This past Tuesday, Intercept went Instagram Live with the one and only Clay Dustin: head of one of our incredible label partners SM1 Entertainment, an incredibly successful musician, and industry expert. Clay has several big artist projects happening right now with SM1 that we’re very excited about! Here are some words from the interview.
Intercept: “Starting from the beginning- what got you involved in the music industry?”
Clay: “It was kind of an accident really. I’ve played since I was 13/14 years old, always for my family out on the ranch doing stuff like that, and in college I started earning money doing it as a job. My goal was to be a criminal attorney – that was my dream. So between my time at UTech and UT Law I wanted to step back and take a year off to go play clubs in Fort Worth, Texas. Because back then in the early 80’s that’s where it was happening! So I went and started playing clubs as a part time job, then started working 4 nights a week, 5 nights a week, then 6 nights a week. And then one night I was playing this club and this guy came up – his name was David Chamberlain – and said ‘hey I just wrote those two songs you just sang.’ And I said ‘hey I’m Clay Dustin nice to meet ya!’ You know, just blew it off and then he says ‘I want to bring you to Nashville to cut some tracks.’ So I said that sounds good, and he told me he’d send me some money and an airline ticket and all that.
So a month passes and nothing comes, and then all of a sudden the mail comes and there’s $7,500 in cash and two airline tickets round trip for me and a guest, so he brought me out and we cut some tracks. I was scared because I’d never been to Nashville, and never even thought about going to record. I was just doing it to take a breather before law school. Anyways, so he says ‘I’ve got a session set up for us for tomorrow. I need you to learn these songs.’ So it was like oh god! I walked into the session and it was at Sony. Vance Gill was in there, David Lee from Toto, Paul Franklin from the Dire Straits. All these superstars I’d dreamed about, you know? So I’m recording and I’m on my first track cutting my first record and I’ll never forget it – this little guy walks in with this big hair, and it was Conway Twitty. He stood there and watched me and I was just scared. Anyways after about 30 minutes he pushed a button and said ‘that’s what I call country music. You’re going to be a big star.’ So what do I do? I call my family and say ‘I’m not going to law school.’
That was my very first session and I ended up getting a deal. Anyways, I got to travel a lot, I was doing 250-300 shows a year, and over a period of time I realized that I could play clubs and make a living because I sold a lot of liquor, and one thing led to another. Then in 2007 I just got tired and said you know what? I’m done. I’m not going to make it to the stadiums, I’m going to do what I want to do and I’m not going to play clubs for the rest of my life. I’m going to stay home a little bit because the roads were really hard. So I did this for a couple of decades and I ended up getting my first executive jobs with one of my partners today, Eddie Rhines, who found Kenny Chesney, Dolly Parton, Reba McEntire, I mean the list is crazy. I got a taste of the business side of it and then I started a public relations company in 2015. Then in 2018 it propelled me into starting a record label, and it’s been very successful! I realized after all this time that the good lord didn’t put me out there to be a superstar, he put me out there for training so I could show artists the best way to go about doing things. And I’m better at this! I’m just blessed. I get to work with some really really great artists, you know.”
Intercept: “How do you convey your experience into expectations for your artists?”
Clay: “You know, number one is I’m smart enough to realize certain things that can help artists be alleviated on a faster, more non conventional path so to speak. It’s hard enough as it is – I mean you have artists out there who grind so hard. The Uneekints, the Brady Seals, the Fulco Brothers, Xavier Joseph, these are just some of my artists and they work hard. All of the artists I just mentioned are under our management. So I get to speak with them on a day to day basis and hear a lot of their personal stuff, and it’s no different than back when I was an artist, but the only thing is that I understand. And as a label, I won’t even take away the creativity that they want to bring to the table whether it’s a video, single, album cover, I let them run their own gamut. And that’s one thing that I vowed to do if I ever got in this position. I don’t tell them what songs to sing, I don’t tell them what songs to record, and back in our days that’s how it was.
They trust me because I’ve been on the stage. Since I’ve been there and had a lot of time, they know this by our communication. So it’s a big benefit to me because it keeps me on the stage. Even on this side I get to live on the stage through them. I get the best of both worlds, I mean I’m so lucky.”
Intercept: “Who else is a member of your SM1 team?”
Clay: “I can tell you right now that one person under SM1 Entertainment as a whole is the president of the company Thomas Hood, who actually 5 years ago started out as one of my artists with the Hood Boys. He managed and produced that group of young kids called the Hood Boys, and over a period of a year or so it didn’t take us long to realize that we kind of needed each other – I needed him because he’s super brilliant, and he’s my right arm. He travels with us, he’s one of my key people, he’s allowed to sign contracts on behalf of the company just because I trust him that much. He steers me out of hot water, and he’s just great.
Then I have Gabriel who’s in charge of our Latin division, I have Joe Boyd who’s creative, I mean there’s a lot of us. And of course everybody at Intercept! I feel like I’m running a Warner Brothers because I have all the right people, does that make sense? I don’t mean to sound arrogant anyways, but I’d put my team against anybody. With the people at Intercept combined with us, there’s not a better team.”
Intercept: “How does Intercept benefit SM1 over other music distributors?”
