What made you want to get started in the music industry?
I used to be a DJ, just like most I started at as DJ in college and then that transitioned into radio. And then I transitioned into the radio world and that’s when I caught my first career so I was on the radio side of the business of a DJ of a jock as a permanent director. Then I transitioned into my second career which was in the music industry doing street marketing, lifestyle marketing and doing radio promo with that turning into marketing for artists. And then I started transitioning into the digital space. But to wrap it all up, when I was in college computer science was my focus. So I always has a digital background or a computer background. Thus I’ve always wanted to connect music with digital marketing.

So you worked at a lot of radio stations right? You worked in St. Louis at one point, you were all over the country. What’s the radio business like when you’re up and coming, trying to make your name?
I think it’s different now compared to when I was coming up. I mean obviously at the end of the day, it always translates to as part of it as having the focus to be in radio. I think that means you being committed to the business, being committed to the art. I think radio is an art, but I think most people look at it is like jocks on the radio just having fun, but there is an art to connecting with people who are listening to you as a jock. And that applies to even a DJ. You know, good DJs want to connect with their audience on the dance floor. So a good jock is one who connects with the listener who is listening to him. And then obviously I went into management and as a programmer it’s an art to connect all of it because you’re overseeing the DJ, you’re overseeing the on-air personality or both. And then being able to translate the lifestyle of a radio station to the consumer, and that’s what makes a great radio station––a radio station that actually has a lifestyle.

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Why do you think people find it so difficult to find the art in the business side of things?
I think it’s a combination of chains in the business. That’s why I’m on this side of the business. I think that, you know, radio is still an important facet of life in regards to people. You can just turn on the radio and it’s there and it works. But then there’s so many other ways that you can discover music and lifestyle so you know, you can stream from Pandora, from Spotify, from your blog sites, i.e. Al Lindstrom. You know, you come to the site and there’s something cool there you can just find it there. So I think there’s a lot of new distractions.

And then I think that, personally in my opinion which I don’t mind saying is, I think that a lot of people like to go to the radio––well I think there are still a few, I mean Clear Channel’s doing a good job, or a better job––but no one’s connecting the new lifestyle with the old lifestyle. A lot of radio stations are still doing a lot of the same things they were doing ten years ago. They haven’t really transitioned to listeners, especially the young demo, how listeners are discovering music and are wanting to discover music. So I think that’s just, you know, there’s lack of knowledge and a lack of openness on a lot radio stations––to break open the box, to try something different. That’s what’s happened. Radio’s pretty much been the same––it’s not changing and no one has changed the format and how it’s presented to listeners.

Is that what intrigued you about Vevo?
Well initially, for me, I went to Vevo before Vevo was created. So I was a part of a digital group within Universal Music Group called Global Digital Initiatives. And so the business model of Vevo was built upon that business model. And what we did was we were within Universal Music Group that controlled the advertising for all the websites for the labels. So that business model is what was transitioned into Vevo. So, without getting into the details, I was part of a team that gave birth to Vevo. I mean, my claim to fame is that I bought Vevo.com, the domain name. That’s how far back I go back with Vevo.

Did you go on GoDaddy.com and buy it?
(Laughs) That’s funny. No, it’s actually what we called squatters. Someone actually owned the domain name, but he wasn’t doing anything with it so we had to negotiate with this gentleman to kind of get a fair price for what it was, even though we didn’t know what it was and we didn’t realize how big it would be. But that’s kind of the history of Vevo.com and how it came to be.

