Dan Butler - The Rock in Rocketman
There are some great tips in here for anyone who wants to negotiate pretty much anything at all - and he also has great advice for people just starting out in the music industries and creative sector.
AI Transcription
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, film, music, deal, movie, big, lawyer, bob marley, business, work, catalogue, record, mtf, job, band, studio, years, project, elton john, easy
SPEAKERS
Dan Butler, Andrew Dubber
Andrew Dubber
Hi, I’m Dubber. I’m the director of Music Tech Fest, and this is the MTF podcast. We were at Expo north in Inverness last week. That’s Scotland’s leading Creative Industries conference featuring everything from traditional craft skills through to the latest 3d multimedia, crowdfunded, immersive, artificially intelligent, augmented blockchain, social content, filmmakers, musicians, Video game producers, media creators, innovators, animators, deal makers, and more from all over the world. It’s a pretty good place to be, if that’s your sort of thing. And if you’re listening to this, it probably is. MTF, Labs founder Michela Magas, was there to deliver a keynote about the Industry Commons, which puts the creative industries right at the centre of innovation across all industry sectors. And I was there to chat to a few people on stage and behind the scenes in that sort of environment. There’s no shortage of people I was very keen to take aside for a chat for the MTF podcast. And on that note, I’d like you to meet Dan Butler, Dan’s the lawyer that negotiates the deals and puts together the contracts that puts the really big music in the really big films. He’s Senior Vice President, business affairs and legal for music at Paramount Pictures, which is a pretty big deal. And if you’re picturing the kind of enormous cigar chomping schema you might see in the movies, who would sell his own grandparents and rip off the poor musicians with an impenetrable contract. Well think again. Big Shot lawyer, Hollywood studios, major label artists million dollar deals. genuinely nice guy heard a thought from Expo north in Inverness last week, his Dan Butler. Tell me how you describe what you do, because there’s very impressive title. What’s the job?
Dan Butler
Well, I used to be a real lawyer and now I’m a musical rug salesman. Basically. I am the head of business affairs and legal for Paramount Pictures music. And I arrange to make deals and prepare contracts for all the music that goes into the movies. So there’s composer deals, record company soundtrack album deals, Music Publishing deals, recording artists, songwriters, we hire new bands to cover old songs we hire bands to write new songs for specifically for films and television shows we have recently expanded our television division and have a bunch of programmes on a lot of the streaming video on demand platforms like Netflix and Amazon and Hulu and Apple TV. Way through also through traditional broadcast media. And we do a lot of Music Centre films lately. We just finished the elton john Rocket Man via pick which was a great project to work on and, and there will be cleanup. weeks to come here. I bet
Andrew Dubber
that but that’s feels like part of a trend. There’s there’s a thing going on at the moment, which isn’t I mean, I know Rocket Man is not strictly a biopic. It’s a musical but but there seems to be a real interest in putting together music based films at the moment. Is it just a coincidence at the moment is a few or is this a new thing? Well,
Dan Butler
it’s you know, the Queen Bohemian Rhapsody obviously made so much money that everybody else wants to get him
Andrew Dubber
and, but but all of these things are sort of happening simultaneous. It’s not like one happen. And they went Oh, that’s a good idea. Let’s do another one.
Dan Butler
Well, and and I think the star is born. You know, lala land really helped rekindle interest in musicals. And the greatest showmen did really well. So you know, people see what’s working and what people are going to see and try to catch that wave and get on it. And there’s so many great musical stories. We’re working on the Bob Marley Biopic, which I would be really excited to see that. Yeah. I’m sure was at another Studio 20 some odd years ago, when we were trying to make that movie then and it didn’t happen. But this time, we’re a little further along. And I’m hoping that that comes together, because that would be Bob Marley was a big part of my college years. And,
Andrew Dubber
and I would with everything that goes along with that, or is that Oh, absolutely, absolutely. Okay, fantastic. I think
Dan Butler
I listened to Babylon by Bus, all four sides on vinyl, pretty much every day for the year I turned 18. So that was a big influence. I’m looking
Andrew Dubber
forward to seeing that there. So I guess that’s, that’s sort of the role is as you’re working on projects that are, you know, a year 18 months, two years ahead and putting the deals together. So are you sort of under some sort of NDA, you’re not allowed to talk about the projects that are coming up? Well, this is putting you know, or is that not really considered
Dan Butler
if things you know, there’s a lot of things that are probably knowledge when they when they hit the trades and they’ve been announced, it’s okay to talk about and sometimes they don’t happen, you know, things fizzle and, you know, the big actor could be lured away to another project and things get postponed sometimes and directors fall out or you know, it It’s a very difficult process to get a movie made.
