Independent Music Success: Distribution, Marketing & Ownership

Jakob Wredstrøm

We go.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Okay man, we'll jump right into it. You ready?

Jesse Flores/Intercept Music

I'm ready.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Hey guys and welcome back to the Sound Connections Podcast. Today we have Jesse Forsen in studio.

Jesse Flores/Intercept Music

Thank you, Jacob. Thanks for having me. Glad to be here.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Jesse, today I'm taking the opportunity to sort of help myself 15 years ago and really try to understand what it actually takes to break as a new independent artist in today's world of music distribution, marketing, attention. Obviously this has changed over a while and today we're gonna be very practical about how you might go about this. And Jesse, you've broken careers for decades, been incredibly influential, but. Jesse, for the people who don't know you, maybe you can describe who are you and what you do.

Jesse Flores/Intercept Music

Yeah, I'm Jesse Flores. Head of artist and label partnerships at Intercept Music, which is a global music distributor for the independent artist and label community. We really pride ourselves on being on the forefront of music, technology, and customer service. We've been in business since around 2018, and we're about to have a great year in 2026, so it's definitely an exciting time to be independent.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Okay, so let's start there, being independent. Just to set the scene, I'll be using this example a tiny bit throughout the interview. I used to be an artist. I've removed all the music, guys, so don't go look for it. But I always do this of semi-serious, I was producer and I produced my music myself. I wrote it myself, I really didn't know anyone in music. So I released music, but it ended up with doing like, I believe it's... for three EPs and two albums. Like it was serious enough to that level and also, you know, seriously produced and distributed. But I never really cracked the code of how to build an audience, to be honest. Like I've always been a hustler. I, you know, I know how to sell, but obviously 15 years ago I was limited what tools you had and knowledge you had in order to do these things. So I'm trying to use... you know, 15 year old, well, 18 year old Jacob as an example of how am I do today, practically speaking. So Jesse, if you were to imagine me now as a Beverem producer writing my own songs, when it's released my music, how would you go about it today? What's the most sound way to think about your music and getting out there to maybe someday be successful?

Jesse Flores/Intercept Music

Yeah, well I definitely think the first thing you can do is shop around and just find the right distributor. There's so many options nowadays. For an independent artist at any level. You can choose to do it yourself or you can find a partner like Intercept Music or like Avergent Music or The Orchard. Companies that offer more than just traditional, deliver your content from A to B. You can find out what other artists they have on the platform that could potentially be right there alongside you on the roster. You can see where they deliver music to, who they have partnerships with, who they pitch to, services they provide on the marketing side of things. So that's the one thing you should do is kind of pick and choose. It's like, you know, say you want to join a new bank, same thing. You're to vet everything out, see what they kind of offer, what their rates are, and pick the right opportunity for you. You know, ideally you want to be at a place where you can have creative control. You know, you're basically being charged a distribution fee, but everything else is pretty much on you as far as having total ownership of the masters and having creative control when it comes to, you know, picking and what you want to release, when you want to release it, and just having that right distributor that's be there, ideally, as a strategic growth partner, like Intercept, that can help you along the way with release strategy, marketing suggestions, so on and so forth.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Because let's break that down. Again, assuming that, you know, I'm pretty talented, you know, let's say I was that 15 years ago, and I obviously don't really know anyone. And I don't know where to start, but I know that music needs to go out there and I need to somehow advertise it and market it. Like, how do you do that? Like, what are the core elements you need to know about?

