DAVE KISWINEY INTERVIEW PT. 1
by Tony Artimisi

Dave Kiswiney

David moved to Nashville in 1984 and started in the agency business in 1986 and eventually settled down at BLA. He has been with BLA since 1995.

What type of experiences did you have in the music industry before you began working at Buddy Lee Attractions? Do you feel like those experiences were important in preparing you for what you do now?

I worked as a musician coming out of college playing in regional bands and touring clubs. One of the bands had a regional hit record in Detroit. That gave us a taste of the big time. I worked at Motown in the ‘70s with bands. I eventually ended up, through a connection through a manager, with the Ted Nugent Band in ’79 and worked with him through New Year’s Eve of ’89. I did all of his tours and four albums during that time.

Before the end of that, in ’86, I took a job as a talent agent in Nashville part –time. There I started learning the business of the booking industry – country music. I was doing more rock than country. There I signed some bands like Humble Pie, Mark Farner of Grand Funk Railroad, and a bunch of others. In ’85, Mark and I, and a drummer toured as a trio (that’s how I knew them). We were friends because he was from Detroit. Then, I signed him to this talent agency in Nashville, booking his club dates. I bounced back and forth between tours and booking until ’90 when I settled down to full-time booking.

I had a daughter in ’87 and thought, “Enough with renting a house, time to make a home.” I worked hard to get established as an agent, and got into the booking full-time. That was with “World-Class Talent” (WCT) from ’90 – ’95, which was owned by Barbara Mandrell (one of the owners). So it was technically an ‘in-house’ agency, but they signed other artists too. They signed Randy Travis, Bill Anderson (’90), Ricky Skaggs and a bunch of others.

In Nashville, there was the Halsey Company, Triad, the Bobby Robertson Talent agencies, and us -WCT. We had a pretty good roster. We were one of the big four. Buddy Lee was there too. It [Buddy Lee] was one of the bigger ones. They had Garth Brooks, Trisha Yearwood, Martina McBride, etc. In the early ‘90s, all of the agencies started consolidating. William Morris came into town and bought Triad and Halsey over the course of a couple of years. They’ve [William Morris] been around for a long time. They’ve been New York and Los Angeles based forever - since the early 1900’s. They also have offices in Europe and Japan.

Buddy Lee Attractions [BLA] was the only family-owned agency. They bought WCT in Dec. ’95. At that time I was the CEO. As a result, they inherited the roster and me. That’s how I ended up at BLA. That’s not bad for only being in it seriously for about 5 years. I was lucky.

There are a lot of times when those things happen [being bought] that you get put by the wayside. If you get talent working, somebody’s going to hire you.
I think that being involved with being on stage, on the road, gave me a huge insight into what the performers go through, what conditions they have to deal with, not only travel but production, type of venue, what things they are going to come up against with buyers. There’s no substitute for actually being out there. There’s a majority of talent agents that have been on the road. Maybe 60% have played music, been in bands. There’s no substitute for being on the road - for knowing what bands/artists are dealing with being on the road. It’s good to realize that it is physically difficult on the Artist when they have to fly to Nebraska from Florida. Actually living through those types of situations gave me tremendous insight to travel logistics. All of that was great preparation knowing what comes into play.

What does a typical day look like for you at the office?

I do the West Coast region. We [BLA] do territories; divide the country into four territories. In my territory, there are fourteen states, including: Alaska, Hawaii, Nevada, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and all of Western Canada. That’s a pretty good-sized territory. I go from Central time zone (9 a.m.) to the West Coast, which is two hours behind. 9 a.m. – 8 p.m. is a typical day to cover my bases. A typical day starts at 9 a.m. I start by going through notes and making a “to-do” list; then I follow-up on calls that I maybe didn’t get through on and go through leads trying to place acts at fairs, festivals, and/or radio shows. I’ll see if those buyers are interested in our acts and I’ll stay on them. I make sure that I’m aware of what fairs are happening at what time of the year. Just try to sell the shows.

