Chapter 386

(L-R): Michael McCall, Scott Borchetta. Photo: Donn Jones

Scott Borchetta visited with Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum writer and editor Michael McCall this past weekend (Sat., Jan. 21) in a public series at the Museum’s Ford Theater to discuss his career growth and success in the music industry.

MusicRow was in attendance for the event along with many industry players, college students, and a number of Borchetta employees who he referred to as ‘machinists’ including his wife Sandi Spika, John Zarling, Allison Jones, Andrew Kautz, Kelly Rich, Matthew Hargis, Nikki Burns, Erik Powell and Jake Basden.

Borchetta is perhaps best known for breaking Taylor Swift and The Band Perry, and his contributions to the careers of superstars Toby Keith, George Strait, Rascal Flatts, Garth Brooks, Martina McBride and Reba. For these reasons, Borchetta has been included among 92 new entries in the second edition printing of The Hall’s Encyclopedia of Country Music, available on Feb. 1.

A majority of the session was spent discussing his resume, and sharing opinions and predictions for the industry. Notably, Borchetta quipped when asked where the music is headed: “it’s going straight to your heart.” A theme that seemed to thread throughout the afternoon was to stay true to yourself; follow your gut.

“We love what we do,” said Borchetta. “I don’t feel like I’ve ever given up anything in my life to do this. This is my life, and we love doing it. If you don’t love doing it, somebody will beat you because they love it more. Love what you do, and outwork everyone.”

When Scott moved to Nashville to join his father Mike, he jumped into a country band on a dare. Music City exposed the Southern California boy to a new music scene—one to which he was unaccustomed. “I wised up very quickly to the amazing level of talent in Nashville. It was the first time I saw what I thought were truly gifted musicians. There’s a difference when you’re a practicing musician and you’re in the presence of a gifted musician. A bell goes off. But one thing that happened, I became able to explain the business to musicians.”

Borchetta grew that business ability and gained a reputation around 1989-90 for promoting edgier country, working with Marty Stuart, Dwight Yoakam, and Kelly Willis, which earned him an invitation to work at MCA. “When I came, MCA had great executives but needed a culture of winning. The program needed a spark, and I think I brought that.”

It wasn’t just his drive that pushed the label forward, however. MCA gained the ability to be trusted by radio. “At the end of the day records and radio want the same thing: answers. Is this going to work? The momentum from George and Reba gave MCA more opportunity to be trusted by the gatekeepers at radio to really start forest fires with the listeners and fans for newer acts.”

When Borchetta’s time at MCA ended, he aligned with James Stroud, who was starting DreamWorks Nashville for David Geffen and Mo Ostin. Borchetta had a vision of creating another imprint for DreamWorks, which would allow the label to compete with RCA and MCA, and he began building a business model. That plan was shelved when DreamWorks in LA decided to sell out to Universal Music Group, home to MCA Nashville. Borchetta found himself SVP of Promotions and Artist Development at the label he had been working at a few years prior. Nonetheless, he pocketed a few lessons from his work with the DreamWorks roster.

Borchetta notes, DreamWorks hadn’t fully understood Toby Keith’s commercial appeal, but when they did, he exploded. “He was like a new Hank Jr., a country rock star. Toby eventually got so big that DreamWorks was unable to keep a balance and it hurt the label dramatically. When Taylor got so big, we knew we needed to keep a balance.”

“The things we learned with Jessica Andrews [at DreamWorks] had a lot to do with how we broke Taylor. For one, we found she had a teenage audience very excited about country music.” Jimmy Harnen, then in promotions at DreamWorks, suggested engaging this audience with shows at high schools. “Nothing too extraordinary, it just came out of paying attention. And we saw it just light up. A lot of the things we learned, we put into play with Taylor from day one. Jessica wavered between wanting to be a pop artist and a country artist. A lot of artists that young don’t have the focus, that’s whats so extraordinary about Taylor. She had that drive.

“Mergers are tough,” Borchetta said about the shift back to MCA after DreamWorks sold. “I don’t think bigger is better. Fewer isn’t better for the creative community. I’ve never thought fewer radio stations or record labels were better. Greatness is about identifying great talent, but what I think is great, other label heads Mike Dungan, Luke Lewis, or Gary Overton might hate. People just need more opportunities.”

In 2004, Borchetta met Taylor, and she waited for him to start Big Machine after he exited Universal. “We had a real vision and a direct goal for what we wanted to do. It just started happening, I put up my own money in the beginning, Toby put money in, and we were able to get Big Machine launched. There were a lot of disbelievers.

Mike McCall with Scott Borchetta discussing the impact the late race car driver Dan Wheldon made on his life

“If you haven’t done this, I encourage everyone to do it at least once, put everything on the line and see how good you are. You will reach down and find things in yourself that you didn’t know you had. I found people that were willing to put it on the line with me. We put blinders on and didn’t look back, we looked straight ahead. Talk about feeling alive and living like you were dying.”

Borchetta explained the success of his label is the diversified talent and the agility to move quickly where larger labels are unable. “We made sure our label wasn’t just about Taylor, we found balance with Garth and shortly after, Trisha, and Reba. We broke The Band Perry and we’re able to treat every artist individually.”

Breaking acts while continuing to promote established superstars seems to be at the crux of his business model. “Don’t ever take these amazing artists for granted. You know their names because they’re extraordinary. They didn’t one day stop being extraordinary. Something stopped happening and someone stopped caring. Maybe that artist or maybe the people around them, but you have to cut through and stay relevant and understand and accept that things change.