Jesse Flores/Intercept Music

So ideally what you want to do is obviously like I said find the right distributor and when you do that even if it's like a Tunecore or Distro Kid You know, they have relationships with all the important DSPs. So this is the Spotify's, the YouTube's, the Apple Music's of the world. And a lot of times they have best practices. So even if you're just starting out and you never released any music before, you can, you know, obviously upload your music and then pick and choose where it needs to go, what territories you want it to be in. Ideally, you want it to be worldwide. And ideally you want it to go to all the different DSPs out there, the digital service providers, so anyone can access it. And when you do that, You know what you want to do is look at these best practices and just kind of say okay I need to build up my profile or even set it up at Apple music at Spotify even though I have zero followers You know I don't have any subscribers on YouTube. This is my first content. I'm a piece of content I'm releasing you know I want to make sure I do it the right way so if you follow these guidelines that a lot of these distributors have including intercept You know you can really start off on the right foot and start developing that audience and hopefully grow it with each success of release that you put out

Jakob Wredstrøm

And is that setting up your profile right and all that kind of stuff so there's something to interact with? One of the things, especially Spotify is big on this, is the pitching to the editorials. Is that something that actually works at scale? What's your experience with this?

Jesse Flores/Intercept Music

It does. Mean for anything you've released, definitely want to use the Spotify pitch tool. It doesn't mean that you're going to get a playlist right away, but you got to be consistent with it. Nothing in this business really happens overnight. You got to work. It's going to take a while. You got to be relentless and you just got to be determined to get to certain points and set realistic goals for yourself. You're not going to get 100,000 followers overnight, but maybe if you're starting out at zero, okay, give me a couple months to get to 100 followers by putting out a single or two. That kind of thing. Just build realistic goals with your distributor and help them. That'll help you basically achieve what you want to and grow your career the right way.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Because one of the things that is sort of knowledge that's passed around on the internet is the way how to, let's go, activate algorithms. So, you know, a big part of these platforms is that they suggest music to listeners. And obviously you want your music to be presented to people. Obviously the most simple thing is someone searches your music and they listen to it. But obviously that doesn't scale very well. Like there's a big part of discovery and hopefully fans converting later. That they first know that your music exists. And one of the things that we have, know, is public knowledge at least is that if you can organically or semi organically drive traffic to your content and have people interact with it, that's also what's gonna. Hopefully serve the algorithms with an interest of pushing it even more. And this is where, you know, marketing also comes into play. Like, what's your thought about exposing your music through paid marketing to people who either, you know, it could potentially be fans or a vicinity of your music to then drive this algorithmic push? Is that a thing or like, how do you think about these things?

Jesse Flores/Intercept Music

It definitely is. Mean, I definitely think that you should use some of that on your... key releases when you have a focus track or have an EP or an album, you want to target audiences, especially if you don't have one. And obviously your distributor can help out with that, with setting up your marketing plan and ad plan recommendations. But this is something that you do to see if there's traction on what you're putting out. If you target your music towards those fan bases, like audiences, even geographically in regions that you think will make the most sense, you got to see what hits and what sticks. You’ve got to look at the analytics on in the metrics on your dashboard and really pay close attention to it understand what it means And then kind of figure out okay, how do I use this data to figure out next steps? And you know for my next release you know if I'm getting some traction in Detroit and Chicago I want to make sure that I'm setting on my advertising those markets for my follow-up release To see if I can grow that and expound on that so all these type of things that you can use to augment You know what you're doing and really gain exposure outside of you know what you? done to this point are things that are necessary in order to really achieve growth the way you want to see it.

Jakob Wredstrøm

It's also, depending on how much you want to scale it, it's an expensive approach to potentially achieve growth. And you're of at the mercy of people who curate playlists or algorithms that push songs. How does that math add up? How do you think about the investment, long-term, short-term cost? What's the philosophy behind it, do suggest?

Jesse Flores/Intercept Music

It depends. Mean, because it depends on what kind of situation you're looking for. If you're a brand new artist, it is gonna be tough to get an advance or get a budget from your label distributor to help support your music. That's why in most cases you kind of want to... DIY it yourself, you know to get from point A to B You want to build at least some type of commercial fan base at the DSPs and a lot of us really look at Spotify We really look at YouTube just so you know quantify what kind of fan base is actually there and willing to support your releases going forward But if you're doing it yourself, you know, ideally maybe what you want to do is get a Publicist and a manager just to start building that team around you to kind of help get your name out there You want to get the basics done whether it's having a bio and having profile pics or publicity photos done, building that story, telling your story, getting some kind of publicity out there to kind of spread out to the masses what you're doing with your career and why you're doing this and what's the reason behind it and what this music really means to you and why it should resonate with your fans. So getting that budget to start is gonna be tough. You might have to put in your own money to start, but if you spend it wisely and do it the right way you're to see some results and labels and distributors are to start paying attention.

