Wednesday, Jul 20, 2022 • 1h, 5min
What Music Can Learn From The Comedy Industry
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Joining us on the New Music Business is the CEO of Comedy Dynamics, Brian Volk-Weiss, who’s officially our first guest that does not exclusively work in the music industry. Given how parallel these two industries are, there are incredible revelations on how he operates the most successful independent comedy record label in the world.
04:20 Welcome 08:02 Breaking into the comedy industry 11:35 Managing comics 18:53 Retiring from management 22:25 Launching the Comedy Dynamics record label 28:35 Audio rights 30:56 Where is the money coming from? 32:22 Grammy nominations 36:34 Record deals within the comedy industry 50:26 How to write moral record contracts 59:47 What’s on the horizon? 1:02:55 Final question
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Connect with Brian Volk-Weiss:
Website: https://www.comedydynamics.com Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/brianvolkweiss
Edited and mixed by Maxton Hunter Music by Brassroots District Produced by the team at Ari’s Take
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Brian Volk-Weiss
Ari Herstand
Transcript
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Brian Volk-Weiss
00:00
A lot of why we do the deals we do is my reaction to what I perceived to be stupid business traditions. Look them in the eye and you tell them up front, "Here's the good news. Here's the bad news". Our last page is a list of all the quote-unquote bad things and it's just repeating what could piss them off five years later and they have to initial it, nobody has refused to sign it.
Share
00:26
We will tell them openly, "We need a comedian, who went nuts". Was like, "You didn't say this, You didn't say that!" Not only did we not say anything you're saying? We said, not only is everything you're complaining about in the contract, you signed it. We shined a spotlight on this for you. We added this thing for extra moral protection.
Share
Ari Herstand
00:46
Real quick because I've been getting a lot of questions about this. I want to let you know that even though Ari's Take Academy enrollment is not currently open, we only open it a couple times a year and that is to focus on the current students that we do have and we just go in these open enrollment periods a couple times a year. You can always apply if you're really, really interested in one of our courses and you think you'd be a great fit and you just can't wait until the next open enrollment period. That's okay.
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01:14
We open a limited number of slots throughout the year application only if you think you're a good fit for any of our courses, like streaming growth through digital marketing, advanced sync strategies. Tiktok from musicians, live streaming special events, performing in the pc market booking and touring that kind of stuff. Feel free to head over to Ari's Take Academy dot com and apply What's going on.
Share
01:44
Welcome to the New Music Business. I'm your host,
Ari Herstand
author of how to make it in the New Music Business, 3rd Edition coming very soon.Share
01:54
Today, my guest is actually does not work in the music industry and this is, I think the first guest we've had that doesn't exclusively work in the music industry.
Share
02:03
He does work in the entertainment industry, specifically the
comedy
world. Now I've always found some parallels between the comedy
industry and the music industry, but don't turn it off, even if you're not interested in the comedy
industry, there are some incredible revelations here.Share
02:16
I hope we have some record labels listening because the way that
Brian
runs his record label, we can all learn a lot from in music. My guest today is Brian Volk-Weiss
and he he runs the most successful independent comedy
record label in the world. It's the largest independent stand-up comedy
production and distribution label, Comedy Dynamics.Share
02:39
They work with some artists just to name a few
Kevin Hart
, Tiffany Hadish
, Ali Wong
, Jim Gaffigan,
Dave Chappelle
, Chris Rock
, Tom Segura
, I could go on and it's essentially the who's who of comedy
, it's it's everyone. I mean, Amy Schumer,
Bo Burnham
, I mean just on and on and on. He is who you talk to when you are working in comedy
and want to make a stand-up special, they have produced hundreds of stand-up specials and then turned the stamp specials into albums.Share
03:10
They've won five
Grammys
. They now since the label he started in 2017, it's a very new label and in 2019 get this every comedy
album that was nominated for a Grammy
was Brian's
was from Comedy Dynamics.Share
03:27
That's pretty cool. I can't tell you a time in history when one record label had every nominee in the same category. So we talk about how to go about the
Grammy
nominated process, how his his albums get nominated for Grammys
, but more so how he got to where he's at how he structures and runs his label.Share
03:46
It's very fascinating and we talked about Prince a little bit and just the differences between major record contracts and Comedy Dynamics record contracts. Everyone is going to learn a lot whether you care about
comedy
or not.Share
04:00
This definitely listen to this episode and if you're coming here from the
comedy
industry, welcome most of our episodes about the music industry, but likewise how musicians and music industry professionals can learn a tremendous amount from the comedy
industry. It goes both ways.Share
04:17
And I know we have some comedians as listeners as well. So this one especially is for you. Speaking of which please subscribe to the show if this is your first time or you've been listening for a while, pause it right now. Hit that. Subscribe, hit that follow button if you want us to appear on your feet.
Share
04:33
And if you've been listening for a while and you'd love to leave us a review, a five star review on
Spotify
and Apple podcast would be super helpful. That really helps. Very appreciated. I read the reviews for better or worse. But if you love the show, leave me a review. If you hate it, shoot me an email. My email is not hard to find. I'll get back to you. If you listen on youtube, leave a comment.Share
04:54
I'd love to respond to the comments and you can find us all that make the show happen on instagram, Twitter and Tiktok at
Ari's
Take find me on Instagram and Twitter at Ari
Herstand visit Ari's Take dot com. Get on the email list. That's where the most important information we send it out regularly there. All right, let's kick into the show, Brian
Welk wise, Welcome to the show.Share
Brian Volk-Weiss
05:15
Hey, thank you for having me,
Ari
.Share
Ari Herstand
05:18
So, for those of you are just listening.
Share
05:21
And not, don't have the, the magic of the visuals that I have right now.
Share
05:28
It seems that that you're a fan here.
Share
05:31
And, and if you could explain this fandom that I'm witnessing behind you, I'm going on this, this magical intergalactic journey right now discuss what, what I'm, what I'm seeing behind you. Yes.
Share
Brian Volk-Weiss
05:45
By the way, my favorite reaction to my background was Ian Mick, I'm sure I'm butchering this Mick Mick Diamond or something like that. He plays the emperor in
Star Wars
. He saw my background, he goes, are you in a vegetable storage facility? No, I am a toy collector. I have over 3300 pieces. Put it nicely, my wife would say pieces of crap.Share
06:18
But uh before
COVID
, this was my collection room And since COVID
about now, thank God, it's only about 10% of the time. But whatever reason today I'm working from my office at home. But yeah, this is a tiny slice of my toy collection.Share
Ari Herstand
06:41
You're in like just a general toy collector or a star specific
Star Wars
toy collector.Share
Brian Volk-Weiss
06:48
So like I said, it's like about 3300 pieces.
