Michael Walker: Yeah. Alright, I'm excited to be here today with my new friend, Rene McLean. So Rene, he is the CEO of SLANG and a partner at Influence, which is a cutting-edge label that fuses culture, rights, and artist strategy. He helped launch the careers of artists like LMFAO and Cam’ron. And he's also a catalog dealmaker. He has orchestrated multimillion-dollar acquisitions for Future, Tainy, Tyler Johnson, DJ Khaled, and many more, and I'm excited to connect to them today. Talk a little bit about where things are at right now in terms of the music industry and how you can build a legacy and culture into your brand, especially in a world where things are evolving so quickly around AI and generative music. So looking forward to having him on the podcast, having a conversation. I appreciate you taking the time to be here.

Rene McLean: Oh, thanks for having me here. Appreciate you inviting me. Thank you. 

Michael: Absolutely. So, to kick things off, would love to hear a little bit about your story, and I mean, some of the artists that we just referenced are massive, huge success. And I'm sure that you didn't just start from day one working with artists like that. So I'd be curious to hear a little bit about your journey from scratch to reaching a point where you were able to collaborate on that level.

Rene: Okay. Well, it's a long journey, I can tell you that. But, like everyone, I started out as an intern, worked at Virgin Records, and then kind of went from intern to assistant, then quickly ascended to regional promotions person, and then ascended again and kept going and going. I ended up working for various major labels. You know, I wound up working at RCA for a minute. Worked for Jimmy at Interscope. While I was working at those storied labels, I developed a music conference called the Mixshow Power Summit, which was a huge DJ conference where we flew in about 300 to 400 DJs for artists to come and showcase. And that actually ran from the early 2000s to 2008. I think it started in 2000. In 2008 we shut it down because the business was going into the slump with all the file sharing and everything that took us into a 15-year decline. And then, from there, I pivoted into an agency called RPM, where I had many clients. I consulted a lot of labels, also consulted a lot of artists and producers, including Pharrell, Timbaland, Swizz, and Kanye on their labels when they launched them. And then we kind of shifted again and went into the brand-building business and had an agency, a small boutique agency, I guess similar to Translation but not as big, but it was just more boutique. And then I felt like we needed to pivot again and then pivoted into, you know, I'm always looking for the white spaces in the music business. And this was around 2018–2019 where everything was starting to shift. Everything started to shift to streaming like 2014, 2015, 2016. I saw opportunity. Private equity and the finance world started looking at music a lot differently because the streaming was very transparent. You could create projections and then kind of went out with my partner. And my partner, who's been in business with me for 25 years and is also my wife, came up with a strategy to launch Influence Media and find investors to back us in acquiring catalogs and building out our strategy. So that's what led us to where we're at today.

Michael: Cool. I love hearing that. I appreciate you sharing, kind of, to start from the beginning to where it's at now, and I think it's easy to overlook those early-stage—what you called—you ascended between those different roles as an intern. Sometimes it feels like it's easy to want to skip to the end without starting and building. Right. We could dive a little—

Rene: Deeper there. I'm good with that if you want to.

Michael: Well, one of the biggest questions that just came up for me right now is, knowing that the majority of our audience are really independent artists that are pursuing a career, and you have such amazing perspective, having witnessed the evolution of the music industry, especially from a record label standpoint, I would love to hear you share a little bit about your perspective as it relates to the market right now for indie artists and record labels and where things are kind of moving. If you had a crystal ball in front of you over the next five years, what are you personally excited about, and where do you think that—

Rene: I wish I had a crystal ball because I'd be super rich. I'd be ultra-wealthy. But the interesting thing about today's market is that even though the barrier is low to put out music, create music, a lot of noise has been created, so it's harder to break through. And that's a bit of a difference, right? Previously I felt like, yeah, it was all the majors and some big indies, and there was competition. It was hard for new artists to get signed, so on and so forth. But I just felt like there were ways to actually build. There were other types of building blocks to build an artist's career. Everything is democratized right now. You can go to the studio, put your record out at night. Now you have to develop your audience yourself before someone like myself or a major label would get interested in you because it's just a lot going on right now, quite frankly. It's hard to get people to focus solely on music, and social media and everything is going. Some of the drivers previously, like with radio and MTV and all that, you could really drive an artist. And even if you were independent and your record got hot, you could really drive it. You can still drive it now, but it's just a totally different way of doing things, pretty much.

