Welcome to Music Matters Podcast with Daryl Craig Harris, talking about all things music with celebrities, artists, music business insiders, and more. Jack McCarthy, how are you doing? I'm good. Thanks so much for having me, Daryl. Oh, you're very welcome. So you have a really cool company. You're a co-founder of a company called IndieX, which has been around for quite a while. When did you guys first start? Yeah. IndieX started as an agency back in 2017. It's actually one arm of a larger company called Indiepreneur, which is a music marketing consulting company. But IndieX is the agency arm of the company. We've been around since 2017 when the entire Indiepreneur kind of parent organization was launched. And we are here today in 2026, pushing along and trying to move the needle in the music industry, both for independent artists and for really artists of all kinds, label artists, bands, and trying to shift the control and the power in revenue back into the hands of artists and their teams and outside of the machine. That's kind of like one of the big core tenets of what we're all about here. Yeah, and obviously that's a super important topic for indie artists trying to survive today. Even touring has become such a huge challenge. I was reading about your background. So you actually have a background as a guitar tech, touring guy, dealt with a lot of indie artists. Tell me how you got from there to working with IndieX and setting it up. Yeah, great, great question. Thanks. So I've been a musician my whole life. I grew up playing in bands, writing songs. I actually went to college for music, studied production. So I was doing a lot of studio work. And then after I got out of college, I started working touring, doing guitar tech work, doing some touring guitar gigs. and from there I started to cut my teeth in digital marketing primarily because I needed other ways to make money really and I started doing some freelance work with small businesses in the area started doing consulting and kind of cut my teeth learning about digital marketing and seeing how businesses were doing you know reaching their customers online selling to customers online And I learned a lot in a very short amount of time, really like trial by fire, because I had to. And I was like, oh man, so much of this that works so well for businesses is missed in the music industry. There's so much that's not being done. It's like, you know, they're 40 years in the past. And it wasn't long after that, that I met my business partner, Kyle, who was starting up the fledgling entrepreneur. And he approached me and had kind of been following my journey. I was actually one of entrepreneurs first customers, kind of came in on the ground level just because I saw this guy and I was like, I like what he's doing. I like what he's about. I believe in the vision. And we became friendly and he started, you know, kind of talking back and forth with me following each other's journeys. And when he was starting Indie X, he came to me and said, Hey, I know that, you know, a lot about scaling an agency and doing consulting work for businesses. I'm building this agency arm of this company and I'd love you to be a partner with me on it. And that was kind of the start of a beautiful relationship kind of at the early stages of the business. So that's how I got involved, you know, the TLDR version of it. Yeah, and we actually have a very similar story because same thing, I've been a touring guy. I was a tech with Miley, tech with JLo, and a bunch of people. But same thing, like I came home and then like, okay, now what am I going to do? So I started doing a lot of digital marketing, social media for companies. And I'm sure you saw the same thing that I did with a lot of artists is that a lot of people think, independent artists in particular, they have this thing about they think, well, I've got great music. I've got great tunes. I'm going to get found. And like, no, it doesn't work that way. And sadly, no matter how good you are, it's not enough. You've got to get yourself out there. But then the challenge becomes how to find a viable, reputable service to use, right? And that's where you guys come into play. Yeah, absolutely. It really is. We've moved so far away from the, if you just make great music, people will show up. And if you just make people, if you just make great music, people will show up and buy. There's work to be, there's work to be done and it's good work to do, but it must be done. Yeah. And also, I mean, I know you guys kind of cover a lot of different areas. Talk about what you guys specifically do for artists, because I know it's obviously music marketing, but there's more than that. So explain kind of your what you guys do when artists first join up. Yeah, for sure. So at our agency, one of the biggest things that we really focus on is looking at the artist's business like a business. And we really look to see what's going on with taking the fan base and turning it into a customer base, looking at it like a business would look at their audience. How are we taking people who are aware of you, fans, and especially for most of the larger artists that we work with, a lot of them have a large fan base. But it's really important to go deeper than just numbers on social media. And it's important to look deeper to see how many people can we actually communicate with? What does