Evolving with the music business: Interview with Foundations music founder, Steve bursky
Steve Bursky is an artist manager and founder of Foundations Music, a full service artist representation company that represents artists such as Dayglow, NEEDTOBREATHE, Noah Kahan, and The Brook & The Bluff. Steve got his start in the music industry out of high school and has evolved over the course of a 20+ year career.
I spoke to him about:
What it was like to get his start at a young age
Navigating doubt and uncertainty
Evolving as an entrepreneur in a changing music landscape
How he still connects to the love of music
The next twenty years of his career
What led you to start Foundations?
It happened without a whole lot of planning. I was in high school and had no idea there was a business of music. My father was in private equity. As an 18 year old, I think I probably always assumed I would do whatever it is that my father did.
But my senior year of high school I ended up falling in love with this band that was started by a former graduate of my high school and a couple of college buddies up at Middlebury College in Vermont. As they were getting going in college they would come back and play assemblies at our school and I just found the whole thing fascinating. I'd always loved music. I played and performed a bit in high school but never imagined doing it beyond school or class.
The band kept coming in and playing shows at our school. I kind of organized a big benefit concert my senior year of high school for this organization that I was a part of. I brought in underwriting and sponsors and ultimately it was a big success. It made me understand what it took to put on a live event in a very narrow minded 18 year old way. But it also gave me the opportunity to work very closely with the band’s then manager and ultimately led to a job going into my freshman year of college and a job throughout college. Eventually he stepped away and I took over. For me, frankly, it was a happy accident and something I never could have imagined would lead to a job, no less a career, that I still have 20 years later.
I had always had a very entrepreneurial spirit. I think that the idea of doing something on my own was something that was exciting even as a young kid graduating high school. So to step into this my freshman year and find myself with a client who valued youthful idealism and the work ethic of an 18 year old, as opposed to them conforming to what most intelligent artists probably would have done and hiring a seasoned veteran, was really something that I’m eternally grateful for. Really for me that set the stage for what would become Foundations and ultimately for this very entrepreneurial, independent mindset that has stayed with me and that oozes from our company in terms of the way we approach things.
How old were you when you took over managing the band?
I was a sophomore so I was 19. I was really grateful to have surrounded myself with some incredible mentors. I think it's so easy to go down a road where you feel you have to conform to a more obvious path. But I’m grateful to have been surrounded by other entrepreneurs and people who really nurtured my spirit and my independence. It could've very easily gone in a different direction. From 19 onwards I was really doing this from my college dorm room while trying to keep up my grades and get as good of an education as I possibly could.
Did you ever have any moments of doubt or uncertainty along the way where you thought, “Should I be doing something else?”
Oh yea. I mean, I still have those moments of doubt almost 20 years later. I think that just comes with the natural ebbs and flows of a career. I think there's been moments that have been remarkably clear to me where I had a very clear vision for myself or my clients. When things are going well, it's easy to not really think about anything but what you're doing. The reality of the entertainment business is that it’s a roller coaster and there's really high highs and really low lows. In those lower moments I have certainly questioned, “Is this the career path for me? Am I equipped to do this?”
I also think we live in an ever changing environment of the music business. The democratization of the way music is released, the access to an audience, and the ability for young people and young entrepreneurs to thrive, has really disrupted the industry over the last 5 to 10 years. So I think that naturally, for anyone working in it, there are moments where maybe there's a lack of clarity or moments of doubt. I've been fortunate to build an incredible team of like minded people and have some great partners. I think those are the moments where you really look to people you trust, who are living kind of parallel lives, for guidance. You lean on them to help find some clarity in the otherwise fuzzy moments.
The mission of Foundations is to combine the gravitas and experience of seasoned managers with the innovation and flexibility of younger managers. That’s come through a lot as we’ve been talking. How did you actually go about incorporating that into the day to day of building your company?
It's only recently that we’ve started using job titles. Job titles are kind of funny to me because I feel like I learn as much from our interns and the younger people at our company as I learn from those of us who've been doing it for a minute. I think to be really good at this job you undoubtedly have to have experience to look to and relationships to call on, but there's something that's irreplaceable about understanding youth culture. As a 41 year old I can't possibly understand as well as some of the younger people on our team that are living it and breathing it. I think that makes for a really beautiful dynamic where there are meaningful contributions to be made by people of all experience levels. I think that has always been the case in terms of how we've operated. I don't think our mission statement has changed in 20 years. But I think it’s probably more truthful today than it's ever been because of the need for both of those things: the experience and also the fluidity and nimbleness that comes with youth.
You’ve been doing this from age 18 to 41 years old. What are some of the biggest mindset shifts you’ve had in your evolution as an entrepreneur?
I think the service business is a really challenging one. We're building a company and business that we're really proud of but ultimately we serve our clients and our top priority has got to be helping them achieve their creative goals and their career goals. I think one of the biggest challenges for me has been the shifting responsibility and role of the personal manager.