Michael: Yeah. That's super interesting. So what I'm hearing you say is that things have shifted quite a bit in terms of democratizing the market and that it's never been easier to create and release music, but also because of that, there's more music than ever, it's more noisy, it's harder to cut through. Exactly. And these previous channels that used to be pretty reliable, like MTV, where you could predictably know that you could break an artist—now it's more noisy and more people are distracted. I'm curious, in that landscape, when you are working with an artist and you're looking to break a new artist, for example, you mentioned that now there are also some social proof indicators where, even before an artist is going to be ready for a record label deal or to work with someone like yourself, they've already proven themselves to the market in some sense because they've built a following. I guess two questions that I have for you. One—

Rene: Sure.

Michael: What do you feel is the right time, or who's the right artist who actually should be coming to you, and what level do they need to be at, and why do you think that they should come to you at that point? Maybe we start there.

Rene: Sure. I think the main thing for an artist, besides myself, just in general, is consistency with music and dropping tons of music and building your audience. That's the most important factor currently right now. Whether you are with someone like myself or anywhere, just build your audience and build your fan base, because that's something you can actually do. And it's not going to happen overnight. It's going to take time to develop. What's happening right now is that there's really not a lot of artist development happening. It's almost like you have to develop yourself to get to a certain level so someone would want to come and be like, "Hey, let's place a bet or a gamble on this artist, and let's invest in this artist," because we have the social proof, and we see the possibility of a long-term career, or that we can work closely with this specific artist and help develop them to get to that next level. Because we do see a lot of records go viral and things happen here and there, but they're very fleeting sometimes. So I feel like, as an artist, you really have to develop your audience and stick with it. It just can't be social. You've got to be able to tour, you've got to be able to do real things in real life, get out on the road and sell tickets, because that's where you are going to make most of your capital, your cash. I think that's what's missing right now, in my perspective, in hindsight, my experience of what I've had—working, like I said, with the Pharrells, the Timbalands as producers and what they've done for artists, and not only managing acts and having to help develop LMFAO to the point where will.i.am called and was like, "Hey, I want you to come to Interscope with me," and then the work that we did within the label. Because just because you're at a label doesn't mean you're not also competing with the market. You're also competing in-house for attention as well. And you have a lot of young artists who are very successful on their own, but you hit a certain point in time where you need a partner that can help take you to that next level or help elevate your potential to become a bigger artist. Whether you want to be a superstar or you want to be this mid-tier artist that tours a lot, or whatever your goal is, you have to have your tribe that helps develop you and has the connections and experience to help you navigate the possibility of where your career can go, pretty much.

Michael: Good stuff. That's super helpful. And I think the big question that came up when you shared that—because what I'm hearing you say is that, first and foremost, it's extremely important to focus on building your audience on your own and building that relationship to a point where ideally it's not just a surface-level connection where you can get a bunch of views just because you know how to hack the algorithm, but you're actually building a real connection and people that come out.

Rene: Exactly. I’m going to use the old terminology—like I brought up radio—there was a thing called a turntable hit. People would just love that one song. They know that one song, but they don't know who the artist is. And a lot of that happens too, as well, right now. Everybody knows a song from TikTok. Like my son, I play a record for him, and he’s like, "Yeah, that's a TikTok song." I'm like, "So what does that mean?" "Oh, it's just a TikTok song. Everybody knows it because it's TikTok." Like, "Do you listen to the artist?" "No, I'm listening to X, Y, Z," or this, or that. 

Michael: Yeah, that definitely makes sense. So there's a big difference between a flash in the pan—someone listening to the song because it's entertaining—without having that real connection to the artist and the brand and the relationship.

Rene: And there are lots of artists who've had those moments, those viral moments, who've been able to transfer over to—it's not just about that one specific song. They made it about them. Like Post Malone. "White Iverson" was huge when it first came out on SoundCloud and it really was everywhere. But look at where Post is at right now. There are certain—but once again, that was under the tutelage of a major label who knew what to do with an artist like himself and take them to the next stage. So I feel like there's a lot of opportunity for talent now, but some of them are thinking it's like, "Oh, I'm going to be hot forever and I don't have to do X, Y, Z," and I'm like, "Okay. Once your song cools off, we'll see how really hot you are. Do you have another one, and another one, and another one?" Like DJ Khaled said, "Another one," and another one, and another one. Right? Because basically, as an artist, you're up at bat every song. It's always about the next record. If your career is going to continue, you've got to have the progress, the hits. And yeah, of course, you're going to miss a couple, strike out. You might strike out, you might have to come back really quick with another one. All of that is part of the process of developing as an artist who's going to have an actual real career and longevity in this business.