Share
06:54
I would say
Star Wars
and Star Trek
combined or half the collection. And then after those, it would be G. I. Joe
then it would be Batman
. And then every now and then I would say probably about a third of the collection is just random, random, random, random, random, amazing.Share
Ari Herstand
07:17
Oh my gosh! Well I know there was a documentary out there that featured some of your toy collection and so that's something that we can all take a take a look at if you want to learn more but we're not the toys that made us. Yes, yes, go check that out.
Share
07:33
Alright, so we're not here today necessarily talking about toys and and actually, I think of the new year 100 yeah, the near 100 guests that I've had on the New Music Business podcast. I think you're the first one and only one that doesn't uh primarily work in the music industry.
Share
07:48
And I thought it was interesting to have you on the show because there are a lot of parallels with the
comedy
industry and the music industry and I'm fascinated by the comedy
industry. I love, personally, I love comedy
, I get to as many shows as I can and I watch as many specials as I can.Share
08:06
But you know, as someone running the, believe the largest independent
comedy
label out there, you have an interesting perspective in kind of what it takes to put out releases and I think there's a lot of parallels specifically when it comes to the Grammys
, which I know a lot of my audience is interested in and kind of how you went about that process, but I want to kind of step back a little bit and we'll get to uh the inception of comedy
dynamic records and all of that, but kind of just stuck me through how you broke into the comedy
industry.Share
08:42
I know you've done a lot of film work and TV work and producing and directing all that stuff, but for the most part, what led you to be the largest independent
comedy
label in the world?Share
Brian Volk-Weiss
08:56
It was as random as it gets. I moved out to
L. A
. I mean, so much of this is cliche, apologies. I moved out to L. A
. I didn't know anybody.Share
09:10
I worked every job. I worked every job except for camera department. I was a grip, I was an electric, I did everything. Uh but that's a great way to burn through your life savings when you're 22 because I worked for free, like 99% of the time. So I was broke, but I also knew everything I'd been doing was on set and I wanted to get earlier in the process.
Share
09:39
So I mean literally, I used to go to this like breakfast club at seven in the morning at the farmers market and some random guy, I mean, I didn't even know the guy, he was like the friend of, a friend of a friend, he came to one of the breakfast, never saw him again, but at that breakfast he introduced me to someone else who long story short got me an internship and that internship down the hallway because again, I wasn't getting paid and I like literally was like trying to get a job as a waiter.
Share
10:13
Uh I was out of money and uh randomly. Uh there was a guy down the hall, uh an assistant who was quitting And his boss was a manager. Now I didn't even know what a manager did, like, I had no idea, but all I knew - and this is all I needed to know when you're 22 years old - he was playing paying $50 a day cash to be an assistant. I interviewed, I got the gig, He only managed stand-up comedians, that's it.
Share
10:52
And I at that time in my life had only been to a stand-up
comedy
club once. I did not enjoy it. I literally had like ducked out and missed three quarters of the show. The only comedian I remember was Todd Barry
who was great and that that Saturday. Just to see what the company did. Like, I was just curious like what is our, what does the management company do?Share
11:20
I went to the
Laugh Factory
, I was I was given free tickets to the 7:00 show I watched the show I left and because I didn't know anybody and I was brand new, I got on the line with 300 other people paid for the 10:00 show.Share
11:39
The 10:00 show ended. I got back on the line and I paid for the midnight show and I literally watched like almost seven hours of
comedy
on that first Saturday night And I became obsessed with it. I mean absolutely obsessed. I didn't know anything about anything.Share
11:59
Like the only special I'd ever seen was
Eddie Murphy
raw, but like I would say within six months I had probably seen 90%, which was easy to do back then. I had seen 90% of every stand-up special ever made. And then I became a manager and I also only represented comedians. That's how it started.Share
Ari Herstand
12:23
Amazing. And what year are we talking here? Where you were on the line?
Share
Brian Volk-Weiss
12:27
'99. It was march '99
Share
Ari Herstand
12:28
Okay, nice. So, your manager for comics for years now, tell me kind of, did you, were you taking, I'm assuming you're starting with comics that were kind of getting started as you're building your career. These comedians are building their career.
Share
Brian Volk-Weiss
12:46
I'm worried I've already told you a long story. So if this next story is too long, please interrupt. But by the way, if anybody wants to know how random management is, this is the best. I had a very, very, very unusual career.
Share
13:04
When I was still the assistant to the boss, the first new
Star Wars
movie was coming out in 20 years and there were these things, a lot of people may not remember called line teams. And a line team when a movie like Star Wars
because now it's normal for big things like this to come back. But back in 1999, nothing like this had ever happened.Share
13:31
So you had to get online teams and like wait weeks to get tickets. So obviously no one person is gonna wait for weeks to get a ticket. So I was part of an eight person line team and I was, you know, I would put in my six-hour shifts every four days or whatever, I'm bad at math every two days, whatever it was.
Share
13:56
And then one day one of these young comedians I had never heard of in my life was a
Star Wars
fan, which again in 2022 you're like, who gives a ship? Like everybody is a Star Wars
fan, it was a big deal to find a like-minded Star Wars
fan. And he asked me, I know it's really not cool and it was not cool. This was a big deal.Share
14:22
He asked me if I would get him a ticket and I did, I and I remember I was only supposed to buy one, that's how it worked and I bought two and that was because again, it's not fair to all the other people in line that you're, if everybody did that, the people in line wouldn't be able to get tickets themselves, but for whatever reason and I really thought about it man, other people would say that they prayed on it.
Share
14:46
I mean it really bothered me, but for some reason and I'm the last person to normally break rules like this, I got the guy a ticket and we became great friends and when we became when I became a manager because that story, I just told you I was the assistant when I became a manager, He became one of my first clients and I shared him, don't get me wrong with the big boss, but at the time this guy could barely sell four, tickets Uh cut to about 2.5 years later, I mean I'm not even 30, like I think I was like 26 he became the biggest comedian in 35 years.
Share
Ari Herstand
15:33
His name is
Dane Cook
at the top of the Laugh Factory
, if you drive down Sunset Strip, his name is still right up top there. Incredible.Share
Brian Volk-Weiss
15:41
Exactly.