your email list look like? What does your text list look like? How many of these fans are actually customers? What do you know about them? How much have they bought from you over the lifetime that they've been a customer? How many times have they bought? What is your repeat customer rate looking like? These are all the things that we dig into with artists that we work with to see where the low-hanging fruit and the areas of opportunity are for them in terms of growing a direct-to-consumer or direct-to-fan revenue stream in the business, which is a lot of what we focus on at IndieX is e-commerce, is helping artists grow an e-commerce revenue stream, which honestly has really been like criminally underappreciated. depreciated and underutilized in music. So we look at that and that's kind of why, that's kind of why IndieX as an agency got its birth was we saw this massive opportunity where money was just being left on the table in a revenue stream where either it wasn being paid attention to at all by artists and their teams or it was kind of farmed out to you know or licensed out to third parties that was just like oh go take this and sell it and we make a little bit of a commission on it But it such a massive revenue opportunity for artists that they can own and control. And if you tackle it correctly, it's something that is yours and it's not just farmed out to somebody else and it's not just left on the table. And so that's where we focus Most of our efforts with our clients at the agency is paying attention to that specific area because we know that there's so much money to be made there and that fans want to participate and they want to support you and they want to buy stuff. It's just giving them opportunities to do so in a way that makes sense. You find that – and I know I've seen this over and over again. Not only indie artists but even major artists. A lot of them, they just get overwhelmed because – I mean that's why people have assistants. that's why people have a team because you just can't do everything by yourself and you only have so much time, especially if you're touring because you're just trying to get sleep and get on the road and get stuff done. Do you find like that's something that you come up against? Like people just come to you like completely overwhelmed. They know they need to do this, but they don't know how to get it started and get it done. Oh yeah, for sure. I mean, it's definitely true of indies, but it's especially true of major artists, like you said. Yeah, artists with a fan base that's just starting to grow just as much as it's true with artists of a massive fan base. I think the reason for that is like on the on the indie level for an artist that is starting to get traction and growing and, you know, they've got an audience that can support them in that way. I think the reason for the overwhelm there is just not necessarily knowing the right way to approach it, the right way to start the process. And for the larger artist, the major artist, it's more so how do I deal with all the cooks in the kitchen related to this? How do I deal with any of the red tape? Can I just farm this out? There's all the questions and kind of like the whispering in your ear. There's just financial stuff too. You got to do it. Oh yeah, for sure. And there, yeah. And there's so many differing opinions going on at that level when you've got a big team where it's like, you know, one person's telling you one thing, another person's telling you another, and you don't really know which guidance to follow. So we see it all the time. How does your service work? Is it like a subscription-based or are you set up as a website or as an app? How's that functionality set up? Great question. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So IndieX, we're an agency. So primarily when we work with artists, they're on a marketing retainer with us. So that's usually monthly services that they're paying for. We do short contracts. We're not typically locking people into anything crazy and long. So a lot of times they'll bring you in for certain projects or a certain period of time to kind of help sort this out and get the most out of a release or the most out of a tour situation. Is that kind of? It's interesting. A lot of times that's where it starts, where an artist will come to us and they'll say, hey, I'm about to launch a record in six months and we want to work with you guys to really maximize what we're doing on e-commerce with direct-to-fan. Then what will happen a lot of times is once we've done that, that's often a great jumping off point because it's like we've got a big milestone to work on with you together. And then our approach is usually like, okay, now that we've locked this in, let's figure out a way to take what we've done and make it evergreen together. Let's figure out a way to build out an entire marketing system, a sales calendar that works throughout the year. And why we do this is we often see an opportunity, especially with larger artists, to help them kind of flatten out these revenue spikes that happen with launches and tours. Right. Try to get a yearly – look at it yearly, not just quarter. Exactly. That's really where a big opportunity is for us, especially a lot of the larger artists, where it's like you see these massive, we call it the revenue roller coaster. You see these spikes where it's like