Vevo kind of had a rough start in a lot of people’s eyes. You want to talk about that a little bit?
It was a predicted rough start. You have to understand that, you know, that when we launched, we launched a partnership with YouTube. Most people think that Vevo is YouTube, and that’s not true. Vevo is actually a company that gives YouTube the videos from our content license source who are the music labels. And so it was brought because there was a way that people needed videos, i.e. without commercials and they could just upload it to their channels and there was always thousands of versions of the video. And you know, the minus is that it took the control out of a lot of users, but the plus is we offer an HD quality version of the video to the user. And we know it’s shaky, we know it’s going to be that for the first two years because you’re talking about changing the mindset of something that people were used to and it felt like that freedom was taken away. But at the end of the day, we knew that was going to be the process for the first two years. So the first two years was basically was getting people used to it, which like I said would happen––we’re just going to have to get people used to it. Then the second thing for Vevo was to get, you know, engagement from the artist and getting them to understand this and getting a lot of artists’ mangers to understand this. So that was another process. And now I think we have a process where, you know, Vevo is letting people know that Vevo exists. But I think the branding of Vevo and the lifestyle of Vevo is, not the final chapter, but an important chapter that we’re entering. So having people understand that Vevo is a lifestyle across the board.

And you’re doing a lot more original content with Vevo. You’ll see stuff like all the Kendrick Lamar interviews and things like that.
Well ironically, when we initially launched Vevo the idea was to have labels to just deliver original content, and then internally we figured out that we could go further by creating our own original content with labels and artists and mangers. So, you know, we started with shows like the “GO Show,” which is one of our most popular shows, where there’s a performance from an artist somewhere in a specific city and there’s usually some reasoning behind it. So you know we started with Kid Cudi, who’s probably one of our most viewed “Go Show” with like 14 or 15 million views, followed by plethoras of other artists. So when you have “Go Shows” you have a lot of Vevo monuments. So we’re finding that those are our avocations to the Vevo brand. And obviously a lot of advertisements like having partnerships with those types of shows.

Vevo doesn’t have a deal with all of the majors right? It’s only through Universal right now?
Actually, we have a deal with everyone across the board except one music group. One music group has decided on a different business style. I mean we’re always having conversations with them in regards to what the future entails. But we have deals with Universal Music Group, with EMI, Sony Music Group, and there’s a bunch of independent groups. There are a few small individual tales which we’re proud of, such as Daddy Yankee. We have a director with Daddy Yankee. His deals are separate because every time he does deal he does a separate deal with the label in regards to his album releases. But he prefers us for video distribution.

Do you foresee this getting to a point where these types of streaming things could be bigger than just web based or mobile phone based? Kind of like the new radio or the new television.
Well it’s already happening. There’s recent studies showing that what the younger demo was looking for was radio and now it’s YouTube. I think there’s about to be, in the next two to three years, especially with the increase of people who have smartphones, with Vevo for example, we have an Xbox pack where you turn on your Xbox and there are your videos. The overall arching idea for Vevo or are overall arching accomplishments are being wherever the fan is. So if the fan wants to watch the video from the phone, we’re there. If you want to watch it on Xbox, we’re there. If you want to watch it on your TV or anything. So you’re not locked down by any particular device. So that’s the overall concept that we’re going to. I think that that’s where it’s going.

It’s amazing what you guys are doing. How many page views do you guys get?
It’s funny. From a site perspective, you know, what’s important for Vevo is less about page views and more about streams. So as a platform we’re actually streaming something like 3.2 billion videos a month across the platform. You’re talking about, just in the U.S., to put it in a global perspective, is 229 million. So during any given day, Vevo has access to something like 20 million people a day.

Vevo is not just Vevo.com because we tend to speak of Vevo as just Vevo. So you know we’re Vevo on Xbox, we’re Vevo on mobile, we’re Vevo on YouTube. We have agreements with MTV, Yahoo. Those are some of the things that I try to remind people. And, like I said, we’re getting to a place where the artists are kind of more engaged.

Vevo is growing big––we’re trying to become more of a lifestyle brand. And I’m having more conversations with managers, or entities I should say, and the big thing is that we’re an emerging platform. And the cool thing about is it’s not just linear where there’s only one way to promote something. We have multiple ways to do so. And on the flip side, people want something they can look at. So we can pair up wherever it is. And there’s ways to reach to people who watch on certain things so that they can also see them on other things.