Share
Ari Herstand
15:42
And the first 1 to sell out.
MSG
I think?Share
Brian Volk-Weiss
15:47
Actually 3rd it was
Steve Martin
. Andrew Dice Clay
and then... but what people don't understand is in 2022 it's like, well who cares, Bill Burr
, Kevin Hart
.Share
16:05
Yeah, so in 2022 there's probably between 15 and 20 comedians that can sell out
MSG
. when Dane
did MSG
he was the third human being comedian ever.Share
16:20
You have done it and not only that I have to give
Dane
credit, he did it in the round because when dice and Steve Martin
did it, it was not in the round, so Dane
actually really did you know he I mean he really did sell it out,Share
Ari Herstand
16:37
So you're managing
Dane Cook
, you've now become a manager I'm assuming because he quickly becomes the largest comic in the world, that opens the door to other comedians was like, "Well I want to work with, who Dane's
work with man, his career has taken off!" And so you're, you're taking more meetings. You do you build a roster or what happens then?Share
Brian Volk-Weiss
16:58
No, I wish that had happened to be completely honest with you. If that had happened, there's a very good chance. Not only would I still be a manager, I'll be completely honest with you. I don't know if I would have built the company the way I did.
Share
17:15
Dane
was a very controversial comedian. And that is me being diplomatic. Uh, there's a better word I could use, but I'll stick with controversial because he was controversial. Uh We did not, I mean as a company, we actually not only did not receive a single incoming call because of Dane
.Share
17:38
We actually didn't get a lot of calls because of
Dane
. So like a lot of comedians didn't want to be at the company where Dane
was represented. So what actually happened was because Dean blew up so quickly.Share
17:55
And I mean like life changing quickness in about 80 days.
Share
18:04
I mean, I went from being bonkers in debt, bonkers broke, worried about my car getting repossessed. Not a metaphor that's real... to like basically not having to worry about money over an 80 day period.
Share
18:22
So a lot of people go from broke to wealthy. It usually doesn't take 80 days. So, so that was the good news? The bad news was Because
Dane
was such a big and it wasn't really bad news, but because Dane
was such a big business.Share
18:40
I basically scaled back how many clients I had drastically and then went on the road with him. I mean, I was on every tour, I was on every movie. I was there every single day practically. So I, I mean, I went from having about 20 clients to having four clients over the course of about three months.
Share
Ari Herstand
19:03
So when did you part ways? When did you stop working with
Dane
and stop managing clients?Share
Brian Volk-Weiss
19:08
I'm really well, okay, so I stopped managing
Dane
and I retired, that for a manager by the way is like a gun slinger dying with his boots off? Like it's a, it's a big deal to be a manager retiring normally. It's not a normally it's not a voluntary decision, but I retired from Dane
, I believe. And as a manager, I think in 2011, If I'm wrong, it was 2010, It was one, I believe. It was 2011.Share
Ari Herstand
19:46
And was there an impetus? Was there something that was like, you know what management is no longer for me? Was the life, was the road life challenging? Was it just dealing, you know, 24 7 having to be on call with your clients? Was it just like the lifestyle or just did you lose interest in that line of work? Why did you decide to, to retire at what? 40 35?
Share
Brian Volk-Weiss
20:09
I didn't retire from show business. I just retired from management. Here's listen, I am not other than being an actor and I know this is ironic. But it probably a probably leads to be, other than being an actor, I am not aware of a worse job that exists than being a manager and I can give you proof without using myself as an example. There is a manager.
Share
20:42
Uh he is probably one of the most successful managers in history. I would say in a bad year, he makes 12 million But I would say he probably makes around $20 million dollars a year. I have never seen him and he didn't say to me almost immediately how jealous he is that I've retired. So if you have the number one most successful, like imagine if Michael Jordan's went around 24/7 complaining about how much he hates basketball, that's what this guy is to management. So that being said.
Share
21:23
It's a horrible life, as I mentioned earlier,
Dane
was controversial, which is not the exact right word to use here, but it's the word I will use. Uh and to be honest with you, our other businesses, especially our stand-up comedy
business was maturing so quickly and we had actually built up a really nice library that it just didn't make sense anymore to, you know, put myself out there like that.Share
Ari Herstand
21:54
I realized I could make more money and have a better life just producing and building my company that I did managing for people well, you know, that takes a lot of courage to go out and to stop doing something that you're familiar with and that you've proven that you can do and to leave that behind and pivot and essentially start a new career.
Share
22:24
I mean that I think, you know, we've been seen in the great resignation, the great reset over the last couple of years.
Share
22:30
A lot of people uh doing that because they're prioritizing their happiness and their well being and their quality of life over uh stability, I guess, immediate career stability, because they are choosing a different life that they want and they want to structure their life in a way that is going to prioritize well being and happiness, which I think is is really crucial and important.
Share
22:57
So you know, it worked out for you, but let's fast forward to 2017 when you launched
comedy
dynamic records, because I wanna, I wanna get into this a bit as as running a record label now, you know, most people listening to this in the music industry, but I bet there's gonna be some parallels here, what inspired you to launch the record label and how did how did you do that again?Share
Brian Volk-Weiss
23:20
You know, it's funny, I always go out of my way to point out how random my career has been, because I get a lot of press about how I'm very smart and I'm a genius and I saw the future coming and at least from my point of view, none of that is true.
Share
23:37
It's all been very random and very lucky, so, and again, don't get me wrong, I worked really hard, but it I know lots of people who have worked hard and have not been able to do what they wanted to do. So it really is, I mean a tremendous percentage of luck. But basically what happened was we started making stand-up specials uh for non clients.
Share
24:03
So when I started making stand-up specials, well, at the time I was an employee, uh and the company was called New Wave, so, and the management company, the small management company I worked for from 1993 1999 a bigger company called New Wave bought His my old bosses company in 2003 and then I in 2017 bought the bigger company.
Share
24:39
So I was an employee there for like 15 years. So what happened was I had just been making stand-up specials for my comedian clients and I was making two or three a year, to be honest with you, sometimes one or zero, and one day I got a call from an agent when the agent was like, hey, what do you think about doing a stand-up special for Michael Ian Black. Uh the guy's name is Michael Berkowitz.