Andrew Dubber
And negotiating all of the music that sounds like yesterday is a really good example. That’s the Beatles catalogue. That’s not going to be an easy negotiation Surely, well, and
Dan Butler
obviously, you know, Olivia Harrison and Paul McCartney, and Yoko and Ringo Starr all wanted that movie to happen. rasa they were behind it and working title films, you know, has a relationship with Harrison estate. And so that was and it was such a labour of love for, you know, there was such a wonderful spirit of the importance of The Beatles to pop culture and everything else that the premise of the movie was such an easy sale, I think it was was a really great, I enjoyed that film a lot. That was fun, right and Rocket Man which you’re involved with, obviously, driven largely by himself, where he produced the movie and, and it was a interesting thing, because he really wanted it to be awards and all portrayal and not to be, you know, the sanitised version of his life and he wanted the message to be you know, that you have to, you know, take care of yourself and, and it really did capture the, the tribute or show especially, it’s just a wonderful scene, that it takes it beyond, you know, some kind of behind the music, look at the band and shows, kind of the magic of what happens at a show when you’re at seeing a new artist that really lifts you off, you know, lifts you off your feet and makes you feel something that wonderful, it’s it’s an amazing live music is one of the most amazing things we get to do in our lives. And that film really captured that feeling for everybody who was there, you know, in him as well. So I
Andrew Dubber
mentioned the the document that accompanies there from a legal perspective is like Encyclopaedia Britannica is big sort of term isn’t that complex, either that many things that got one
Dan Butler
was actually easier than you would think. Because mostly it was Universal Music Publishing, which controls Elton’s publishing and, you know, we made a blanket deal with them for the 11 songs that were in the film and, and everybody of course, has the biggest incentive to make the film of success because, you know, obviously, it’s going to push this catalogue and, and kind of when you look at what Queen’s catalogue has done, since the Bohemian Rhapsody film, it’s really brought Queen back into people’s minds and exposed queen to a younger generation that didn’t really know who they were, you know, I’m old enough to see in Queen live in their prime
Andrew Dubber
enjoying the club. I
Dan Butler
saw him in 1977 doing the We Will Rock You use the world tour and just it was just an amazing show.
Andrew Dubber
So what, what’s the fun part for you? Is it I mean, do you get to rub shoulders with these amazing artists? Or is it the deal making, I mean,
Dan Butler
I generally don’t meet the artists, I talked to their lawyers a lot, or I talked to their managers a lot. And, and I do get to see shows periodically, but I’ve been to I was a huge music fan before I ever got in the music business. And a lot of it for me is just getting to work with the heroes in my youth, you know, and I was a gigantic elton john fan from the time I was a teenager and and you know what, Captain Fantastic the day it came out on the record store. So, you know, getting to actually work on these projects is
Andrew Dubber
and play a significant role in the and the, you know, fulfilment of that vision, I guess.
Dan Butler
And, and when you work on movies, it’s you know, we have Paramount has 2500 employees, I think and an auto production, there’ll be another huge number of people that work that are not full time Paramount people just hired for the production. And, you know, you’re a cog in the giant wheel that makes this happen. But there’s a lovely feeling of satisfaction that comes with knowing that, you know, when you see a really beautiful film, and you go, Oh, I worked on that, that just that gives you do you get to see your name go past in the credits. I’ve had my name in the credits on a few things over the years with animation. But, you know, if you’re a Paramount employee, you don’t get your name in the credits, right. But to see a film you work out, I worked on the matrix when I was at Warner Brothers years ago, and, and it was a crazy last minute process where the studio didn’t really understand how great the movie was till they saw it. And then they scrambled to do soundtrack album with the last minute and I think
Andrew Dubber
that soundtrack album was really influential. I took music in a different direction as well,
Dan Butler
big record in we cleared everything of that record in 10 days. Wow, that was just absolutely an insane time. And to see that movie on the screen for the first time, really not knowing what it was gonna be and just be completely blown away like that. That’s that’s, that’s the real payoff. For all the hard work is when you see something that’s really good. I used to teach music business at university and I always say to the students, if you want to make money in the music business, we teach law just down the corridor there.