launch a record and then it's done and we wait till the next one. It's like it doesn't have to be that way. Right. Especially, you know, especially it's hard with people that maybe they don't own as much of their publishing or maybe they don't own any of their publishing. So they're only making money when they're on tour and after they do a release. So they have all this other money just sitting on the table and they're sitting at home. So trying to figure out, OK, well, how can we keep this, maintain this on a yearly basis and still have revenue, even though we're not on the road? Right. Right. Exactly. Exactly. And that's really where we focus in the long term with our clients. So while we might start with a project, which is sometimes ideal, you know, like a record release, for example, that's a great launching off. It's like dating, getting to know you and kind of see, right? Exactly. Exactly. It's the most perfect first date when an artist comes to us and they're like, hey, we have lots of lead time for this big release that we're doing. We want to get you guys involved to maximize it. We're like, great, let's do it. That sounds perfect. It's a great starting point to a longer relationship. Yeah. And again, it's part of, I mean, I think the biggest thing, like, especially where I worked with Miley, I worked with JLo, some other folks. And the first thing that strikes you is they have a team. Like, Miley's had her team since she was 12 years old. It's the same people. And they function as a family and everybody's got their position. It just makes it easier on everybody. Because again, like, from the smallest artist to the largest artist, you need people in there working for you, helping you navigate everything, which is so challenging. Give me more specifics about what you guys do. Are you handling merch? Are you handling, what exactly are you doing for your artists? So we get into the weeds of everything digital marketing related. So the kind of work that we're typically doing with our artists and their teams is we're getting into running paid advertising, for example, on social media, handling email marketing, writing ad copy. Helping them take their products that they already have and turning them into offers that fans actually want. Um, and presenting it away, presenting it in a way that fans will gravitate towards, you know, adding bonuses, thinking about things like limited edition, how to make things feel urgent and scarce in a way that's not gross, but in a way that, you know, in a way that actually makes sense and compels, makes them pull the, pull the trigger. Right. Exactly. Pulls the fans in a little bit deeper, but we're primarily getting involved in the actual digital marketing processes. handling as much of that as we can and then relying on our artist teams and their other vendors that they work with for the actual creation of the merch and the fulfillment. We don't touch that kind of stuff, though we have a lot of partners that help out with it if we need to bring people in We kind of the boots on the ground on how do we take your digital strategy into 2026 when so often the music industry is a good bit behind There a lot or at the very least, there's a lot being left out that could be really beneficial to an artist. It's kind of crazy, man. We did a study not too long ago on Billboard Hot 100 artists to dig into what can we see from the outside if we were to audit these artists. And we took about three months time where we were looking at all of the artists on the Hot 100, looking at their stores, signing up for their email lists, going to their website, auditing their ads, looking at their emails. I had an email inbox that was just getting blown up by artist emails. And we were digging into, you know, what's going on in their marketing and what's missing. And it was, it was kind of astounding. Some of the things that we found just one specific example that I always point back to is during that quarter that we were running this study, 86% of the artists on the hot 100 did not run a single sales promotion for selling anything on their store. And during this time, there was Memorial Day. It was Memorial Day towards the tail end of this kind of study that we did. And still, 86% of them didn't do a blessed thing. And that kind of pointed back to the whole reason that our agency exists. It's like, oh my gosh, there's so much being left on the table here. And so that's where we really plug in with our artists and their teams is to help them to maximize that stuff. I think some of that too, just from what I've experienced, I think some of it is a disconnect because you have older execs running these labels, major labels, that still don't really fully get social media. They know it's there. They know they need to do something with it, but they don't really fully know how to fully utilize it. And they're still leaving a lot of money on the table. The other part of it is artists like, well, we're really big. We're going to sell stuff anyway. But they don't really understand how much they're missing out on by not, you know. And a lot of artists run their companies like mom and pop. surprisingly, surprisingly so, right? Yeah, it's true. Well, you mentioned, you mentioned the artists that you've worked with and how, you know, they've had their teams for years and it's like a family. That's very much like a small