Michael: It's super interesting. A couple things that come up from what you just shared is how important progress is. And when you talk about the next one and having something coming out, you probably know this better than most, but it seems like even for people that—most of us listening to this right now as artists—would dream of having a hit song or dream of having a few songs that were hits. But then if you aren't making progress, if you kind of peaked there and then it has gone down, then the experience of that can actually be really challenging in a way that is hard to relate with if we haven't had those peak experiences yet. And so it seems like what you're saying is that you have to have consistency.

Rene: No, you have to have consistency. An artist that I signed, The Underachievers—they're currently on SLANG right now, but they were signed to me previously. They constantly put out music, built their fan base. They toured. They had no records on radio, no records on—but they had their audience, and they literally put out their projects, sell their merch, tour, do their thing. Developing your audience is really key. And communicating with them and pulling them in. That's the key for any artist. The reason why you see all these big acts get on stage and thank their fans—the first person they thank is their fans, their audience, and everybody else is after: the manager, everyone else, right, whoever. But they know who's the most important: their audience. And that's the key—building your audience. And that can happen in many different ways. That's the great thing. It can happen many different ways.

Michael: Awesome. So, one thing I want to zoom back to a little bit was something you mentioned earlier around partnerships and how really, at this point, the first step is to build a relationship and build an audience and a community. And at a certain point you might find you’re hitting a plateau or a limit where you really need a partner. You really need the right partner that's going to help you reach the next level. And maybe it's a major record label. And I think one of the questions that comes up—

Rene: It might be a distributor. A distributor that uses playlist pitching, the basics. Or you might need more capital or more money to invest in your marketing strategy, and so on and so forth.

Michael: Got it. Yeah. So the partner depends on where you're at, what your needs are right now.

Rene: What stage you're—

Michael: The question that I have is around knowing who the right partner is and choosing the right partner and entering that partnership. Obviously there are many cases where it may be the most important decision you can make is your partner in different types of things too, like your partnership in life—who you marry—that is a huge decision that changes so much. Probably the same thing applies to your partner in business and the people that you meet. And so, for someone like yourself who's done so many partnerships and probably seen many that are very successful partnerships and probably seen many where it wasn't necessarily the right partnership, I'm curious what you would recommend for artists who—hypothetically, let's say that they're at this stage where they've built some really impressive results on their own independently and now they're actually being courted by different record labels—how would you recommend they think about choosing the right partner for them?

Rene: Well, I think that in terms of the right partner, first of all, you definitely should meet them face to face. One. I mean, of course you're going to do the Zoom and the FaceTime, but if they're really into you, they'll come and see you or fly you up or get you where you need to go. I think you should look at it in terms of what you need as an artist, or what your team needs. If you have a manager or you have a team that works with you, what can that company—that distributor or label—do, or can they plus up what you can do? Or in some cases it might be like, "Hey, we want to remain independent. We're just looking for additional marketing dollars," and so on. In my situation, there are some acts I'm like, "Hey, look, I love what you're doing. Let's keep what you're doing, and we're just going to back you. Everything you're doing is organic. I don't want to change anything." And then there are some acts where it's like, "Hey, we love what you're doing, but we feel like you could have some better writing on these songs," or, "I think your pen game is really good, but I think you can get to the next level. Maybe we might set up a couple of sessions with a writing team or a producer." Because at the end of the day, what we're trying to make is really great music and great records, because that's what travels. At the end of the day, if the songs are really good—and the A&R process is important to this whole thing as well. There are a lot of different opportunities. Some people just might be for the cash. Some people might be for the infrastructure of what they need at that point in time, depending on what level you're at as an artist. So it's kind of bespoke a little bit, but you'll know who's really serious and who wants to get with you by how they approach you.

Michael: Awesome. Yeah, so it sounds like what you're saying is that it really depends on your situation and where you're at and the stage and who would be the best to fill that gap—whether that's funding or certain infrastructure.

Rene: Infrastructure, services, resources. It varies.