Jakob Wredstrøm

So what is an example of spending your money wisely? What would you say when it comes to the quality of the ads? Try to explain what that means.

Jesse Flores/Intercept Music

Yeah, so it's definitely booking ads, know, whether it's Spotify or definitely YouTube. If you have videos, I definitely recommend that if you're a new artist, you got to shoot a visual for it, an official music video and doing YouTube ads, I think is very important because that's where lot of music discovery happens, YouTube and TikTok. So YouTube ads, TikTok ads, just really trying to see if there's any type of, you know, engagement with what you're putting out there to see if it's worth it. It might be 500 here, 200 there, know, less than a thousand. of the knowledge doesn't have to be a big spend, but you got to see if what you're doing is really resonating and gaining traction unless you know if you really want to put more money behind it.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Because when you say less than a thousand, if you asked me 15 years ago if I had less than a thousand, I'd say no, but I have $50. How much do you actually need to effectively spend in order to have some sort of measurable outcome of that strategy?

Jesse Flores/Intercept Music

I definitely think if you want to roll out with a focus track with an EP or album, you've got to have, I'd say, at least $1,000 to spend, to be honest, if you're serious about it.

Jakob Wredstrøm

And what's like, you know, if you have it as an independent artist and you have a successful campaign where you spend a thousand, what would that potentially look like? Where would you see that have results?

Jesse Flores/Intercept Music

Yeah, so if I had thousand dollar budget, I would definitely spend maybe two to three hundred on a publicist. Maybe, depending on if you have a video, I'd say maybe... free 400 on YouTube ads and then the rest on like social media ads. Just to kind of get the word out there, just to kind of, you know, see if there's any type of, you know, anybody really gravitating to what you're doing musically. And after that, you can really, I think, see, you know, if there's any type of traction, see if there's something happening.

Jakob Wredstrøm

So basically what you're saying is you use these ads in order to discern whether or there's a reaction from the market. Let's say you have a positive or a negative reaction. What's the natural next steps to such an effort?

Jesse Flores/Intercept Music

I still think you need to be consistent. Need to keep putting out music. If you're serious about a music career and you want to make this your livelihood and obviously make some money off of it and take it to the next level, you got to be consistent and stay at it. You got to keep releasing content. Maybe you don't want to spend as much as you did before because you don't have it, but consistently releasing music and trying to gain a fan base. Live performances, if you're an artist that's performing, you got to get on some of these platforms where you can actually perform and see if you can get a fan base. There. Maybe it's not resonating on like Spotify or Apple Music yet, but maybe if you're on a platform where you can perform and you know get some traction there that might be the way to go. There's different ways to you know get different revenue streams out there. But yeah I think just giving up after one or two after not really seeing the results you want is not the way to go either.

Jakob Wredstrøm

I think one thing that's really important to for us is to understand that there is there is many different ways to become popular. The one thing is streaming services. Like, this is an older band, but it's not that old. So I work with a band where I've sort of been helping them on off like manager-ish style. And they have on a good month, maybe 10,000 monthly listeners, which is, know, in the age of streaming, really not that much. And they stream perhaps like half a million streams per year, which is not that much either. But they release a show and they sell a thousand tickets like this. So there is many different ways to be popular. There's many different ways to build up an audience. What do you believe is the most viable path to explore these different options? Do you see any artists where...

Jesse Flores/Intercept Music

Yeah.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Breaking live, breaking community is the best strategy to run streaming or like what do you see of trends happening?