I have to keep current with the charts. That means being aware of the competition and what they’re doing and other acts from other agencies. I need to know where they’re going to avoid conflicts with other acts, among other things.

I have to stay current with new buyers, new events, read the periodicals and the daily industry newsletters that arrive by e-mail or weekly publications like Pollstar, Billboard, or The Radio Monitor (“which stations are playing which artists”). I really start hitting it hard around 10:30 or 11:00, most people are behind their desks by then.

Then, I usually have lunch with somebody - an artist, manager or producer. I’ll meet with publishers to find out who’s new. I’m always looking for new acts, up and comers. All day I’m getting offers for talent [for shows], then trying to get those [shows] confirmed. That’s a typical day. Even after hours they’ll call me to see if we got things confirmed. My cell phone is on. Well, I’ve been turning it off at night lately, but if there’s a date with some kind of problems (bad weather in Minnesota, for example) I’ll leave it on in case they need me. Of course email is 24/7. I’m pretty reachable.

Can you discuss the process of booking a show? A tour?

I contact a buyer or a buyer contacts me. We have to talk. They have an event, a day that they want (a fair or festival) and they want, for example, country talent that day. They’ll either be interested in somebody I represent on our roster, like Jeff Foxworthy if the venue is like 10,000 seats – a large fair, or a show where they have a headliner and they want somebody to support it like a new artist that doesn’t cost much money. Acts range from $1,500/night through - well some of those huge acts are quoting $500,000/night. Some will work for $500 if they have good record company support.

If they [the buyer] have somebody they are interested in, and I give them a price, they have to fax/email a document in writing - who they want, when, and how much they’ll pay. Then, I put that into a form (agency form) and submit it to the artist or artist manager. He/she will consider it, and accept/decline. They may want to change some of the details. They’ll [the artist/band] say they don’t want to go on before somebody, the start time needs to be changed (if it’s too early or too late, for example), they don’t want such-and-such opening for them, etc. You have to have all of the details ironed out before you can go forward.

Other issues are: Who’s going to handle the production? Can they handle the production? How much are tickets? What’s the gross potential of the show? Can they handle the rider? Will we get our percentage?

For instance, do they have a certain size PA, FOH [Front-of-House] consoles, monitor systems, lighting, covered stages if it’s outdoors, internal transportation, good dressing rooms, places to park the bus, enough electricity (generators or other)? All those requirements have to be met and satisfied before the artist is going to take the date. They have to be agreed upon.

If the artist accepts it, then the fun begins. You [the agent] have to make sure all of it is being done. If it isn’t handled then the agent is in trouble. Sometimes they [the buyer] say they never saw the rider. In this day and age, I don’t see too much of that. I have some good clients – I can trust them. The new ones you have to really qualify. You can find out what other shows that they did, how did they do with such-and-such artist – did they meet the rider? We’ll even call our competition to find out. We all talk in the industry, even to our competitors.

After a while you get a gut feeling, street smarts, on whether or not something is going to play. It’s like driving a car. It’s natural. In the beginning you make a lot of mistakes, we call it ‘baptism by fire,’ and you learn. Then you get good at what you do, and you have to keep your seat as an agent. That makes you valuable. It’s highly competitive. A lot of people want to do this for a living. There’s always somebody to take your place. That’s how it is.

What is the most stressful part of your job? Favorite part?

Having to route a tour can be very stressful. You have to route dates. A buyer might call and say “I’ll give you X amount of dollars for Foxworthy in California on a Thursday night at a casino.” Nobody wants to take just one date. They will want three or four altogether. The problem is the buyer that gives you the first offer needs to know right away. The stressful part is dropping everything that you are doing and looking for those support dates. It does well for the artist and for you to take the first offer if it’s great money, but you have to stop what you’re doing and figure it all out. It gets really stressful if it’s inside a month or two.