Share
25:05
Or Mike Berkowitz. I don't know why I just called him Michael. I have never called him Michael. So, Mike Berkowitz called me about Michael Ian Black. That's why I called him Michael and he uh I got very angry and we'll know. The first question I asked is does Michael need a manager? And he's like, no, he's been with the same manager for 20 years, he's fine. And I'm like, and I got angry.
Share
25:29
I was like, Dude, I'm not here to just fucking make people stand-up specials, come on. Like call me when he needs a manager the next day in the shower. I was like, you know what? I'm pretty sure my job is to make money as long as it's legal. So I called him back, I apologized and that was our first stand-up special that we made. It's the first time the company ever did anything not with a client.
Share
25:54
So that is exhibiting, you might be wondering when am I going to answer your question? Here comes. So exhibit b again, sort of lucky. But through
Dane
, I had of course become friends with the guy who ran Comedy Central Records
. A guy named Jack Vaughn who right now is running all of comedy
for serious.Share
26:19
And even though I had produced albums with
Dane
and other comedians for Jack and Jack had given other clients of mine record deals. It was only when we started producing our own albums, our own stand-up specials.Share
26:38
Jack had said to me, I'm just curious, you're making all these specials, you own them, why aren't you putting out albums? So because he was my friend, and because it wasn't a lot of work, we started just giving him the albums and he put them on
Comedy Central
and everything was great.Share
26:60
And then one day after I read a book called The long Tail, and that book which I read in 2006, that book is what inspired me to do everything I've done.
Share
27:11
I basically asked Jack if he thought we could launch our own record label.
Share
27:17
And he very nicely, because again, this would be in competition with
Comedy Central
very nicely said he's like, listen if I'm being honest with you, Yeah, it's kind of stupid. You don't have one.Share
27:28
And that's when we launched our record album, and I'll be completely honest with you, the day we launched, Dude, maybe the first six months we launched, I didn't understand, I didn't get it. I didn't know what
SoundExchange
was. I didn't understand, like, I didn't get it. Like, to me, audio is like the Icing on the cake and I wouldn't go so far as today to say that Audio is the cake, it absolutely is not.Share
Ari Herstand
27:60
But I would say that audio is half the cake and half the icing and in the
comedy
industry you're saying the other half is the stand-up special, the live performance in all of that.Share
Brian Volk-Weiss
28:16
Yes, because the same way we're record label distributing records were also a video distributor. So we distribute the video to hundreds of places every day. And then we also do a lot of license deals too. So we'll license like, you know, we did
Ali Wong's
first stand-up special on Spec
were one of the only companies that regularly like we do before COVID
we did 20 to 30 Specs specials a year.Share
Ari Herstand
28:45
And what does that mean that you produce it without a network attached finance.
Share
Brian Volk-Weiss
28:49
Yes. So we, so using Alley as the example, like we did her special on Spec and then we licensed it to
Netflix
. So that was not originally a Netflix
special. Same thing with Tom Segura
. Same thing with Tiffany Hadish
on Show Time.Share
29:06
So like if you see
Tiffany Hadish
first special on Pluto
, or Roku
or Samsung
or Peacock
today, that's ours. Like that's not. Showtimes the audio was always like whatever, but eventually it became pretty apparent it is not or whatever.Share
Ari Herstand
29:29
Right? And so now when you're doing deals or producing stand-up specials or even negotiating the stand-up special, is it always tied to the audio rights as well, whereas before where you just ignoring the audio rights and those capacities?
Share
Brian Volk-Weiss
29:45
Oh no. We always got the rights, don't get me wrong.
Share
Ari Herstand
29:47
You just didn't exploit them.
Share
Brian Volk-Weiss
29:49
No, we did, but I guess what I would say is we didn't do it in a systematic way. So, you know, and then the other thing I should mention is like I said, I read that book that book, like before I read the long tail we were making, I would say between three and five specials a year after I read the book, I think the first full 12 months after I read the book, we made 15 specials.
Share
30:14
And then uh, and like I said, I read the book in '06 and in 2019, the last full year before
COVID
, I mean, we made 32 specials, so what that did was that gave us the volume to actually be a label.Share
30:32
But on top of that, to further answer your question on top of that. I mean, we also started very aggressively producing album-only deals and then also acquiring specials. So we make, I mean, I would say a quarter of our releases, on the audio, on the record division side, a quarter of our albums are album only.
Share
Ari Herstand
30:59
Yeah, so that's interesting. I didn't actually realize there were any
comedy
album-only records, I thought they all came from special. So, so now is your approach, when you do a special, it's systematic, it it automatically the album is released, like, Okay, we've done, I think about 240 specials, I would say at the most five.Share
Brian Volk-Weiss
31:33
We didn't have the audio rights. And the reason for that is they had pre-existing deals and I wanted the video so badly I agreed to do it, but - and by the way, I'm telling you five to be safe, I think the real number is two or three.
Share
Ari Herstand
31:49
So when you said that audio is about 50% of the business now. Break that down a little bit. Are we talking streaming royalties from
Spotify
, Apple Music
? Is this where the money is coming from? And SoundExchange
? You mentioned a little bit of that. I mean, where's the money coming from?Share
Brian Volk-Weiss
32:05
Really, the majority, the vast majority of the money is digital. So it's, you know, it's
Apple
, it's iTunes,
Amazon
, what have you.Share
Ari Herstand
32:15
And then of course,
SoundExchange
and explain something to change a little bit because on the music side, you know, uh, we're familiar with SoundExchange
that pays the record labels and the featured artists, the actual artists, not the songwriters, which we can get into a little bit later, but it's the, the artists themselves, the feature performers, what they call it on SoundExchange
.Share
32:35
And it's typically for digital radio, which I'm, you know, like
Pandora
, Sirius XM
, is that big business for comedy
? Is there, is there, the comedy
specials being played on Pandora
Sirius XM,
iHeart
, those digital radio stations, that's why there's a significant money amount coming to comedy
?Share
Break
Ari Herstand
34:43
Real quick because I've been getting a lot of questions about this. I want to let you know that even though Ari's Take Academy enrollment is not currently open, we only open it a couple times a year and that is to focus on the current students that we do have and we just go in these open enrollment periods a couple times a year.
Share
34:59
You can always apply if you're really, really interested in one of our courses and you think you'd be a great fit and you just can't wait until the next open enrollment period. That's okay. We open a limited number of slots throughout the year. Application only head on over to aristakecademy.com check out the course that we have available.