Jesse Flores/Intercept Music

It varies. Definitely think that one thing that all artists should do, especially if they live in the United States, is network. Get out there and go to events and conferences, because if you're an artist, you want to sign to a performing rights organization like ASCAP, BMI, or CSEC. A lot of these companies have different events and conferences every year. So if you're an artist just studying art, you want to learn. So you want to go to these events, meet people. You never know who you're going to meet out there. Sit down and listen to the panels and network. See what's out there and see what you gravitate towards. Maybe it is live performance, maybe it is really focusing on creating content for social media, or maybe it's just creating content for all the DSPs out there musically. I mean, it's just a variety of ways that you can find out what makes sense for you in attending a lot of these events and getting out there and meeting people is definitely a plus and something that think all artists should do.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Talk about Intercept Music for a second, then you guys are focusing on the independent market and find that interesting enough to build something ambitious in that space. What is it about that space that makes it interesting enough for you guys to pursue it that fully?

Jesse Flores/Intercept Music

It's just an exciting time to be independent, you know. What we're doing is really providing a service for independent artists and labels. It's a passion of ours. We have a really great team around us of music and industry professionals on staff with experience at companies like UMG, EMI, Amazon Music, Ingru's, Virgin Music. And having that experience on the price list, we're lucky to have that personnel here at Intercept. And we want to serve our partners, whether it's an artist, whether it's a label, help them grow their business. Being a strategic growth partner. One of our mantras is rise above the noise. How can we help build an artist's audience and convert a casual listener into a follower and then into a super fan? When we're looking at Artist Insights and Analytics Dashboard, really interpreting what that is saying, and here's the data, here's what it means, here's what we recommend doing next. Also creating, I'm sorry, encouraging creative empowerment. So we tell our artists and label partners, you guys have to control creatively, let's help you devise that release strategy and provide you tools with to market your content. So providing marketing recommendations, ad plans, social media, and YouTube audits. All this can be done within our console actually. So we have dashboard that's second to none. So we felt there was a need out there for this type of company and we're there to serve our client base and help them take their careers to the next level.

Jakob Wredstrøm

What is it in your opinion that's so important about creative control and having that value that you keep versus selling it away? What is it that is so attractive for that?

Jesse Flores/Intercept Music

I mean, if you're an artist or a label, I mean, you definitely want to own your masters. You want to have the total rights ownership. You want to have creative control to make the decisions. It's just about finding that right partner that can help you augment what you're already doing. So gone are the days of the record labels where they're the gatekeepers and they have access to everything. It's the big machine and you got to go to them for everything. You can do everything yourself now. And a lot of times, major labels now are doing license deals where You know, they're not just signing an artist to a traditional record label where they're just getting royalty, you know The artist actually has ownership now, so there's this value in that and you know The reality is independence the way to go nowadays if you look at the yearly revenues, know I want to say like almost 50 % of all revenue generated in the music is coming from an independent label distributor, which is amazing, you know, so we wouldn't keep that trend going and You know there when it comes to having a premier partner when it comes to distribution. Intercept music is being mentioned along with the ADAs and the Orchards of the world.

Jakob Wredstrøm

So to play a tiny bit devil's advocate on that statement, even though I agree in the general sentiment, then the big part of being a part of the major label still or being signed to a label, not a DIY distribution is the help you can get in person by experienced personnel. And I believe like yourself that there's sort technology solutions that are close to that relationship, traditional relationship that can help you there. But there still misses this sort of human connection. There's an office I can go to that's an ANR I have. Like, you believe that has lost its validity or it's like a dynamic change? Like what happened there that sort of devalued from a macro perspective the way that you're talking about it?

Jesse Flores/Intercept Music

Yeah.

Jesse Flores/Intercept Music

That's a great question. Know, I think dealing with the pandemic, kind of... change the perception of the whole office situation when it comes to a major label that is different now because a lot of times we are working in front of computer. But at the same time, I'm hearing a lot of artists that are assigned to a label or a major distributor, they're having a hard time getting an email back or just getting a call back or just contacting somebody. That's why at our company, we really prioritize customer service. You got to be able to people within 24 hours. You've got to be there for them when they need you because a lot of times they're reaching out because they have an issue or a problem or a question. So having people in-house that not only have the professional experience from major companies but also realize the value of that white glove customer service and combining the two is I think one of the things that separates us from other companies out there. Being there when they need us.