The hardest part is keeping them [the artists] out there. They want to stay out for a week or two out west – in my territory. I’m not booking the Midwest or Southeast; my stuff is far away from Nashville. If a buyer wants somebody in Indianapolis, that’s easy – it’s close. That’s an added stress in my area.

Other than that, I have figured out how to not get too stressed out. I used to worry about things, I still do, but not to the degree that I used to. People trust me and do favors for me, because I do favors for them. It takes years to get to that point. I have a good buyer base. That’s what makes an agent valuable.

My favorite part is seeing it all come together. When you do those routing things, when it works - “the fruit of your labor, you know”- that’s great. It’s like putting a puzzle together. It’s a puzzle - finding ‘a piece’ - the city, making sure that there’s nothing going on within 100 miles that is going to pull away from the event. You don’t want to split the public. A situation with Aerosmith vs. Jeff Foxworthy inside 100 miles is not good.

Another thing to consider is in the fall - September, October, November - you don’t want to book on Friday night. High school football can ruin a show in a small town. Parents are going to go there [the game] to watch their children, not a show.

A lot of places only do things on the weekend. Finding things during the week is a trick. We rely on nightclubs and casinos for weeknights. Fairs and festivals happen on the weekends. We have a different division for clubs, a club division, but it’s still BLA. The club division is strong. Clubs can’t always play the bigger acts, but in Florida and Texas there are some real big clubs. There are lots of small clubs for up-and-coming acts.

What skill do you feel is most important as a booking agent?

People skills. I call it bedside manner. I think it’s being approachable, likeable, being able to be able to talk to somebody about his or her likes and dislikes. I’ll remember they had a baby and ask about them. Sometimes you never see them face-to-face, yet they still like you. Having a good memory and keeping good notes. With technology, there’s no excuse for not keeping notes – “who they are,” “where they came from,” etc. Record keeping, memory, people skills, personality and appearance are important skills.

We [agents and buyers] attend a lot of conventions. You never know when you might meet somebody. You might meet a person that you’ve talked to for a long time suddenly and, when you do, you get a different vibe. Sometimes it ruins things, or enhances things. It’s really amazing.

How does BLA hear about new artists?

We hear about new talent from managers - through relationships with managers, labels, song pluggers, and record companies. Also from people that work for EMI, or any of the big publishing companies. They (managers, publishers, and record companies) are in the business of finding new artists so we sticks close to them. Sometimes it works the other way around and we help get them [artists/bands] deals.

Recently, we had a 16-year-old from Florida that was rehearsing with a Nashville band that he heard about. So he came up, rented the rehearsal space, and invited us out. We went and listened to them play. You check out everything. Mark Moffatt (a record producer) turned us on to Simon Bruce. Relationships are key. Never leave any stone unturned. It’s just a lot of legwork. You have to get out there, be where the music is. I’ve left the house at 9 or 10 p.m. to see and 11 p.m. show. We’ve gone out of town to hear people – Atlanta, Georgia or Birmingham, Alabama. I wouldn’t go further than 3 or 4 hours. If your competitors are after a group and you go further, they’re [the group] impressed by that. Then you start the relationship, if you like the band/artist of course.

Are contracts for new artists pretty standard, or are negotiations as important/ difficult as a recording contract?

There has to be a starting point, but everything’s negotiable - length, renewal, percentages, etc. There are some documents that say there is a commission on everything. There are some short form contracts that lock some people in. We don’t use it, we just have copies of it. Those are an agreement to have an agreement - a prelude to a long document. “We like you, you like us, let’s agree to have a meeting. You’ll sign with us, etc.” We try not to use that, we did a few times, and it doesn’t work. Lawyers look at that poorly, wondering why their clients would sign something like that. We do a lot of things on a handshake to get started – but only to get started. If you do too much for somebody, they might wonder why they should sign with an agent. They’re doing fine on their own. Sometimes they never sign.

To be continued...