."
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When you sign a deal with someone, is that decision based on personal
taste, or are you signing something that will be right for the company?
Everybody in the music industry will tell you that it if you let your
personal taste constantly interfere with what you sign you might lose your
job. Some people will argue with that. My opinion is that if you're not
moved and passionate about something, you probably won't try to make a
deal with it. However, at sometime in the process you have to ask yourself
is there an opportunity for my company to be successful with this artist
or this writer? If I believe that the answer is "no |
When this
company decided to sign Ace of Base on the recommendation of myself and people
from Arista Records and other people inside this company, we were making a
decision that would, from the outside, appear to be a purely financial one.
Like, it's pop music--what's the big art? But truth be told, there is some great
songwriting on that record. So, we were going for the talent. We were happy to
make the money.