Jakob Wredstrøm

So there's still this possibility for sort of a team to some degree. Yeah. And how does that sort of work? There some artists that sort of have, that has extra relevance in your platform and get like personal connections over time? Like how does that dynamic work for an artist that wants to work with Intercept?

Jesse Flores/Intercept Music

Absolutely.

Jesse Flores/Intercept Music

It works great. Mean, there's been transparency from day one. So, you know, once we start talking about a deal, we outline the services we provide and what can we actually do for them and with them. You know, that relationship is established from the beginning. And from that point on, it's just a matter of, you know, letting us know what's needed. You know, a lot of times we have label partners that just want to use us for our pipes and have everything else in house, which is fine. You know, we can work that way. Other times there's artists that, you know, really need the help. With their profiles and that white glove service and doing audits on their YouTube and other platforms where they need our help social media wise as well. And we do that for them. We have weekly calls with them if they need it. We stay away if they need us to as well and let them do their thing. Whatever works best. We want us to see them grow and whatever path we need to do to get to that point is what we do.

Jakob Wredstrøm

And what's the selection process of doing this? Can anyone apply? How do you get it onboarded into your system?

Jesse Flores/Intercept Music

Yeah, I mean they can reach out to us via our website, interceptmusic.com, or they can reach out to me directly. I'm available, my email is jesse.flores at interceptmusic.com. And we just have a conversation. No deal is too big or too small to discuss. Ideally, we would like to have an artist or label that has a commercial fan base, has content that's already out there available to stream or download. And we could figure out what deal terms to go with going forward. We customize our deals and there's no cookie cutter action going on here. You know, we customize our deals to what our client needs.

Jakob Wredstrøm

So this sort of hybrid model in between a distributor, a label, an agency, do you believe that's a sort of category that is growing and becoming a thing? Like, why do you see this moving? And obviously, were early movers in this space, but where's this heading from a macro perspective?

Jesse Flores/Intercept Music

I definitely think it's growing. Know, it's funny because when I was at EMI Music 20 years ago, we were on the forefront of providing third party distribution deals to independent artists. Know, majors weren't really doing it at the time. And you look at it now, and pretty much every major has an independent distributor or some type of incubator within their system, and it's not going anywhere. Obviously, independent music is on the rise, and it's just amazing to see what it's become over the past two decades. So I agree with you. It's definitely a thing that's going to continue to grow over the years and see a lot of success.

Jakob Wredstrøm

One of the differences that make you stand out for the orchards or Virgil music group is such as, as I understand it, you have a much more hands-on approach or at least more accessible. Like these independent distributors are still very large and really service a lot of companies. So getting that personal relationship and that actual help is... possible but you know less common. Like what's your positioning in that whole movement of well movement 15 years it's been like evident but that whole category of music distributors and agencies.

Jesse Flores/Intercept Music

Yeah, you know, I think we fit in right between that niche of like a distro kid in the orchard or a virgin music group where, you know, we can provide services for you. We provide a lot of tools and analytics within our dashboard that can help you. You know, we have AI incorporated within our dashboard. So say you're an artist and you, you know, don't have a publicist, but you need a bio or a press release for your next album or single. All that can be generated within a dashboard. We have a merge integration within our dashboard. Be a Shopify. We also can have the ability to, you know, advertising or social media promotion within the dashboard as well. So there's all these different tools that we're actively adding to our console to help artists that are independent, you know, take them to the next level, expose their music, you know, create awareness and just marketing in general. I think that helps us, you know, separate us from the rest. As I mentioned before, our staff, I think is amazing. You know, we have people with that label experience within our company and we're growing on a global level as well. So not only just US and Latin America but we're expanding to other territories as well. So all these things combined you know along with kind of focusing on what we want to you know do in the future, the very near future, which is lean more into sync and licensing, publishing, and also catalog acquisition. So those different areas of the business you know even though distribution is still our core business we're expanding into other areas which will increase our offering as well.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Interesting. So why does that sort of relate to your focus area of independent music? For example, buying catalogs. Where's the synergy between those types?