business. That's exactly, that's exactly like it is. And I've seen it the same with a lot of our clients. We've worked with, for example, we've worked with Brandy and Jill Scott. And we know some of the folks that have consulted with them have consulted with them for years. And they've become close with us, which is really cool. So yeah, it's true. Even major artists, they do really operate much like a small business. And it's building trust and building a team that you, you know, because we know music industry is full of some crazy folks and you got to, it takes years to figure out who to work with, who not to work with. How is, because obviously it's a big buzzword, but AI, how is AI affecting what you do? Is it helping you? I know it helps me a lot in certain ways, you know, especially, especially for me with like word processing, just simple, stupid stuff and SEO. But talk about how that's been integrated and how that's working with you. For sure. Yeah. So our team uses AI very often in our workday. Just for things like copywriting, for example, AI is very helpful in helping us hone in on a voice that we know we already have. And then being able to pump out creative very quickly and at a volume that is great. And then the human touch is knowing that like we have an expert team of copywriters that can make sure that this is not garbage, you know, and that's where, and that's where the challenge exists with AI, I think is while there is an upside to, yes, you can get a lot of volume and you can get a lot of work done very fast. The, the downside is if you don't have a team or people that are really, really great at what they do to, you know, quality control the process, it gets sloppy and really not good. Yeah. And it's only, it's just like computer programming. It's only as good as the information you put into it. If you don't, if you don't use good, good, very specific prompts, you get very vague, you know, copyrighted material that doesn't really, doesn't really accomplish what you want to, but it is a great, it is a great tool. It's definitely helped me out. And I think it's important for people not to be intimidated and just kind of like it's many years ago I just forced myself to learn how to use a computer and I had I had no no history of it but I'm like it's something I need to learn right and it's the same thing with with especially for indie artists AI and all these other marketing tools it's very important to delve in and not be afraid of it don't you think definitely I do I really do and I personally like in our work at the agency I get more and more excited every day about the agentic sort of AI systems that are getting built. And we're doing a lot of work on that internally on our side as well to help with some of the more manual processes that go on with things like auditing and analysis and report building, all of this stuff that is valuable and needs to be done, but also can be incredibly time consuming. And that's the kind of stuff that I think both music businesses of all kinds like ours and also artist businesses to be on the cutting edge of that kind of stuff and watch this watching this evolve some days you probably understand and feel this like some days I feel like oh I can't keep up with this it's moving so fast uh it's really crazy but I love it um we're using it constantly I mean our team um at IndieX we on a weekly basis are talking about it's kind of part of our agency team meeting that we have on Tuesdays, one touch point that we always have is what is everyone doing with AI this week? What are you experimenting with on AI this week? How are you using it to solve a problem for yourself in your work or for one of our clients? What have you done? And that's a regular review that we do every single week. And it's been really helpful. It gets everybody on the team thinking, one as a unit and also as individuals about how to be creative with the tools. And I think that's the biggest thing about all of this is marketing, digital marketing, tools, technology, all of it is just an, it can be an extension of your creativity. So whether you're an artist or someone working with artists, taking the creativity that you feel when it comes to making music for example and channeling that into the way that you talk to your fans or you build your tool stack your tech stack all of it the creativity you can just funnel into it I believe that from a very young age that as a creative person myself and a songwriter, when I saw the different ways that I could plug in that same creative spark into other things, into business, that was like one of the most exciting unlocks of my life. Yeah. And that's, you know, because I have several jobs of a social media manager. I'm also a sports illustrator photographer with the Raiders. And I've done a bunch of other things, obviously podcasting. And the thing is what you just said, it's what you find out is that that thing you learn as an independent musician, marketing yourself, being self-motivated, doing all those things that carries over into every other thing that you can do. You can use that everywhere. It's just, it's once you learn that entrepreneurial spirit and getting up and putting your pants on and getting going every day, that's so valuable to learn and that you can actually accomplish stuff and you're really only limited by your imagination. It's one of the best feelings