Share
35:18
One of them when I want to let you know about is our newest one. Tiktok for musicians. It's taught by Austin georges and joon park of Flight House. Now. Flight House is the number one brand on Tiktok. They have nearly 30 million Tiktok followers, but more so and why we enlisted them to teach this course is because this is the company that the major labels higher to get their songs to go viral.
Share
35:40
They've worked with artists like Doja Cat and Cardi B and Lil Nas Ax. And now students of ours take Academy. If you want to learn from the premier people in Music For Tiktok, join us in Ari's Take Academy. Tiktok For musicians, you can use the code nmB for 10% off.
Share
35:58
Also check out our special events course taught by Carrie Raeburn. This course we specifically focus on the Performing Arts center market. Did you know that many people are making six figures touring performing art centers and other private event venues around the country. It's kind of a hidden secret of the music industry.
Share
36:17
So, Carrie teaches you all about that. This is not about touring clubs, is not about sleeping on couches. This can be a very lucrative career path for you. If you're the right artist for special events and specifically in the Performing Arts center market, feel free to head over to aristakecademy.com and apply.
Share
Brian Volk-Weiss
36:39
On
Sirius
alone there are six comedy
channels like Pandora
has, I believe two.Share
36:51
I mean there it's a huge business huge and growing fast.
Share
Ari Herstand
36:58
Cool. That's, that's that's great to hear. I, yeah, I wasn't familiar with that now. What is now when it comes to your independent record label and you've been nominated, you've won uh five
Grammys
nominated for a bunch of grammars, I think I read in 2019. You had was it every album that was nominated for a Grammy
that year or something like that?Share
37:24
What send me through the process of how you go about getting nominated for a
Grammy
?Share
Brian Volk-Weiss
37:31
Dude, It's so complicated. I don't even know if you'll understand it, but I will talk, I will talk slowly, talk slowly for your benefit. It we submit a list and then they tell us what got in.
Share
Ari Herstand
37:48
Well let's get a little bit more detail with that. So you submit a list to whom?
Share
Brian Volk-Weiss
37:54
We send a list of the
Grammy
Association of every album we put out. Then that list gets turn they then turn it into somehow on their own, turn it into a shorter list, Then that shorter list, because again, we put out about 150 albums a year more than that, actually.Share
38:19
So it then gets reduced to, let's say 20 albums, uh by the way, I'm sure there's an answer as to how they do that, I just don't know it.
Share
38:29
Then those 20 albums, the
Grammy
sends a giant email form to all voting members, all of those are on the form, whoever gets the most votes gets the nomination, and then whoever gets a nomination, whoever gets the most votes wins.Share
Ari Herstand
38:53
So right, it's it's the
Recording Academy
. And yes, there are a few rounds of voting where it's like, I've seen the list of the first round, which is endless. And I mean, I guess it helps because a lot of the albums that you have, I mean a lot of these are from recognizable names.Share
39:12
I mean, we're talking, you know,
Dave Chappelle
and Chris Rock
and Patton Oswald
, Jim Gaffigan
and and on and on and on. So, that probably makes it a little bit easier. These are recognizable names. Now, how did you develop the catalog?Share
39:31
To this extent, was it just from acquiring the rights from
Comedy Central Records
and that's how you initially uh grew the catalog, or was it, I think I read somewhere that you you actually are now the the distributor for Comedy Central Records
, but prior to that deal, when you you were just having, you know, your own catalog and in your own releases without Comedy Central's
catalog, how where were you obtaining these rights from where these comedians striking deals directly with you?Share
39:59
Signing record deals directly with you, these production deals? Or was it working alongside studios that had existing deals? Kind of stepped me through the nuances of where all these rights came from?
Share
Brian Volk-Weiss
40:09
Yeah, I mean if we're only talking about the
Grammys
, I mean, Comedy Central
was not relevant at all. I mean, we just started distributing Comedy Central
this January of 2022, and we just got their back catalog. So all of our nominations and all of our wins came about in one of two ways. The first is we produced the album based on a special or something like that.Share
40:39
Like, we made it ourselves from scratch, and then we distributed it and it got a nomination, and sometimes one that's half of it. The other half is somebody else made a special, and they needed a record label to produce the record, and we produced the record for them, even though we didn't produce the special, and that's what happened with
Chappelle
and Louis.Share
Ari Herstand
41:09
Okay, okay. Gotcha.
Share
41:12
So breakdown, I'm very curious. I don't know uh really the
comedy
industry in the inner workings. I know the music industry very well, but I'm curious how record deals work in the comedy
industry.Share
41:24
Do you... Is it per special? Is it just your signing a one album deal? Do you have options of additional albums that are in there? What's the royalty breakdown? Where's the ownership fall? How does this all work breakdown? A typical record deal. A deal for comedy.
Share
Brian Volk-Weiss
41:41
I'm gonna do my best to answer all your questions, but I have a horrible memory. So, if I forget one, apologies. And it goes without saying: I can only tell you about our deals.
Share
41:53
I either don't know how other companies don't work, or it's not my place to say how they do if I'm just speaking for us. Can you ask them one at a time?
Share
Ari Herstand
42:07
Yes, Let's go one at a time. Yeah. Okay. So number one: how many album deals do you work with? So is it a one-album deal? Multiple albums? How's that work?
Share
Brian Volk-Weiss
42:22
So Okay, so I'm so glad you asked this. A lot of how I run the company is based on my experiences as a manager. So there are things that I do that are kind of weird in some ways. But I believe in the long run actually will make more money.
Share
42:44
You could not have asked a better question to make my point. We absolutely positively do not, as a rule, even ask for options. I do not want to work with any artist that doesn't want to work with us.
Share
43:04
I want it to be something they choose to do and something they are not obligated to do. Reason is when I was a manager, the anger that my clients would have when they went from being a nobody to a somebody and then being obligated to perform within a crappy deal: a, life's too short.
Share
43:29
I don't want to deal with that bullshit. Two, I'm allowed to curse, right? And then I probably should have asked that a while ago and then to, like I don't want to work with a comedian that doesn't want to work with me. You know, like that's just gonna be like, we have enough money. We have enough success to force a comedian to work with us. It's just not, it's not fair.
Share
44:04
I guarantee you 90% of our deals we could get the comedians to agree to at least a plus one. We have never asked. I never will ask. And I guarantee you the first time there's a ceo of the company. That's not me.
Share
44:21
That will be one of the first things they change about our deals, but I'm not going to change it. So no, we've never done a plus one, let alone a plus four.