Jesse Flores/Intercept Music

Well, when it comes to buying catalogs, the seller is usually independent. They own the rights, they have the master rights, and they're just looking to either sell and get some money upfront, or maybe even license it off for a 10-year period and get the masters back. Whatever the need is, it's an opportunity for an independent rights owner to sell their catalog to a company that's going to help market and expand what they're already doing with their catalog. When we purchase a catalog, we're going to obviously add it for distribution rights, but also look for ways to enhance that catalog and grow it. It might be earning $100,000 per year over the last four or five years. Well, how do we get that to $200,000? It's a way of figuring out if it's the right fit and what we can do to really take it to the next level and make it beneficial for all parties involved.

Jakob Wredstrøm

So back to sort of the asked question of me 15 years ago, assuming I have a bit of budget and I get started, I promote my music and there's some sort of traction. Like what is the reasons for me to stay independent? I touch about this like 10 minutes ago when I asked these questions, but like, what do you believe are the biggest reasons if you want to get really into practical of staying independent, have creative control, and that's the path you take versus trying to look for the bigger deals where you might sign off a lot of what you own and have, but it's a different type of machinery.

Jesse Flores/Intercept Music

It's really about having that ownership and creative control. I those are the two main things that you want. You don't want have anybody telling you what to do, how to formulate your career, telling you what you need to invest in or what you need to pick as your right single or what sound you need to have, what image you need to have. You know, it really depends on what kind of artist you are. Know, if you're really strong about those things and feel like you need to have control over that, then independent is definitely the way to go.

Jakob Wredstrøm

And the ownership, you mentioned, for example, catalog acquisition. When you say ownership and creative control, how do you separate those? Is the ownership like the ownership of the income? Like what's the most important thing in that statement?

Jesse Flores/Intercept Music

Yeah, so the ownership is in reference to the... the ownership of the masters. So the ownership of the actual content you create. When you're independent, you can license that or you have the final say or sign off on what anybody is with that music. If you're signed to a major label and they have the ownership, then they make those decisions for you and you just get a piece of it. Also, obviously if you're independent and you have full ownership, then you get the lion's share of the royalties that come in, which is a huge plus because it's flipped when you're signed to a major label, you only get a small percentage.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Hmm. So obviously there's the higher risk of carrying this yourself perhaps, but then the return can also be better. Like one of the things about major labels and how they function, generally speaking, is that they take a lot of bets. So invest in a lot of cases, only three of them really pay back. So to some degree, the winners are the odds that they will bet on, in at least the pursuit or the pursuit of it. So if you want to use that math, it is inherently more risky to do the path yourself. Do still believe that's worth it at scale?

Jesse Flores/Intercept Music

I do think it's worth it if you're serious about it. You want to make this career and you're determined to really stick with it. If you believe in yourself and you, I think you have a good team around you too, that's another critical thing. Is having the right people around you that you trust and that believe in you as well, then the sky's the limit.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Amazing. Okay. What is it the thing that IntiCep sees as the future of music? Obviously you're pursuing a business model and you have a special segment you're focusing on, but beyond that, what is it you see that's happening in the industry that makes you take this decision to pursue this business and this industry and this segment? From a long, long perspective, what are you chasing or what do you think is happening?

