Former Vice President of Chrysalis Records (1977) Former Vice President of MCA Records
CUSP: What was/is your specific involvement with the local North Carolina local band, 99 Years?
Stan: I knew one of the managers at FYE who happened to be one of the band members as well. I sent a few people in California they’re CD. I told them that they were the future and were real music. I thought, here is the future of heavy metal. They need to get picked up by somebody.
CUSP: Are there any qualities that you feel increase 99 Years chance of success in the music industry?
Stan: If you see them live, you understand how entertaining they are, both physically and by communicating with the audience. Performance is crucial. We discovered many talents at bars and at shows. When I worked at Chrysalis, we found a great band at a show and everyone asked why we were our wasting our time in the bay area. But, they ended up being Huey Lewis and the News. We also found Pat Benatar singing in a bar in New York. Nobody knew her, but we found her and marketed her.
CUSP: Can you make any general suggestions to a musician who is, perhaps, just starting out and wants to make it big?
Stan: Get a manager or a publicist. Someone’s got to promote you. You can’t do it yourself. You need to focus on being a musician and being on stage. Get on the radio, get in the stores, get in the papers. When people hear a message three times, they’re more likely to seek your band out.
CUSP: Do you feel the role of the record label has changed with the coming of the internet?
Stan: The big shift is consumers are downloading music for free. Music is not free. Music is one thing you can have for life, once you buy it.
CUSP: What do you think the relationship between artists and labels is or is it different than what it was?
Stan: You have to get everybody involved. It’s a family. My philosophy was: putting a record out is like sending a kid off to school. My job was to make him graduate. Nobody worked for me, they worked with me. Collectively, we would market the artist, such as getting record stores to play their music in the stores. People would hear it, they’d call and next thing you know they’d be calling us asking for it. It was all of us together.
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