in the world, really. Yeah, exactly. It's freedom. Yeah. It's the spark that wakes you up every morning. It's really, it's wonderful. And we're very blessed to have discovered that because most people sadly don't, they don't figure it out. What's some advice for artists, young artists especially, that you can give from your years of experience doing what you do? What are some key points that that you would like to impart on them when they're getting started. Yeah, for sure. I think this applies to artists of all shapes and sizes. But one thing to keep in mind always is your fans, they do want to support you. They really do. And they want to do it actively. And I think that that's something that a lot of artists lose sight of, Not on purpose, but in an industry where so much emphasis is put on things like streaming revenue, for example, or like publishing revenue royalties. And not that there's anything wrong with that. It's necessary and you need it. And it provides a baseline in some ways. Fans don't know that they're transacting with you when they're streaming your music. sure they know that they're enjoying your music but they don't think about it in the way that i'm i'm involved with this artist they don't think about it in the way that like i'm invested with this artist in the same way that they do when they come out to one of your shows or they purchase your record when you're releasing it or they go to your online store and they pick up a shirt or they come up to the merch stand at a show and they buy a hoodie fans want to support you in those ways. They want to feel like they're a part of the thing that you're building. And when you realize that it opens up the possibilities in your mind for the ways that you can allow them to have as many paths as possible to do that. That's a big piece of advice that I would have. And then a follow-up piece of advice that I would give. And again, this is especially true for larger artists. so I'm speaking to the artists that have lots of fans. A huge opportunity for you is to then give fans the paths to support you and do it often. Make offers often. I think that's so important. Find ways throughout the calendar year to offer your fans ways to support you. Create new things for them. Do that and you will multiply your business for sure. But more than that, you'll create an audience that sticks with you. Because as much as we capture the attention of fans, of an audience, like any other business, we're really not very high up on the priorities list, right? Like as an artist in a band, I'm no different. I'm no, I'm no higher up on a priority list as like someone, you know, going to a certain restaurant, you know, they've got your fans have, they have their kids or they have school. you're you're number six on their priority list and that's the stuff that you're competing with you're not competing with other artists and businesses so find ways find ways to stay in front of your fans attention and you will create a fan base that then sticks with you for life that's and that's what we all want yeah and i yeah exactly there's a lot of distractions there's a lot of noise that's that's the other part of of being a great musician a great artist is not enough only because there's so much noise, you've got to kind of cut through all the noise and have people be able to find you, which is so important. Tell people how they can contact you and if they want to, you know, get involved or find out more about your, about Indie X. Yeah, for sure. Well, for one, you can find me on Instagram at the Atlas Jack. That's my personal Instagram. I'm always sharing little snippets and tidbits about music marketing and things that I'm doing over there. if you want to find out about IndieX you can check us out over at indopreneur.io slash about dash IndieX there's a bunch of information about our agency and what we do and if you're a big old artist that has a fan base that you're ready to monetize in a way that you haven't been we'd certainly love to hear from you I also am the host of a podcast myself called Creative Juice with my business partner Kyle where we talk about music marketing on a weekly basis and share stories that we're learning every single day at IndieX, which is a lot of fun. So that's hosted and able to listen to anywhere where you listen to podcasts. So if you want to hear more about this stuff and kind of go a little bit deeper, you can check that out as well. But that's just a few of the areas where you can find out more about IndieX and what we're doing over at IndiePreneur and keep up with me. Well, awesome. And thank you. And I was checking out your IndiePreneur as well, too. So that was interesting. I'm glad you kind of explained the connection. But I love what you guys are doing. I think it's so important, especially, you know, obviously navigating all this for indie artists is such a challenge and major artists. So it's great that there's a company like yours that can help them navigate all that. Thank you so much for joining me, Jack. I really appreciate it. Oh, thanks for having me, Daryl. This was a blast, man. I appreciate the questions and the opportunity to share the story with you. Oh, you're very welcome. Have a great day. Thanks, man. You too. thanks for joining us and please consider subscribing to our podcast and follow us on our social media pages for guest announcements
