INTERVIEW WITH JOHN OAKES FOR THE EIY HANDBOOK

JOHN OAKES, 29 (Southern California)

ENTREPRENEUR

YEARS IN MUSIC: 16

ON THE WEB: entertainment3sixty.com //
 rockstartasteofchaos.com // mayhemfest.com // rockstaruproar.com

CURRENT PROJECTS: VP of Experiential Marketing, 
 Entertainment 3Sixty; Sponsorship and 
 Marketing, Rockstar Taste Of Chaos; Co-Founder / 
 Partner, Mayhem Festival; Co-Founder / Co-Producer / 
 Partner, Rockstar Energy Drink Uproar Festival; Partner / 
 Vice President, Freeze Artist Management

WHAT FIRST GOT YOU INTERESTED IN MUSIC? 
My skateboard!

WHAT WERE YOUR GOALS WHEN 
YOU FIRST GOT STARTED? When I was a teenager 
in high school managing my friends’ band [Story Of 
The Year], I had goals about saving money for recording 
and selling out a 100cap club. Those evolved into 
pressing CDs, selling out a 500cap club, raising money 
to afford radio commercials, and distributing 10K flyers 
to promote one show. Then they got bigger: trading/
booking shows out of town, selling out 1,000cap 
venues, releasing more music, moving to California, 
touring full-time, getting a major label record deal, 
and selling over a million records around the world. 


WHAT ARE YOUR GOALS NOW? HOW HAVE 
THEY CHANGED? Absolutely they have changed! Now my 
goals simply have more zeroes. It’s not a three-day weekend 
trip, it’s a 30+ multi-city tour. Instead of selling 1,000 tickets, 
we try to sell 10,000. Of course there are goals personally as 
well as professionally, now, too. I am training to run my first 
marathon. I want to scuba dive at epic diving locations all 
around the world. I dream about owning an internationally 
successful company and being on the cover of Entrepreneur 
Magazine. I strive to produce music festivals, tours, and events 
that will become annual household names that both bands and 
fans alike enjoy being apart of.

WERE YOU ALWAYS ON THE PATH THAT YOU’RE ON NOW? 
The trail of my life behind me looks like a pile of broken ladders with some great ideas and even more unsuccessful ones. In front of me there is a salad fork, a dinner fork, and a dessert fork at every turn.

WHAT HAVE YOU HAD TO SACRIFICE ALONG THE WAY IN ORDER TO DO WHAT YOU LOVE? I passed on academic and athletic college scholarships. I dropped out of community college. I moved away from my family, friends, and hometown. I somehow managed to condition my body to operate on minimal sleep, without caffeine. Are those sacrifices?

WHAT INSPIRES YOU ON A DAILY BASIS? Great music, good times, and being a part of making things happen.

HOW MUCH OF YOUR SUCCESS HAS COME FROM LUCK? TALENT? HARD WORK? As a non-musician, my talent is hard work and occasionally getting lucky with great ideas! However, without AMAZING songs from talented musicians, my hard work would not get me or anyone else from city to city, again and again. Talent, depending on how you define it, is the most important of the three. Luck always helps, but with out diversified hard work, the most talented song writers probably never leave their garage except when Guitar Center has a sale. Was I supposed to answer in percentages? 


HOW HAVE YOU MEASURED YOUR SUCCESS THROUGHOUT YOUR CAREER? My personal happiness!

HOW DO YOU DEFINE SUCCESS? Money helps when you’re looking at a P&L, but at the beginning and end of my day, if I am not happy doing something you can be assured I wont be doing it for very long.

DO YOU HAVE ANY REGRETS SO FAR? I can look at mistakes and small failures in my past, wishing I didn’t make those mistakes — but those mistakes make me, and I am happy with who I am, so my answer is: NO! I have no regrets — except I should have mailed my mom’s Mother’s Day card on Monday instead of yesterday (Wednesday).

DO YOU THINK THE BEST BANDS IN THE WORLD TEND TO GET FAMOUS, OR TEND TO STAY UNDISCOVERED? What is famous? I think great music normally finds its way out to the tribe of people who need to listen to it and love it. Not all great music needs to be listened to by hundreds of thousands (or millions) of people. Maybe “undiscovered’ music only needs to be heard by the person who wrote it.

***
Read John’s answers to 50 questions about music and the music business in the EIY HANDBOOK, available in print or eBook version at www.earnityourself.com

Leave a Reply