Share
Ari Herstand
44:31
I love that. And that, I mean, artists uh, love that and love you for that. And, and you know, we talked about all the time. Uh, artists that are struggling with their labels and they feel bound to it. I mean, Prince said, uh, major labels are like slavery.
Share
44:45
I would encourage every artist not to sign a major label on the music side. It's well documented that artists don't appreciate those draconian deals that lock them in for sometimes 10 albums sometimes that are, that could be 20 years, 30. You know, it's craziness. So that's great to hear.
Share
45:05
Question number two about how the deals are structured.
Share
45:09
Is there an advance versus royalties? Is it a recoup a ble. And then what's the royalty split?
Share
Brian Volk-Weiss
45:16
So we have over 2000 albums.
Share
Ari Herstand
45:21
OK.
Share
Brian Volk-Weiss
45:22
I think we have one record where the artist doesn't get back end.
Share
Ari Herstand
45:30
Okay. So it was it was purchased outright. You on the right.
Share
Brian Volk-Weiss
45:34
Oh no, there was a lawsuit! That was part of the settlement that but my point was the other 1990 nine. Everybody gets back end.
Share
45:51
80% of the time we pay... 75% of the time we provide in advance. 25% of the time it's just rev share.
Share
Ari Herstand
46:02
And what are we talking?
Share
Brian Volk-Weiss
46:03
It's like we never ever go below 30% and again...
Share
Ari Herstand
46:08
Which side?
Share
Brian Volk-Weiss
46:08
On our side.
Share
46:12
Meaning my company never takes less than 30%. Again, I guarantee you there's some deals I'm forgetting about. But 99.9999999% of our deals, we never go below 30% and we never go above I think 70%. And I would say that less than .1% of our deals aren't even 70%. If we're getting 70%, that means I really don't want the album, but I'm doing a favor to somebody.
Share
46:47
But I would say 60-70% of our deals are 50/50.
Share
Ari Herstand
46:54
Okay, that makes sense. I mean that's yeah. Right. That's quite a fluctuation from 30 to 70%. But 50/50. That makes sense that that's the majority.
Share
Brian Volk-Weiss
47:05
That's like I can address that for a second and this goes back to what I was saying before where a lot of what I learned as a manager I use now while we're running, you know, the company we, we don't, I do not believe in this in the topic we're discussing. I don't care about precedent.
Share
47:28
Like I feel like business in general, especially Hollywood is obsessed with precedent and it's stupid because maybe that's stupid, but it's shortsighted because you are talking about artists, there's no profession in the world except for maybe astronauts where like one shoe fits all like or one size fits all.
Share
47:53
Like every deal is different by the way. Dude, I've done deals with the same comedian Where in 2015 he or she got fucking 80%, not 80%, let's say got 30, let's say that let's say in 2015 a comedian and got 70% and then I did another deal with them in 2017 Where they got 30%.
Share
48:21
You would say why did it go down? Well, maybe they were going through a divorce and the advance was tripled. Maybe they had cooled off and I didn't want to do a deal for another album and they wanted it so badly. They said name your price.
Share
48:42
And normally I wouldn't do that.
Share
48:45
Because again, I just want everybody to be happy. I don't want, I always again, and this is because I was a manager.
Share
48:54
The
comedy
cellar in New York at 3:00 AM.Share
49:01
You do not want those comedians sitting there having correct, no offense but crappy cheese sticks and nachos. The food there is actually very good, but at three in the morning, you know, whatever.
Share
49:15
But you don't know, I'm gonna get a call from Nome, but the food is great, the food is great, the food is great, I love, I love the food, but uh you don't want these comedians at three in the morning, sitting around the table saying how your company sucks and you're stealing money or you're you're you're the Prince quote about slavery and all that.
Share
49:40
Like we lose money when those conversations happen, there are comedians out there that hate my guts as a human being, they hate me, but I have heard many times in those three in the morning conversations where comedian in a very respected comedian will say, I hate
Brian
, he's a horrible person, but they're honest, they're fair, they pay on time.Share
50:11
And even though I hate
Brian
, you can trust him and like I hate that, I'm saying this because I hate Brian
, but they'll take good care of you. So that's why I have a lot of these rules because it may seem like we're losing money in that day or that week or that year, but in the long term that three in the three a. m. Chatting. If it's positive, it will make more money over the lifetime of the label.Share
Ari Herstand
50:46
I love that and that's the opposite of how it goes in the music industry, where they're usually like I love my A. And R. I love the people at the label, but they're unethical and their contracts confusing and not only that, but they are predatory and they got me to sign away all my rights and my first born child.
Share
51:07
But man, are they nice people? So, you know, I would I think we'd all prefer the former of, you know, they might not like someone as a person, but as long as they're ethical and do good business, that's what we can hope for when we're engaging in business relationships and business partnerships because that's what it is getting back to the deal Now is break down the royalties a little bit more.
Share
51:34
So is it if you give somebody, let's just say I'm throwing out random numbers, I have no concept of ballpark in the
comedy
industry, but let's just say you give somebody $100,000 advance.Share
51:44
And it's a 50 50 deal?
Share
51:46
Does it work like the music industry where uh you need to make back, you need to make essentially $200,000 gross before you start paying the 50 50 split, Is that how it works?
Share
Brian Volk-Weiss
52:01
No, Not for us.
Share
52:04
And just to again, I can tell you like specifics which and I do too.
Share
52:09
We have paid $500 advances.
Share
52:13
Our biggest advance we've ever paid was 7.5 million.
Share
52:18
So it literally fluctuates between 500 and 7.5.
Share
52:24
So just again give you a sense of scale. So It's not two X. It's I would say it's if our all in number to produce to make the advance produce the album and or special Let's just take a safe number because I'm bad at math. Let's say that cost us $1,000.
Share
52:52
The artist would start seeing back end at about $112.
Share
Ari Herstand
53:01
I don't understand.
Share
Brian Volk-Weiss
53:02
So sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry I forgot that. I said 1000. Wait hold on at $1,112 basically there's basically a 10% distribution fee on our deals.
Share
53:21
Which is what you know that's the money we used to actually do what we do. So once that is called. So that's what I'm saying like without that it would be dollar for dollar. So the minute we're in the black the profit starts.