Andrew Dubber
Is that a fair characterization?
Dan Butler
Maybe there’s there’s there’s lots of there’s lots of different aspects of the business that work and people can make a living And again, a lot of the people that I work with are, you know, former opera singers or band members or, and they found a way to be happy and fulfilled in their lives by doing the business end of things. But there’s a whole nother bunch of kids that are coming out of school now that their Berklee College of Music and a lot of places in California, Nashville, Belmont, they’re there, they’re pumping out music business graduates. So there’s, there’s a lot of people who are trying to start their career in the business end of things. And it’s not easy, but it is very fun and fulfilling. And, you know, to be able to, for me to be able to work in a job that combines music and movies, which are two of my favourite life passions. It’s been really lucky. I’ve been really fortunate.
Andrew Dubber
Absolutely. But you studied pretty hard to get there. I imagine.
Dan Butler
I did law school was this during those three years of absolute misery
Andrew Dubber
was it wasn’t a case of specialisation? Or was it just kind of I became a lawyer, I died, you know,
Dan Butler
well, I became a real lawyer. And then just, I had done different kinds of did some entertainment litigation and did some other kinds of practice. And then one of the partners that was at my law firm left to start a new music department at MGM Studios. And, and I was one of the people that she took from the law firm with her to go and it wasn’t because I knew anything about music at that point, it’s just that she thought I was a nice person, and she went to work with me. So that seems
Andrew Dubber
to be a recurring theme in all these conversations that we’re having everybody says, as a recommendation to get anywhere, be nice,
Dan Butler
the people who are not nice, who are the powerful crazy agents and deal makers and screamers, there are plenty of those people that get rich and successful and are not the nicest human beings. But I think most people that succeed in business, do it because people want to work with them. And they don’t, they don’t yell at people, and they treat people with respect. And that’s the most important thing.
Andrew Dubber
Does changing technologies and innovation and new platforms? And does that make your job more interesting, harder? Does it make the laws that you work with not have a purpose, it
Dan Butler
doesn’t leave, it’s definitely more interesting. And harder, because, and, and it’s, you know, there’s so many different laws happening in places like Germany, or Spain or even Canada, that, you know, Canadians are so nice, but their, their copyright laws can be challenging, sometimes it’s used, there’s new there, pushing the envelope in many ways all over the world, and you have to keep up. And people will call me and say, you know, we have this Swedish copyright law question, you know, can you help us and I’m telling you, what I know about Swedish copyright law is not much, but I know somebody who I can call you know, and, and it’s about having a network of people that you can rely on to, to get information and share, you know, new, upcoming things, but their technology is moving so quickly. And it’s, it’s hard and I’m you know, I’m, I am not a young kid who’s got easy access to a lot of the social media things. I’m, I’m a bit of a Luddite on social media, but I have to keep up with my job just to know what’s happening. And, and all the new platforms that have just exploded, and there are things that, you know, didn’t exist two years ago that are now multi billion dollar businesses that people the studio want to be, have their music featured on those platforms. And it’s a big challenge to keep up. But that’s what we do. And I can say, honestly, I’d been doing this 25 years, I have never had a boring day at the office.
Andrew Dubber
Well, that’s quite a thing for a lawyer to say,
Dan Butler
I’ve had stressful crazy days, but I’ve never had a boring day in 25 years.