Michael: Got it. Okay. And often you definitely recommend that you actually meet with them and get to know them ideally in person, face to face, in order to actually—

Rene: I think a face to face is good. Zoom's great. Perfect. You get to know people. But any artist I really want to actively pursue myself, either I'm having them come up because I'm actually going to invest in their career and I need to understand who this person is. I need to understand—spend some time with that artist—because we're going to make an investment, whether it's from a distribution standpoint or a direct signing to the label. That's how I look at things.

Michael: Cool. When you have someone that's there in person and you're seeing if it's a good fit for a partnership or an investment, I'm curious if there are any red flags that you look out for that you're like, "Ooh, that's a big red flag," or if there are any things that you, in particular, look for that give you an indication that, "Yep, I think there's something here."

Rene: I like to see how collaborative they are on ideas or taking feedback, or if they have a very strong creative opinion. And there's nothing wrong with any of those. Like I said, it depends on the artist and what they're looking to achieve. A red flag for me is when an artist doesn't really have an idea of who they are as an artist. They don't have a goal in mind. I like talent that's really focused and really driven on the approach of how they make their music and the way they want to see their career, the way they want to see their image, because I think brand building is the most important part of all this at the end of the day, because you basically are building a brand as an artist for your audience to spend time and lean into. 

Michael: That makes a lot of sense. Yeah. So knowing that brand is the most important thing that you can have, and this is what's going to attract the audience, for you, one of the most important things that they need to have is clarity on what their brand is and who they are and what their vision and their goals are. Because if they don't have that, then they're kind of missing that essence, the thing that's the most important part. Okay. That's a great segue. And actually this—

Rene: This actually takes time. This is part of the artist development process, and sometimes acts need a couple of years. They need to go through what they need to go through to get to that point. Sometimes it's a natural process. It's like you don't just jump on a bike and ride off. You’ve got to get on there, fall, figure it out, keep it going. You don't just walk into a studio and make one song and then two songs. No. This is a long-term investment in terms of your career and who you are and giving it your strongest and best shot.

Michael: That makes a lot of sense. And what it reminds me of is one of my favorite analogies as it relates to brand building or artist identity: it's like you're starting with a big block of ice and you can chip away at it, and the design that you chip away at is ultimately this beautiful thing. But it's always there. It's been there the whole time. It's just a matter of how you chip away at it and create it. And so it sounds like what you're saying is that it might take some time. If you have a big block of ice, you have to discover who you are, and it's okay to iterate, and you might chop off too big of a chunk sometimes, and you're like, "Oh, nope, that wasn't right." Then you can discover what it is that you want to communicate.

Rene: I mean, let's use some real examples. Rowan Chapel, right? She's huge. She was signed. She was let go, went through that process. She developed who she was, and look at her now. So there's always that process of what you have to go through and develop to become. The main thing is it does take time, and sometimes you don't get where you want to get to. It's just a fact and reality with anything. It's almost like sports. My son plays AAU ball, plays basketball. He's 14. Of course he has the dream to go to the league, right? But hey, let's figure out—let's get you through high school first, and then get you D1, and then we'll see what happens after that. 

Michael: The steps of the ascension.

Rene: The ascension. Exactly. It's the build. It's like an artist. Okay, great. Let's get your first record going. Let's see where that takes us. Okay, and we've got to get another one, and another one, and another one. It's a developmental process.

Michael: That makes a lot of sense. So what that leads me to is, knowing that the most important part is brand building and discovering that over time and building an audience, and the fact that right now the A&R part has changed—it's different, where artists have to discover that on their own in many cases.

Rene: Yeah.

Michael: What would you recommend for an artist who's in that early stage and they want to develop their brand, and they're willing to invest the time to figure it out and do it right, but they're kind of in that early A&R stage where they have to do more of it on their own? I'm curious what your advice would be for someone at that stage, knowing that they might not get that same level of A&R service that they used to, and they have to figure that out on their own. 