Share
Ari Herstand
53:37
So My question and maybe this uh it doesn't work this way in music. The reason why I said $200,000 for $100,000 advance was because the artist you they only get to pay down their account based on their royalty amount. So if the royalty amount is 50% and let's say I'm the artist and you give me $100,000. If if we make $100,000 gross.
Share
54:04
I've only paid down my royalty account $50,000. So I still have, you know, another 100,000 to go that we split 50 50 before I start earning on that. So it's essentially $200,000 needs to come in For me to start earning another dollar after you paid me 100,000. Does that make sense? Is that work that way or you paying from dollar one?
Share
Brian Volk-Weiss
54:25
Yes.
Share
54:27
It's it's funny, the video and the audio are slightly different in this regard and and again, to be completely blunt with you, if you had asked me this five years ago, I could give you an answer like that with all the details.
Share
54:41
This topic I'm a little hazy on but like I said it's not dollar for dollar, but it's also not what you just said is a pretty a much more extreme version of what we do.
Share
Ari Herstand
54:60
Okay.
Share
Brian Volk-Weiss
55:00
Okay, that makes sense.
Share
Ari Herstand
55:02
Sure. Yeah, it's, and and it's similar in music where licensing sync, licensing, you know, for for film and tv, it's it's pretty much the licensing side is very different from quote unquote, the sales side which is now streams, but essentially you get paid from whatever money comes in, they split that from dollar one.
Share
Brian Volk-Weiss
55:22
The video side where It's not like it's not Tom cruise with a top gun two. But no, I mean it's it's as much as possible, our costs get covered and then the back end starts and again and I just want to be clear. Like I'm not sitting here saying like I'm some altruistic like artsy fartsy, I want love and kumbaya and all that.
Share
55:49
It really does come down to when I was a manager. I saw how dumb a lot of the deals were and how they were designed to piss off the artist in success. So a lot of why we do the deals we do is my reaction to what I perceived to be stupid business traditions. That's number one.
Share
56:10
But number two like I really think people and artists in particular if you look him in the eye and you tell them up front, here's the good news, here's the bad news, you're a grown up, remember that you are a grown up and when you take that pen and you sign that contract it means you're cool with the bad news. I'll tell you something crazy.
Share
56:43
I am so anal about this topic about communicating effectively bad news up front because I am so concerned with that three a. m. Chatter at the at the at the cellar. By the way it's not just the seller. It's you know the
comedy
store in L. A
. In our contracts at the back there is a literally every my lawyers, everybody thought I was insane to do this. My lawyers told me nobody's gonna sign this Brian
, thank you.Share
57:22
Nobody has even questioned it. Our last page is a list of all the quote unquote bad things in the deal for the artist.
Share
57:36
And it's just repeating what could piss them off five years later and it literally says you understand blah blah, blah, blah blah and they have to initial it. So every contract they signed the contract and then they have to initial I think it's eight things and those eight things literally are all the bad stuff that they could be mad about later.
Share
58:02
And like I said, everybody told me I was nuts and nobody, nobody, first of all, nobody has refused to sign it. Couple lawyers maybe every now and then they're like, what the funk is this? He's signing a contract. Like why do you need that? And we will tell them openly.
Share
58:20
And by the way, why do you think we do this? We need a comedian who went nuts and like was like, you didn't say this, you didn't say that and blah, blah, blah and was saying all this bullshit at one of those three in the morning conversations and I'm like, not only did we not say anything you're saying?
Share
58:37
We said not only is everything you're complaining about in the contract, you signed it. So we added this thing for extra for lack of a better expression moral protection so that if anyone complains, we can say you initialed we shine a spotlight on this for you.
Share
Ari Herstand
58:60
What a novel concept. I mean, that's the thing in all the record contracts that I've seen, you know, especially the major record contracts that are 100 pages long, they're essentially trying to fool you, trick you and confuse you Into signing their terms and to hide all the bad stuff on page 73 and that you just won't find or your lawyer will miss.
Share
59:25
And then they make the same arguments like, well, you signed the contract. It's I didn't have a gun to your head when you signed the contract. And every artist is, it's like it was 100 pages of legalese. You expect me to understand that and to read that.
Share
59:39
And like, okay, my attorney missed it because they were sleep deprived and had seven other clients and I was a low priority. And this was my first record contract that I signed when I was 18 and you're saying it's my fault 15 years later that I'm stuck to you because like, you hit all these things that I didn't know about, my lawyer didn't know about and missed and all that stuff that should happens all the time.
Share
01:00:01
And that's why all these lawsuits are flying around in the music industry and that's like I hope every person who runs the label in the industry right now, the music industry now listens to
Brian
and takes this.Share
01:00:12
That would be brilliant. I want to see at the back of a record contract, all the bad stuff that's fantastic. If there's one thing to take away from that, every record contract in the future needs to have all the bad stuff on the final page. I fucking love that.
Share
Brian Volk-Weiss
01:00:26
By the way, if you like that, you're gonna love this. Our contracts. I mean there are eight or nine pages long as they should be. Yeah. And by the way, I say this all the time, I say this privately. All the time I've said it publicly and I mean this and by the way again, I'm saying this to you from experience. I didn't wake up and have this like altruistic opinion.
Share
01:00:53
The worst thing anybody can ever say to me when we're going to try and get a deal done. The worst thing.
Share
01:01:01
I'm not using a lawyer any time someone says they're not using a lawyer, I'm like, that is a super duper, bad idea. Go find a lawyer. This is not a good idea, but it's better than not using a lawyer. I will give you a list. Here's five lawyers who I trust.
Share
01:01:22
You should not hire a lawyer. I'm recommending but it is better for you to have one of them do it than no lawyer.
Share
01:01:31
And I would say 85% of the time. I can convince them to hire a lawyer. 20% of the time. It's one of the lawyers. I recommend 80% of that group. They find their own lawyer. But you need this ship is complicated man.
Share
Ari Herstand
01:01:48
Yeah. And as you should, I mean, no, no artist should use a lawyer necessarily recommended by the party that they are negotiating with. But I appreciate the intention and I understand that you know, you're trying to have your artists protect themselves and educate them to protect themselves, which they definitely need to and should and yes, don't try to negotiate a contract without a lawyer. That's just kind of business.
Share
Brian Volk-Weiss
01:02:11
Yeah.
Share
01:02:12
If they do use one of our recommended lawyers, they, the artist needs to not only sign a letter to the lawyer that they're okay with the conflict of interest. We add a paragraph or something or section to our deals.