Andrew Dubber
Right? Going back before that, and I know obviously, you’re a music fan, and you’re a film fan. Where’s it come from? What did your parents do, for instance, and how’s it I think
Dan Butler
my mom was a nurse and my dad was a scholar and a professional student and librarian. And they weren’t really into music much at all. We had a very few records growing up like Harry Belafonte. Day-O was like, one of the big records, but I think that’s where my love of Bob Marley came from, was this. I was born in California, but grew up all over the United States. We moved around a lot. But, you know, you really see musical influences come from a few big things when you’re when you’re young. And then you know, when you’re teenagers when you really, the hormones kick in that’s when that’s when I discovered Santana and who and rock and roll really just blew my mind when the hormones went off. So that was you always kind of love the music of your youth the most?
Andrew Dubber
Yeah, the best music in the world is whatever you listen to when you’re 15 Yeah,
Dan Butler
and and for me into my college years, too, and I was lucky to live in Austin, Texas, where every band played came in played through and my first job out of college, I work days and nights free and, you know, saw YouTube’s fifth show in the United States and saw them the first three tours, and every band played the talking heads in the clash. And that whole new wave movement, Elvis Costello and Joe Jackson, and I totally embrace that and love that music. And, and still do I still want some of my favourite stuff.
Andrew Dubber
We were posted on the wall kid. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And, and collecting records, presumably?
Dan Butler
Oh, yeah, I still have all my vinyl every piece of vinyl. From the first thing, the first record I bought was a Beatles 45 right before they broke up. And I remember thinking, I just got into this band, and they broke up.
Andrew Dubber
convenient. So what’s the what’s the thing that keeps you going back to work every day? That’s it. I mean, obviously, it’s you said, there’s no, there’s no boring day. But what makes you go home satisfied.
Dan Butler
It’s just, I love what I do. I’m really lucky. I love what I do. And, and it’s, I work with nice people. And that’s a big, that’s a big thing. And I’ve had people that complain about their jobs. Sometimes I said, No, I’ve had a really crummy job. I roofed houses in the hottest summer in Texas history. And I was roofing houses, you know, it was like, that was a bad job. But even that job was not a terrible job. Because I worked with nice people, you know, and whatever your gig is, if you enjoy the people you work with, then it makes things you know, bearable. And I also, I know, there’s a lot of the Netflix team, you know, mantras, we’re a team, not a family. And your, your family loves you no matter what. And if you’re not the best person in the team, you can’t work for Netflix, there’s that kind of vibe. But I always tell people, you know, where I work, we are a family. And we spend more time with the people we work with, than our real families at home, you know, I spend more time with people in my office than with my kids over the years. And, you know, that’s just the reality of working life demands of this kind of
Andrew Dubber
industry.
Dan Butler
Well, it’s just, it’s almost any job, if you’re, if you’re, you know, at work eight hours a day, and I’m working longer, more hours than that. But if you’re eight hours a day, that’s more than your, you know, if you’re not sleeping, or whatever, you’re spending less time with your family than the people you work with. So you better like those people. And you better find people that challenge you and do a good job and make you you know, support you in your work. And you can support them in theirs. And just, you know, your your work is your family too. So there must
Andrew Dubber
be some sort of confrontational aspect to what you do as well. I mean, deal making is not just Hey, everybody get in a room, everybody’s friend shake hands. And so, ya know, there’s, I mentioned this, there’s other
Dan Butler
big challenges. And, and the main thing is, you know, there are, there are some really difficult people in the industry. And I think what goes around comes around sometimes. And if you’re consistently a good person and treat people with respect, and to me, the essence of business is do what you say you’re going to do. So if you do what you say you’re going to do, and people can count on your, you know, trusting your word, when you say you’re going to do something that goes a long way to smoothing over problems you have later on, but, you know, advocates, really good managers, and really good lawyers will fight hard for their clients. And sometimes they make you crazy, because it’s you don’t think they’re being reasonable. But at the end of the day, I think I was trained by a pretty good boss at Warner Brothers. And His goal was, how do we get to the finish line of the deal? You know, faster? And what’s reasonable? And the first question he always asked, they want this, well, is that reasonable? If it’s reasonable, give it to them. Let’s get to the finish line. And that’s, that’s a big part of deal making, I think,
Andrew Dubber
is I mean, the myth of deal making is it’s best when it’s when, when and is that really realistic? Or are you trying to sort of get one over on the other side? No, no,
Dan Butler
I started out as a litigator, and and it was a very good law firm. And, and we won almost all the time. And there was a big competitive sense of satisfaction, and I’m a competitive person. So I did like that, you know, and I loved going into court and standing up and, you know, yeah, it was very
Andrew Dubber
animagic. triumphant.
