Gary James' Interview With Promoter
Steve Litman
For over forty-five years he's booked and promoted the biggest acts in the music business. His company, Steve Litman Presents, has promoted Lady Gaga, James Taylor, Diana Ross, Mariah Carey, Ringo Starr, Anita Baker, Michael Buble, Harry Connick Jr. and the list goes on and on. Steve Litman Presents has been ranked by Pollstar, a leading concert industry publication, as one of the Top 100 Independent Promoters in the United States. In addition, for over thirty-five years Steve Litman has served as the Executive Producer for all concert events at the Fox Theatre in St. Louis.
Steve Litman spoke with us about his background and what it takes to be a concert promoter.
Q - Steve, I'm surprised that there's still room for an independent concert promoter to survive. I thought Live Nation pretty much had all the venues locked up.
A - It's very difficult. You have two behemoths with Live Nation and AEG. Both have huge footprints, but there's still a place for the independent promoter. That said, I'm not going to tell anybody it's easy, because it's not.
Q - How many concerts are you booking each year?
A - Oh, you know, I'm kind of superstitions about counting, but when I do it's generally in the 100 to 150 a year.
Q - I realize it's tough for acts to be on the road, but by the time they're paid and the venue is paid, and all the other expenses are paid, just how much money is left for you? Not very much I would think.
A - It really depends upon the deal. And of course it really depends on how well the tickets sell. You can do a huge gross in an arena, but if you paid more for the artists or the other expenses than you're grossing, then even though you're doing a giant gross, you're still losing money where you might on a smaller scale do something in a theatre or a club and actually make money. It's not like there's a guaranteed formula.
Q - Have you ever booked Bob Dylan?
A - I have booked Bob Dylan.
Q - How are you treated by Bob Dylan and his people?
A - Well, I'm treated fine. Bob is an interesting, obviously iconic character to work with. He's not particularly chatty with promoters or anyone backstage. He comes in, does what he does, and leaves. I've known his agent and manager for a long time.
Q - Speaking of agents, how difficult is it to get a talent agent with a major agency on the phone these days? I read that William Morris let 40% of their agents go. Of course that was at the height of the pandemic.
A - Right. When you say how hard is it to get 'em on the phone, I assume you were speaking as if you were somebody new in the business who wanted to be in the business and buy or present or promote major talent. The chances of you getting a top-tier agent on the phone are not strong. They're not good. Like many things in the entertainment industry, you're going to have to work your way up. In order to deal you're going to have to have some reputation or some history that's positive and precedes you.
Q - But for you, there's no problems. You've been at it many years.
A - Many years. I've been in the live entertainment industry since 1974.
Q - That's a long time.
A - Yeah, it is. (laughs)
Q - You then deal with all the major talent agencies, which are William Morris and United Talent Agency. Creative Artists Agency took a hit when a lot of their agents went with United Talent Agency, so I don't know how much influence they have these days.
A - No, CAA is still a major powerhouse. They just bought ICM. So, they've acquired even more agents and more artists.
Q - You've got three major agencies out there now?
A - You've got CAA, William Morris, and United Talent Agency. There's certainly major talent out there that aren't represented by those agencies. There are some major artists who prefer more of a boutique form of representation.
Q - I can understand that. Sometimes you can get lost in a large agency. Passed over, if you will.
A - Yeah.
Q - Before you were a concert promoter, what were you doing? Anything musical? Were you in a band?
A - I was in a band in high school. Then I fell into managing a band of older guys. We went out to California to make it big, as they say. I got involved into going into recording studios and became skilled at becoming a recording engineer because I was one of those kids who, when I was 9 years old, took TV sets apart and put 'em back together. So, I always had an affinity for audio and electronics. The first time I ever made my way into a major recording studio it was kind of like everything fell into place. Long story short, we had limited success with these bands I was managing. I ended up moving back to the Mid-West and then to St. Louis to work in a recording studio that was a clone of a famous L.A. / New York recording studio called The Record Plant. So, a guy in St. Louis had built a clone of The Record Plant. So, I moved here to work there. While I was doing sessions in St. Louis, interestingly I ended up doing a little, tiny bit of work with The Rolling Stones while they were in town one time. Jackson Browne, a couple of other people, but mostly local stuff. Commercials. Industrial film soundtracks and all the stuff you end up doing in a recording studio. One day a couple of young promoters came in and wanted to talk to me about a couple of artists that they were managing and they wanted me to help them with these projects. Long story short, one thing leads to another and all of a sudden I'm hanging out with them and I get involved with the concert promotion business. That's a very, very condensed version of how I ended up on this path.