As the record companies have in some ways lost their way, and do not have the button, so to speak, that they once had to push an unpolished act into the stratosphere, the music business has become more democratized with the ability to reach an audience through social media or through streaming services. So much more responsibility has been placed on the artist manager to understand the client's vision, build a team and a strategy, and go execute it with or without the support one would traditionally have or seek. Many of our clients by design are electing to be independent and to control their destiny in ways that they hadn't historically been able to and to own their IP in many cases. Because of that, a lot of the work then comes in house, but the model for how managers are compensated has not really changed to reflect the added responsibility that managers take on to make that independent desire of the client possible.
To me, that has been one of the biggest challenges over the last few years that we've talked a lot about as a company and are trying to find ways to solve for. I think part of it's just diversifying the business we work in. The core of what we do and love is artist development centered on the service business and management but we are venturing into more IP center businesses where we're developing masters catalogs and publishing catalogs. The holistic picture of Foundations is starting to and will continue to look a bit different to reflect the times. I think that has probably been the biggest challenge and thing that we've needed to adapt to.
What’s it been like launching these new lines of business for the first time?
I think on the IP side it has been fairly fluid mostly because it's tangential to what we already do. If we are working on a record, whether we are working on it as the manager in a service relationship with a client or working on it as the owner of the IP, it is more or less the same. It’s the same responsibility but ultimately in a different structure from a business perspective.
I’ve been really proud of some of our younger team members, some of these incredibly talented innovative managers, who are applying their skills to tangential representation businesses. A few of the folks on our team represent the world’s biggest geo guesser. There’s this guy, Rainbolt, and his business is beyond fascinating. He can see a photo and basically on Google Maps pinpoint the exact location in the world where it was taken. He’s built a remarkable business and has an incredible following. We've got a couple of businesses like that, that we are developing. I find it remarkably fascinating to apply the skills we've learned as artist managers to other industries and other types of talent. Ultimately, we see ourselves as the CEOs of our clients’ businesses, whether that business is music or some other form of content. It’s very interesting to me personally and I've been really proud of our team for evolving how they think about representation.
Music careers tend to be years in the making. How do you help your clients navigate doubt and uncertainty along the way?
I'm a father of 3 young girls and I feel like at times I have 8 or 10 kids. I think that's just the nature of the remarkably personal relationship that exists with and is developed over time with the client. I have a lot of younger clients and I’m not just their business partner. I’m their parent, their therapist, whatever they may need in a given moment. I think being young and in the public eye is harder than it's ever been. You watch how nasty social media can be and how nasty the press can be. You've gotta have remarkably thick skin, I think, to be able to move past it. Some of those types of challenges would inevitably affect even a remarkably strong person’s mental health and livelihood. I feel like our role is so all encompassing in terms of our obligations and our responsibilities and our desire to support our clients. You could probably listen to a conversation being had with a client and wonder, “Are you their therapist or their manager?”
If you put the business side aside, I think I’ve learned a lot in terms of the compassion and the guidance that doesn’t necessarily have to do with business. I think all of our managers probably feel that in some capacity, just the need to be there to support someone emotionally through the inevitable twists and turns of a career.
Listening sounds like a big piece of it. What are the go to ways you lean on to help people navigate those twists and turns?
You said it, listening. If we're rewinding the tape on my career, I felt like it occurred to me that the music industry, and many industries, are full of people who feel like they have all the answers. The ones that I find most impressive are the ones that can listen and the ones that are prepared to say, “I don't know this, or I've not experienced this.” I think a big piece of it is just being there and listening and understanding and sharing thoughts and personal experiences, to the extent they could be helpful.
But part of it is also just trying to slow people down. It's such a fast paced environment and sometimes it's hard to just take a step back and put everything in perspective. I think the work we and our clients do is important but we're not saving lives. When you have tunnel vision in trying to achieve goals or complete a task, I think it's very easy to not have the full picture, to not have that more macro perspective that I think is required to be able to say, “Okay, does this really matter? Is this really going to change my life?” Listening and having the ability to help provide perspective is critical.
After all this time, what helps you connect to the joy and love of the music?
That’s a great question. I think at the end of the day there are parts of any job that are challenging and that make any professional question, “Why do I do this? Is there something else for me?” But I think I got into this for the love of music. I had no idea at 18 that there was a business of music and that I could apply a kind of business mind to the music industry.
The ability for a piece of my day to still be made up of listening to demos or providing comments on a music video or going to production rehearsals for a tour we're about to send out, are still the moments to this day, 20 plus years later, that give me a sense of joy and fulfillment that no other industry could. The ability to stay connected through that creative piece of the job has really been what is constantly encouraging in the inevitable ups and downs of this particular career.
You’ve now had the first twenty plus years of your career from age 18 to 41. What’s next for you over the next twenty?
The industry is changing so quickly and the way talent is discovered or exposed to the masses is constantly changing and evolving. I want our company to constantly look like a reflection of the industry we work in. It's really easy to get lost in the past or to not evolve with the inevitably evolving landscape of the business. Continuing to be a reflection of the talent we serve and the industry we work in is critical. But I also feel like our company has a set of core values, perspective it has been rooted in — a work ethic, innovation and a moral compass that is reflected by the 22 people who work at our company. I think, for me, what remains paramount for me is just continuing to have measured growth with people that are remarkably thoughtful and hardworking, and reflective of the stuff that matters to us.