Share
01:02:28
Also making them initial that like that because again, again, it's like you look at you brought up Prince like how much money was lost by the label?
Share
01:02:44
Their lives were probably shortened all those weekend and thanksgiving calls while this artist who will be celebrated till the end of our civilization changes his name to a symbol. Give the guy some more fucking money.
Share
01:03:01
Like you have like I'm, I always wonder like maybe because I come from like a real low middle class upbringing and because I made like 12 grand my first year in L. A. Kind of stuff. Like you don't need every dime. Like you just don't and you will make more money if there's good word of mouth.
Share
01:03:26
So why are you fuckinwith Prince like 90% of every dollar that comes into the profit having him on your label generates so much more money for your other records. It gives you power when you're negotiating with serious, it gives you like give the guy, it's his songs. I understand if some guy comes up to you, you've never heard of and you got to spend millions of dollars to turn him or her into a superstar. Yes.
Share
01:04:03
The label, the studio, they deserve to make a boatload of cash for that risk.
Share
01:04:09
But if you're working with someone who's already famous, already successful, give them the lion's share of the money, like we do the contract, tear it up.
Share
01:04:20
I don't get it.
Share
Ari Herstand
01:04:22
Yeah, Well, I mean that's that it's great because sometimes you need an outside perspective, someone who outside the music industry who also, you know, you say don't care so much about precedent and has seen it from the other side, seen it from the management side seated from on the other side of the table, What artists go through and those three M conversations are like to actually make the change that's necessary and ethical, frankly.
Share
01:04:51
I think a lot of these deals are quite unethical and the major label level.
Share
01:04:57
Still to this date, you know, hopefully things are, are starting to change a bit.
Share
01:05:02
So
Brian
, what are you, what are you focusing on these days, What are you working on? What's kind of the next steps?Share
Brian Volk-Weiss
01:05:07
So you know, again we're kind of kind of a little bit of a weird company but the stand-up
comedy
act well it started with management, then we built the audio and video distribution systems for the stand-up.Share
01:05:25
Uh we have taken that money and started doing documentaries and scripted shows.
Share
01:05:33
And then, you know, over the, hopefully the next 1 to 3 years we'll be making our second feature that our 3rd and 4th feature all scripted and then do the same thing with, with scripted tv shows. So we now own, so we're basically now doing in documentary series.
Share
01:05:58
What we did in stand-up
comedy
12 years ago. So five years ago, 99% of our production work for television was work for hire where we made a show, gave it to Netflix
or gave it to history channel or whatever.Share
01:06:19
Uh and then we never made another dime and they controlled it Now, about 60% of our documentaries we own and we control and we just license the way we used to do it with stand-up specials. And I mean we're basically, I came out here to build a studio, like most people come out here to be a director, writer and actor.
Share
01:06:41
I came out to build a studio from scratch.
Share
01:06:44
Obviously because I did not own one when I got here. Uh, so it would have to be by scratch from scratch. So that's, we're just moving up the value chain and making bigger and bigger things because we can afford to make things now that we could not have afforded to make three years ago.
Share
01:07:01
But if you can allow me to make a shameless plug for a second, I get asked now incessantly, are we? I'm gonna stop making stand-up
comedy
. No, never as long as I'm in charge uh and I'll be in charge until I retire or sell the company and I don't think I'll ever sell the company. So for at least another 15 to 20 years we will be making stand-up comedy
at scale.Share
Ari Herstand
01:07:29
Amazing. And I'm sure every every comedian listening, it just took a sigh of of relief as well, because this is yeah, it's it's very appreciated in the artist world.
Share
01:07:39
This this model that you have. Well
Brian
, this has been an incredibly fascinating conversation.Share
01:07:43
I'm so happy that we got to chat, and I'm happy that you are the first person outside the music industry that I had on the show, because you shined a really great light on what could be uh and and how things could work in the music industry, because it's working for you in the
comedy
industry and it could work across the board in in this ethical way I have one final question that I ask everybody on the show now, I'm gonna I'm gonna adjust it slightly for you, but what does it mean to make it in the entertainment industry for me, our library provides enough money to make new content without having to go sell things.Share
Brian Volk-Weiss
01:08:31
The amount of money I, the amount of time I've spent in my career and I do, as recently as this morning when I pitched a show on selling things is staggering. So to be able to never have to stele again and just green light that that and we're getting close. I mean on stand-up
comedy
, I would never, I, we don't sell anymore.Share
01:08:57
I mean we, we practically, the only reason we do work for hire anymore is because it's a relationship like
Jim Gaffigan
, we've produced his last seven specials, We're producing his 8th special and later this year it's not a lot of profit, but it would break my heart if somebody else was making a Jim Gaffigan
special. So other than people like Jim Gaffigan
or Tom papa or just people that we've worked with for a long time.Share
01:09:28
I mean we really are only making stuff now that we're self financing and we can distribute Amazing
Brian Volk Weiss
, thank you so much. That was great. Thank you lot of fun and great question.Share
Ari Herstand
01:09:41
Thank you by today's episode was edited by max Hunter theme music by Brass Roots district and produced by all the great people at Rs take real quick because I've been getting a lot of questions about this.
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01:10:03
I want to let you know that even though Ari's Take Academy enrollment is not currently open, we only open it a couple times a year and that is to focus on the current students that we do have and we just go in these open enrollment periods a couple times a year.
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01:10:16
You can always apply if you're really, really interested in one of our courses and you think you'd be a great fit and you just can't wait until the next open enrollment period. That's okay. We open a limited number of slots throughout the year application only head on over to always take Academy dot com. Check out the course that we have available.
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01:10:35
One of the courses I want to let you know about is our advanced sink strategies course taught by Hvo Williams has had over 1500 sync placements of his own music. And last year both the Tampa Bay Lightning and the Milwaukee Bucks both used Bose music for their respective theme song for the entire season and both won their respective championships.
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01:10:55
But what makes this course even more special than bow? A few things make anything more special than bobo is pretty amazing. But twice a year we invite our students to showcase their music for some of the best sink agencies in this space so far.
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01:11:09
We've gotten over 100 of our students signed to Premier sink agencies. If you want to get a sink agent, you want to take your sink career seriously, feel free to head over to Ari's Take Academy dot com and apply Yeah.
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🇮🇹 Made with love & passion in Italy. 🌎 Enjoyed everywhere
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Brian Volk-Weiss
Ari Herstand