Rene: That's the great thing about what's going on right now. Before, everybody wanted to get signed to these labels—A&R finds and discovers the talent. It's at a point in time where you just need to go in the studio and keep spitting out music and taking shots at the basket, basically, and create, create, create. The more you create, the more skilled you become. And don't be afraid to fail. I just saw something that Tyler, the Creator said the other day. He's like, "You’ve got all these artists, and they're so precious with their music." Tyler just had a huge record, and he came back so quickly. I was watching it on Instagram, and he was like, "Everybody's being precious with the music. No. Put the music out. Feed your audience." Look, he's huge. He's at the top of the food chain. He had a hit album last year. He didn't have to come back so quickly—came back with new records. Nine or ten records, I think it was. It wasn't even anything crazy, and he fed his audience. Do I love every single record on there? I think it's a great project. I think the project prior was even bigger—he spent a little bit more time—but he's feeding his audience, and he just came with a project. He's not being precious with it. And like I said, I just saw him in an interview. He talked about how you have all these artists being precious with the music. Then it builds anxiety. He's like, "This is why we don't have a Dr. Dre album." That's exactly what he said. You know, it's never perfect enough. It's never this. It's never that. You have to put yourself out there. So if you're a new artist, put yourself out there. You'll find your audience, even if it's three people. You'll find your audience. 

Michael: That's great advice. To bring it back to basketball—since your son is playing basketball and you mentioned shooting your shot earlier—what that makes me think of is, it sounds like what you're saying is what you want to avoid is being too precious with your shots, where it's almost like you're at the free-throw line, you're grabbing the ball, and then you're just waiting for the perfect moment to shoot it, and you're planning your moment to shoot the ball. At a certain point, you just gotta shoot it and see where it lands. And it might not go in, but it's better to be consistent, to keep coming back to the free-throw line and keep shooting it. You learn. How about this—

Rene: I'm going to give you this. Most artists are self-distributing when they're new artists. You can put up as much as you want. You can take it down as quick as you want, and no one knows it's there.

Michael: Right. That's interesting too.

Rene: Put it up, pull it down, got better, put the new stuff up. Something starts happening with it. The great thing about this—there's no one written rule of how it works anymore. It changes so fast. Before there was this roadmap of how it happens. No. Just go make your music, pop it off, build your community. If there's a new sound, a trend of music that's happening and you're part of it, that's even better, because you're part of an underground culture that's going to come above ground at some point in time. 

Michael: Makes sense. So what I'm hearing you say is that there are some fundamentals that are slow to change—the things that have always been important, like having a community and building your audience and building that relationship with them—but how you do it and the tools have changed dramatically. Now you have streaming where you can release your music immediately. You have social media. You have different ways that are probably going to be different five or ten years from now. But the core—community, building relationships—isn't necessarily going to change. So that's the key thing.

Rene: You want to develop your audience. And for someone like myself, artists are like, "I'm the next—" I'm like, "Go ahead. Make yourself the next." The opportunity is there now. Previously the opportunity was a lot slimmer. And then also, the economics are in your favor too. That's the key.

Michael: And when you say the economics are in your favor, what do you mean by that exactly?

Rene: If you have it going and it's hot and buzzing—people are knocking on the door—you have better economics in terms of what you can ask for or what type of deal you can get, or play it differently.

Michael: Cool. This is great. It's rare to be able to connect with someone like yourself who is really at the heart of the launch of many household names, and also has been around long enough that you've been able to see patterns behind what works and also how much it's changed. And I know that you are a very busy person, so I appreciate you coming on here to pay it forward and share some of the lessons that you've learned with our community. And Rene, curious for anyone that is here right now who would like to connect more, learn about what you're doing, or if there's someone here that has built an impressive audience and they think they're at the right point where it actually makes sense to find a partner like yourself—or someone else that can help them reach the next level—what would be the best place for them to go to connect more?

Rene: Hit me on IG if you want. How about that—make it real—because I'm constantly looking for new music, new artists. So you can go to Rene on Instagram, or SLANG Music on Instagram. I think that's probably the best way and the easiest way. 

Michael: Alright, fantastic. And just to clarify too, who would be the best kind of ideal fit for someone like that? Could you share, in your mind, who’s the ideal candidate or ideal artist in terms of what stage they're at that you think would actually be a good fit for a partnership?

Rene: Right now we're really looking at building our distribution platform, so artists who are looking for distribution that are up and coming at various levels. I think that's where our main focus is right now. And then from there we will filter out what we think are the next-level investments. So we'll go into a distribution deal with them first, help give them support doing that, and then based upon their performance or the metrics of what's happening, we might want to upstream them to our label. There are various opportunities like that.

Michael: Cool. Awesome. Well, Rene, it's been great connecting. We'll put all the links in the show notes for easy access, and appreciate you being on the podcast today.

Rene: Thank you. No problem.