Jesse Flores/Intercept Music

Think a lot of it has to do with desire for... all artists established or developing wanting to be independent and seeing the value of it, seeing the proof of concept out there that I can be independent, I can still be a big star, and I can do things the way I want it to do and have that type of success that I want. I think that's a big part of it and knowing that we're a service provider for them that can help them take them to that next level, them with that journey, and all of us can... can be successful and celebrate this a year from now. You know, when we have a deal and we sign it, we always tell them, you know, a year from now, you know, these are the goals we want to achieve. You know, ideally we want to be celebrating this, you know, 365 days from the minute you sign this contract, because our goal is to help you take your career to new heights. And ideally with what we can do, what you can do creatively and musically, this is definitely a possibility.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Jesse, thank you for your perspective. I think it's interesting to think about independence and I still sit, you know, left with somewhat of a skepticism to the risk versus the opportunity, but that's because I'm a math guy and I always think of statistics rather than actual individual cases. And that's how I always put my brain. But I do agree to the notion that if you take yourself seriously, if you believe in yourself, if you're here to be here for a while with a team that believes so as well, like that independence might really paid self back, it might not, but again the chances of if you succeed, then most likely you're gonna be quite happy by having that independence. So I think that's beautiful, I make sense, and I agree that this is where it's moving. One of the biggest comment is if I 15 years ago had the opportunity to understand what tools to use and how to actually use them, I would have done that. I was trying to set up... Facebook pixels, I don't know how long ago, maybe 12 years ago, and try to understand that whole thing, which obviously was super, super complicated. And I obviously learned a lot about that and that I've used in my professional career afterwards. But directly as an artist trying to use 50 hours to understand how to set up appetizing that I didn't really have a budget for anyways, is maybe not where you should and could use your energy when there's other ways to more proactively work within your career. So that makes sense for me. And I'm looking forward to a generation of creators and artists that maybe has the same business savviness that I had and still have and can, instead of using their whole time to dedicate themselves of how to actually do this, then do it naturally through what's available and focus on their music and has that as a natural part of what they do. Maybe one last question is, before we sort of end this interview,

Jesse Flores/Intercept Music

Mm-hmm.

Jakob Wredstrøm

What type of artist do you believe is going to win the independent race in the future? Like what are the personalities and capabilities that you believe will be the most important?

Jesse Flores/Intercept Music

That's a great question. You know, when I think of an artist that I would want to work with and I think that's going to be successful going forward, obviously they're super creative and talented and just have that natural... raw talent that you say, okay, they can sing, they can rap, there's no question about that. However, if they also have that business acumen, because that's what you really need to be successful going forward is knowing that this is a business, things are always constantly changing and evolving, and you need to learn and be a sponge and really look at all the trades every day and kind of read what's going on or go to these conferences that I mentioned before and just kind of being out there with the community as well, networking, knowing who else is out there. Know who's your competition. Being on top of that, having that team around you and constantly making sure that you know everyone is fully engaged on what the goals are that you said. Those are the ones that are gonna win. You know they gotta be business savvy as well as super creative and wanting to learn and be that sponge like I said. Just be open to realizing what this music industry is going for, what new platforms might come around, you know being involved with that and just saying yes more than no.

Jakob Wredstrøm

That makes sense. And, you know, I wish this was here when I was 18 and I did this because I did put in a real effort and honestly, that's what I wanted to do amongst other things, but I was really serious about it, but I didn't have the infrastructure around me to do so. And I think it's definitely not a sorrow today, but I believe that the outcome might've been different. Like I was talented, I was savvy, I did put in the time, but I didn't know anyone and I did everything myself. And at the end of the day, I... chase different pursuits, but I think that might have been different if I didn't have that many boundaries and that many hurdles. I actually do think that I would have my own path of being an artist, which today I'm happy that I didn't because I've had other interests and maybe that aligns more with my long-term vision, but you know, that would have been great for me that time. So I appreciate the industry changing like that. I appreciate you guys pursuing that opportunity because I would have been very happy to have that opportunity 15 years ago. Jesse, thank you for entertaining this time at different Sound Connections podcast episode where we went a bit more practical, a bit more asses centric that I usually do. But I do think it was an important clarification for me and hopefully also for listeners that might have the same questions.

Jesse Flores/Intercept Music

And thank you for having me. I had a great time. Really enjoyed it. Thank you so much, Jacob.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Thanks, Jesse. Great.