Clay: “I was with another company prior to this and it begins with an S and ends with a Y but I won’t say their name – I guess everyone can figure that one out! But you know, it was a hit and miss. We had a lot of artists and tried to help a lot of new artists, but when the Intercept opportunity came along and I looked at it as a whole in today’s marketplace with the way the industry has gone. I looked at it differently than a lot of other people who might see great services, they get distribution, etc. But in our label, we pay for everything. Our artists don’t pay for anything – when you get signed with us it’s a full 360 deal across the board. So that being said, I looked at it like ‘I have the whole infrastructure and access to all of the marketing, all the tools that it takes, from social media to Spotify promotion to ad campaigns to distribution to tracking to reporting. All across the board I have everything they have at Universal main, Warner Brothers, or Capitol or whoever. I have access to everything they do. We went from being a distributor to a full service label just by partnering up with Intercept. I wouldn’t trade it for anything because it gives me everything that I need. I’m blessed! If anyone out here is a label owner or getting a label started, I would say you’ve hit a home run. The grass doesn’t get any greener with an independent label out there than with Intercept’s services and their support. Believe me I’ve looked – you’re not going to find it anywhere else. It’s just not going to happen.”
Intercept: “We know you recently signed a band of brothers [the Fulco Brothers]. How do you find that spark in an artist?”
Clay: “My partner Eddie who handles all of the touring and all that kept telling me, ‘you have to come to Tampa, I need to show you something!’ I’m like okay yeah I just got off the road from traveling to Nashville five times this month, but okay. And some things came up but Eddie kept saying ‘you’ve got to come, somebody’s going to grab ‘em!’ And I said okay let’s go. I kept hearing about these kids and I’m getting excited just talking about it. I heard they were pulling about 300 to 500 people every show, and they’re doing 5-7 shows per week every single week. So we show up on a Monday night at this place and I walk in and it was buzzing. I actually met their dad about forty years ago and he’s a phenomenal person, you know, he’s such a cool dad that I think I’m going to send him a father’s day present.
But I walked in and it’s the 16 year old, the 22 year old, and the dad that are all a band. And I’m walking in and the first song they played was Benny and the Jets. We even had one of your [Intercept] guys come out to see them and he looked at me and goes, ‘you better sign them.’ And I’ll tell you what, these kids are going to be the next Green Day or Blink 182. They’re amazing. They write all of their own stuff, they produce their own music, and they’ve been doing it since they were toddlers. They play every instrument on the stage – I remember they had contracted a drummer for that show, and the 16 year old was lead guitar, lead vocals, and Jesse was playing bass and singing lead vocals, and then they all wanted to take a break. So the 16 year old gets on the drums and does an 8 minute drum solo. And I’m going ‘these kids are mine!’ So we got the lawyers involved right away and things worked out. I’m very happy.
Uneekint also has a song coming out with Lil Tjay on September 9th. It’s a sad story about Lil Tjay, but we’re going to donate all the money from that record to his family for health care. From what I understand he’s paralyzed now, and so Uneekint wants to put the record out as it was planned, give the money to the family, and go from there. And then after that we have a single coming out with Uneekint and Soulja Boy, and then Juice WRLD’s last single with Uneekint coming out towards the end of the year. And that’s Juice WRLD’s last single ever recorded – we’ll be putting that out under SM1. And then of course we have Brady Seals, Xavier Joseph, I mean that’s what I’m working really hard on right now.
I gotta tell you a story that happened last week – you’ll get a kick out of this. I’ll tell you the difference between a star and a superstar. I saw on social media that the Fulco Brothers were at Disney world. I’m thinking okay, it’s Tuesday or Wednesday, they must have off days and are burning off some steam. So I called them on the phone and asked, ‘hey what’s going on over there?’ and he went, ‘hey man, we’re handing out flyers and our cards for people to follow us on Instagram. We wanted to go to the place where there were the most people on a Wednesday to hand out our cards.’ So they were walking around Disney World with these cards trying to build up their fan base. It’s tough, you know! And I’ll bend over backwards for any of my artists of course, but these guys are kids and I’m going to go the extra mile just because they work so hard.”
Intercept: “Do you have any advice for young musicians entering the music industry?”
Clay: “Well what I know just from my experience on this side is that there are artists out there who have millions of followers and millions of streams and things like that, but from a label standpoint I look at two things: Number one is if the artist is proactive in their career, and number two is that they’re not just wanting to be a star. If they run it like it’s a business and that’s their living, that they’re actually out there doing shows, you know. And it doesn’t have to be a lot. Even if you’re doing two or three shows a week and you’re out there performing, you know, and making appearances – that is the top level of what we look at to see if we want to sign someone. Because every single artist that we have on our roster is booked until the end of the year right now. Some of them into February of 2023. So if you really want to make it in this business, you’ve got to hit the street. You’ve got to be doing shows and performing because otherwise there’s just no end game, you know? Your fans might be your fans on Instagram and TikTok and all of that stuff, but you need to get them into the seats. That’s the whole key. If you want to make a living in this business, you’ve got to perform. There’s just no way around it.
If anyone out here is a label owner or getting a label started, I would say you’ve hit a home run. The grass doesn’t get any greener with an independent label out there than with Intercept’s services and their support. Believe me I’ve looked – you’re not going to find it anywhere else. It’s just not going to happen.”
Intercept: “I heard SM1 is working on a new video service. Can you tell us more about that?”
Clay: “We started SM1 Television Network. It’s been in the works for the last 16 months and we are just now launching on Roku and Amazon, and we just partnered up with Ryan Reynolds’ media company and we’ll be starting commercials in late August / mid September. We have partnered with WorldWide Motion Pictures and are loading content as we speak. It’s going to be a $4.99 / month subscription and right now in our testing we’ve maintained 3,600 – 3,800 subscribers just based on our testing, and I think we’ve only lost about 8 or 9 over the last year. So we’re building a pretty big network! Most of our stuff is on sm1ent.com.
It was such a pleasure to host Clay Dustin on our Instagram Live. Stay tuned for more from Intercept!