Q - When you get into the concert promotion business, don't you have to have a lot of money?
A - The guys that I was working with had enough capital. It was the nascent days of the industry. So, it wasn't quite as severe in terms of capital requirements as it is today.
Q - Do you remember a guy by the name of Cedric Kushner?
A - Sure. Oh, yeah.
Q - He told me in 1982 that he got started as a concert promoter with $500. In 1982 you would need $100,000 and be prepared to lose half of that before things turned around. Does that sound right to you?
A - I would say he's correct, but I would say you'd at least have to triple the numbers.
Q - For today?
A - Yeah.
Q - But back then, was that correct?
A - Yeah, but it depends on the market that you're in.
Q - It would seem that being a promoter is pretty stressful as compared to being in a recording studio. One guy told me being a manager is like being a glorified babysitter.
A - Well, it's like anything else. You can be a doctor, a general practitioner who's checking out relatively mundane issues of people on a day to day, bread and butter kind of basis. Or, you can be a super high-powered specialist that you're dealing in rare diseases. Same thing applies to an artist manager. You can have some artists who have low level requirements and you're doing mostly housekeeping. And then you have others where they're really dependent upon you for career advice and direction and input. It really depends upon the match between the artist and the manager. Some artists really just want to write or not write, and perform and just want to kind of go where they're told to go. Then at the other end there are artists who are very involved in the minutia of their career. So, there's not a universal answer.
Q - Since you've been involved with all facets of the music business, where do you go from here? Are you going to stick with the concert promotion business or don't you know?
A - I'm pretty much an entertainment promoter, but I don't do just music. For example, I just did a couple of large scale exhibitions with a project called "Beyond Van Gogh", which is an immersive art experience. In St. Louis we built a huge, huge temporary tent. People walked in and we had Van Gogh art, but sort of programmed to create a sort of experientially walk through experience. We ran that for a number of months very successfully. So, I don't do just music. I do comedy. I do some speakers. For example, I do some events with the physicist Neil de Grasse Tyson. We do these Van Gogh exhibitions. Over the course of time I've done a little bit of sports. I've done some NBA exhibition games. So basically I would say my larger view is to provide and present entertainment events of various types.
Q - Did you ever promote Anthony Bourdain? I know he went on speaking engagements.
A - Yes.
Q - How did you find him to be?
A - Kind of abrasive. A little difficult.
Q - I can see where he would have a John Lennon type personality where he could be sarcastic if he wanted to be.
A - Yeah. These people who are artists and performers and speakers, you've got the range of humanity and the range of personalities. Honestly, you could walk into the grocery store and pull fifty people out and you're going to have five of 'em who are going to be real sweethearts, five of 'em who are going to be flaming ass holes, and the other forty will be somewhere in between. And then when they're on the road it's a high stress situation. If you ran into 'em in their neighborhood, they might be perfectly affable. They might be stressed when they're on the road. I've been in this business a really long time. I even did Frank Sinatra back in the day.
Q - How did Frank Sinatra treat you?
A - He was fine. We didn't have that much interaction, honestly.
Q - Because he was one of those guys who came in, did what he was supposed to do, and left.
A - Right. He was perfectly pleasant. We didn't have any giant conversations. I'm there to be professional and do what I'm supposed to do. And they're there to be professional. I have done many shows honestly that have been artistically successful. Some of 'em I've spent some time talking to the artist. There have been a number of 'em where I haven't said one single word to the artist. They come in. They're busy. They're occupied. They go onstage, do what they do, and then they leave. I don't necessarily have to have any interaction with them. But sometimes I do.
Official Website: www.SteveLitmanPresents.com
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