“The industry is going to change. We’ve got to do a better job at harnessing our whole digital platform. It’s out of control, but people haven’t fallen out of love with music, they’ve just fallen in love with new ways to use it. There’s no value in us fighting that, we have to accept it and figure out what other services to provide an artist. I love Spotify as a consumer, but as a businessman I hate it. It’s literally fractions of pennies and its really hard for a new artist to survive. We’ve got to make a lot of noise by figuring out how to get the attention if you’re playing video games or on Facebook all day. But when we get it, the artist better be ready.”

And as swiftly as he addressed his intentions to sell his empire a few months ago in an appearance on CNBC, Borchetta eloquently stated, “Predominantly, I’m un-hirable. I have a house. I have a car. I don’t know that you could throw a bunch of money and we’d give up what we’ve got. Right now, I’ve not seen anything that excites me more than what we do. We are always looking at opportunities, but it would have to be pretty extraordinary for us to change our mind.

“And for the Taylor fans, we’ll have a new record out in October.”

As the creative force behind genre-hopping alternative band Self, Matt Mahaffey played an integral role in the founding and growth of Murfreesboro’s Spongebath Records scene of the mid ‘90s and early ‘00s.

In the ensuing years, he also found success as a studio wiz producing other bands and composing for films and commercials. After a decade in Los Angeles he recently returned to his Tennessee roots with his family and built Fresh Imperial, his new home studio in Franklin.

“I realized I get most of my work through my email,” he explains of the move. “I don’t really need to be sitting out there [in Los Angeles] because it is so expensive and we couldn’t afford to buy a place. We were just renting for 10 years. But we could buy a house here and build a studio. My daughter will be two in February. [Tennessee is] way more kid friendly and the schools are amazing. It was a no-brainer for us.”

Mahaffey originally relocated to Los Angeles while Self was making records under DreamWorks, a short-lived deal that nevertheless earned him a following and his first production clients after the label folded. He found early success with Hellogoodbye, whom he co-produced with Jeff Turzo (of ‘90s electro rockers God Lives Underwater). The group’s “Here (In Your Arms)” eventually hit platinum status and earned him a steady string of work.

“We would just tag team bands just one right after the other for a good 6-7 years straight,” says Mahaffey. “It was a lot of work and as the industry was dissolving, budgets kept getting smaller so for us to split things 50/50 just became impossible.”

Mahaffey was also moonlighting in the film and commercial business, thanks to his DreamWorks ties. He’s contributed to many of the studio’s early animated features like Shrek and Shark’s Tale as well as producing the surprise musical endings for all the Shrek DVDs. He also did two seasons of music for Ni Hao, Kai-Lan, a Nickelodeon show about a Chinese-American household, and (along with his brother Mike) composed the unforgettable Expedia.com tagline. But trying to produce records and write music for film/tv in LA proved exhausting.

“It was like three jobs all the time,” he recalls. “So one of the main reasons for the move was just to slow down a little bit. It was just brutal, constant, around the clock work.”

The return move to Tennessee afforded him the ability to build Fresh Imperial, with the aid of studio designer Mark Wenner. The space totals 1100 square feet and offers large control and tracking rooms.

“I’m used to operating out of a bedroom or office room and running cable,” notes Mahaffey. “Now I can actually have a drum kit set up, keep it up, and keep tweaking my sound—change out mics, try different EQs, different pre amps, as opposed to being like ‘Okay we’ve got two days to do drums,’ throw it up, then move that because we have to do bass.”

Mahaffey says the large tracking room set up is conducive for songwriting work and creative jam sessions.

“My whole thing is to eliminate the demo phase,” he explains. “Have everything up, let’s make a master right when we’re thinking of it. It’s spontaneous and you’re never going to capture that again if you keep re-recording it, massaging it, and lacquering it.”

Also helping to get the creative juices flowing are interior design motifs pulled from sci-fi and music geek heaven.

“The control room is Death Star-themed, like if Darth Vader wanted to lay down some ill beats,” he laughs. “It’s gray and clinical and then there’s a life size Darth Vader. The floor is black stained concrete. There are these two huge red things that give it this Imperial feel. The tracking room is colorful, with graffiti, more of an ‘80s Keith Haring hip-hop vibe.”

And despite the geographical separation, Los Angeles and points further abroad are still calling for Mahaffey’s expertise. He’s currently composing music for a Disney cartoon that has writers in Dublin and producers in London.

“It’s all just synching it up and working together,” he says. “There’s no need to be on the phone all the time when you can just email or Skype and see someone.”

And importantly, it allows Mahaffey the freedom to spend time with his family and see his daughter grow up.

“When were moving I looked at places to have a spot,” he says, “but if I did that I really wouldn’t see my family. It’s important that you’re around. I try to treat it like a job—I try to get up and be in the studio by 9 and be out of the studio by 6:30-7.”

Mahaffey’s next couple months will be focused on writing songs for his upcoming Disney cartoon, and another Hellogoodbye album is reportedly on the horizon. Self fans also have cause for celebration, because Mahaffey is currently working on a new album for his old musical guise.

“I’ve got half a dozen songs done already and I just started this month,” he says. “I’m just forcing myself to write. I saw a really good Ira Glass quote and the gist of it was you have to force yourself to write everyday, be creative everyday. No matter if it’s good or bad, you have to do it. That just seems to be the smart thing that any writer should do.”