Dan Butler
It was, it was fun, that was fun to win. But in deal making and transactional side, it’s, it’s at the end of the day, you’re trying to work together to make a great song for a great movie, and you want everybody to be happy. And you never want to agree to the first thing they asked for. Because if you do say, Okay, then they’re gonna think, Oh, I should have asked for more. They’re going to be dissatisfied. But you don’t want to say no, just just say no, either. It’s, it’s and some, some people you do business with, if you have a relationship, and you’ve done a lot of deals before is a shorthand and you say, look, I can tell you, I want to pay this and you want to charge that, but we know you know, that’s more than you’re going to get and that’s less than I’m gonna have to pay so we’re gonna meet in the middle and, right. And that’s, that’s how we’re gonna get it done. And when you have a long term relationship with somebody, even if they’re a difficult, smart lawyer, you can say, Okay, here’s where we’re, we have to get to and literally, if if I tell somebody, this is, this is our bottom line, this is our best and final, you know, I don’t have anywhere to go from here. So if you can’t do it for this, we understand we’ll find somebody else, you know, and and if you can’t say that, unless you mean it, then you can’t say it unless they know you enough to trust that you’re telling them the truth. So
Andrew Dubber
yeah, but when you’re doing a Bob Marley film this certain, there are no other catalogues that you can go to, to do a deal. So you’re either doing the deal, there’s no deal, right? What have you what have been your sort of really big wins that you’ve, you’ve got, I can’t believe I got away with that. Um,
Dan Butler
well, anytime you pull off a big music, musical type film, that’s a trick. And the hardest part, I think, is because we’ve worked really hard on some things over the years. And for one reason or another, if the film doesn’t work, it’s really disappointing because, you know, we I worked on a film years ago at Warner Brothers called rock star with Mark Wahlberg. Okay. And it was a really fun movie. And we we created this all star band. And we had live concerts and it was an amazing project and unfortunately became out weekend after 911. And nobody went to the movies and and that poor film just died a quick death at the box office. But you know, it’s had a life people have enjoyed that film on cable and whatever venues show since then. But that was that was, I mean, yards and yards of contracts and paper to make that happen. And at the end of the day, the studio lost money. And you know, nobody was nobody was happy about it. But
Andrew Dubber
is there a lot of big deals being done with music that has been created for films? Or is it is it specifically the area working in actually working with existing catalogue and putting that into movies?
Dan Butler
It’s both I mean, you know, we always like to have new music created for film because then it creates a catalogue value. I mean, it’s astounding. The money we still make off of Footloose, the original list from 1984 Yeah. And I licence out all the Paramount music, you know, where we’ve created new songs for our past films. And, you know, it’s but loosen Flashdance and Top Gun and, you know, Blondie’s Call Me from American Gigolo. It’s like, people use that song and commercials and TV shows all the time. So a lot of my job is licencing out. You know, holding out for hero from Footloose is a huge copyright it’s and that was written specifically for the film is written specifically for the movie. And we try to do that to create, you know, lasting value. That’s not just for the artists, but for the studio as well.
Andrew Dubber
And getting to take your family to go and see these films at the end of it guy put that there is that, that I know
Dan Butler
when I worked on Harry Potter movies, and the first time I saw Harry Potter was like, Oh, my God, that is so good. You know, and my kids were absolutely delighted that, you know, they finally understood what that did. You know, it’s like,
Andrew Dubber
wonderful. Congratulations. Thanks, Dan. That’s Dan Butler, head of business affairs and legal for Paramount Pictures, music, and that’s the MTF podcast. Now I spoke to a whole bunch of fascinating people at Expo north and some of those conversations, and a whole lot more will be coming up in future episodes of the MTF podcast, so this might be a good time to subscribe. And if you’re not sure how to do that, Google, how do I subscribe to the MTF podcast? Seriously, that will tell you hope things are great where you are right now and we’ll catch you soon. Cheers.
