We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Will Tenney a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Will, thanks for joining us today. It’s easy to look at a business or industry as an outsider and assume it’s super profitable – but we’ve seen over and over again in our conversations with folks that most industries have factors that make profitability a challenge. What’s the biggest challenge to profitability in your industry?
It’s easy to look at a business from the outside and assume it’s profitable. This is particularly true in the music industry. Everybody works overtime to seem profitable, but very few are. This goes for artists and industry pros alike. Being “big” doesn’t necessarily mean being rich.
There was a (once) popular song by the Texas alternative band, Bowling For Soup, that snarled: “It’s stupid, contagious, to be broke, and famous.” And it’s this very disconnect they were singing about. You can listen to that song here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ajq4Ek-jChA&t=32s.
To answer your question directly: one of the profitability challenges we face today as artists and industry professionals is around the monetization of recorded music. The revenue generated by recorded music is usually disproportionately outweighed by marketing spends. And while marketing spends aren’t required, they do fund important promotional levers that can be critical to an artist’s story. So recorded music is now often seen as a tool used to sell merchandise and concert tickets.
We’re left with a choice: relevance or profitability? At various points, you need a bit of both.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I’ve worn many hats over the course of my career, but today I have a business called SunPop that offers artist management, financing, and label services. My favorite thing about our team is that every time it seems impossible, we find a way to make this crazy “music business” thing work. We’ve been navigating industry ups and downs for decades, and we pass that experience on to our clients.
If you have an appetite for the modern music business in any capacity (as an indie musician, major label priority, industry professional, or otherwise), there’s a good chance we can help.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
Growing up I arrogantly thought that everyone liked what I liked, so I doubled down on signing, funding, and marketing those types of artists. It was years before I learned that my personal preferences were actually particularly unpopular. Nowadays I get great satisfaction out of analyzing the market, and predicting what the general public might want to listen to – and my personal tastes are a helpful compass.
Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?
The Operator, Hit Men, Soundtrack of My Life, Drinking With Strangers, The Hard Thing About Hard Things, Where Are Your Boys Tonight?
Contact Info:
- Website: https://sunpopmusic.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/callme_will/
- Facebook: N/A
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/william-tenney/
- Twitter: N/A
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ajq4Ek-jChA&t=32s
- Yelp: N/A
- Soundcloud: N/A
Image Credits
Photo 1 – Me with Al Bouchard of Blue Oyster Cult at Gov Ball 2024
Photo 2 – Quarters Of Change at Shaky Knees Festival 2024
Photo 3 – MAX and I at his gold record ceremony for “Lights Down Low”
Photo 4 – Me at Madison Square Garden when Dylan Rockoff opened for Bon Jovi