Singer / Songwriter Colton Dixon Shares on The Music Industry 101

Show Notes

Pop music star Colton Dixon @coltondixon shares about how the music industry fits together including the roles of an A&R representative, record labels, managers, booking agents, publishing, tour managers, business managers and more.

  1. Colton Dixon, tell us about your new music and approximately when you expect to release new music?
  2. How does the music industry fit together…who are all of the key players that you work with as a recording artist?
    1. A&R
    2. Record Label
    3. Manager
    4. Booking Agent
    5. Publishing
    6. Tour Manager
    7. Business Manager
    8. Etc..
  1. What is the process like for recording a song?
  2. What does it look inside a song-writing session?
  3. How long does a writing session take?
  4. How do you decide what songs to put on your albums?
  5. What do you do with the songs you cut?
  6. What is the process like for cutting an album?
  7. What is the process like for touring?
  8. What do you love most about touring?
  9. What do you like most about being a professional musician?
  10. What is the most challenging aspect of being a professional musician? 
  11. What is it like to perform in front of 10,000 + people?
  12. Let’s talk about your hair…
    1. The vision for its future?
    2. Its past?
    3. When did it start?
  13. What does your new music sound like?
  14. Where can listeners learn more about you and your new music?
Business Coach | Ask Clay & Z Anything

Audio Transcription

Singer Songwriter Colton Dixon The Music Industry 101

Thrive nation. On today’s show, we’re interviewing the pop music star, Colton Dixon and Colton Dixon is going to share with us about how the music industry fits together about all the different parts. What does an a and R representative do? What a record labels do, what a manager’s do, what a booking agents do, what does a publisher do? What the two are managers do business managers and much, much more. I mean, how do these artists get paid? How does an artist make money? How does he write songs? What is the song writing process look like? And Dr Z is going to talk to us about laminated books and why his son chooses to read them in the shower. This is a real thing. His son reads books in the Sh.

Some shows don’t need a celebrity in a writer to introduce the show, but this show down to may eight kids, Koch created by two different women, 13 multimillion dollar businesses. Ladies and gentleman, welcome to the thrive time.

Sean, do what? [inaudible].

[Inaudible] Got it from the bottom?

Yes. Yes, yes. Dan. Yes, Dr z on today’s show. Today’s guest actually sang the intro for the show.

I’m so excited and I just can’t hide it.

I know, I know, I know, I know, I know you want to. Cool Dixon. Welcome onto the thrive time show. How are you doing? So good, you guys. Good. We are excited to have you on the show and, and we’re fans of your music and, and I, I think I just want to start out by asking you where have you been lately? Were, were, were all the places you’ve been going and, and tell me about what you been up to here, this past six.

Sure. So I’ve been in Los Angeles a lot writing music for the new project, but we’ve had some shows here in Oklahoma. Yeah. We’re actually playing in Stigler, Oklahoma on the fourth. So if you’re not doing anything on the fourth, the 4th of July, the 4th of July, come on up to Stigler. Stigler. But yeah. We’ve been doing a lot of shows, a lot of writing. And then we’ve we’ve had six and a half days at home. It feels like nothing like that. We would be you and your wife? Yes. Do you have any animals? No animals. I really want. I want, I’m a little purse dog. I would carry around a purse for a little person. You would? I would. So what breeds is qualifies is that, does that like a chore but a Chihuahua Qualifies? No, I don’t want like a little shaky scared of everything dog. Oh, you want a fluffy, I want a fluffy Pomeranian. What would have post dogs? I mean a zoo or a malteser. They purse dogs. They do big, I don’t know. I’m thinking fit in the palm of your hand. That’s pretty small. It’s pretty small. It’s more like a durable ins. True. Or a ham. Sure. Maybe a small Guinea pig. We’ll get one of my dad and we’ve got through a lot of rodents in my life.

[Inaudible] Large hamster and just swear up and down at the dog. It’s a new breed. It’s a person that’s a person we’re gonna talk about today. If we can, I’d like to get into the music industry because I think there’s a lot, a little bit Pete listeners out there, the love music, but very few people who know how it all fits together. You know, all the, cause I think you see a guy performing and you might go, if you don’t, if you’re not, if you’re not educated about the industry might think, well that guy wrote that song cause he’s singing that song that he wrote that song. Or you might think the person who wrote the song isn’t singing the song or you might not know how they fit together. Then you might go, well what does a manager and what’s a record label and what is the [inaudible]? What does an ANR mean? What do they do? So Colton Dixon, I just wanna when did you first kind of have your eyes open to, wow, there’s a lot of moving parts in this industry and maybe just walk us through those

Moving parts. Yeah. my dad grew up with a guy named Mark Miller who was in a band called Sawyer Brown the other day. They still do, they still do it, but he produced one of my favorite Christian bands of all time casting crowns. So I remember he was having an event. He invited my family because him and my dad were really good friends and he showed me the studio where they recorded. And it was Kinda my first eyeopening experience to what a studio looked like. How old were you? I was gosh, couldn’t have been 12, 13 years old max. And that was my first experience and excitement for recording music. But honestly my first real understanding of how it all worked was really through my process of American idol. Just sitting down with lawyers and talking through our limited terms to a recording contract and, and management and and, and all the things. But there are a lot of moving parts.

Can you maybe introduce us to the characters and I’ll just kind of take notes up here. We’ve got, we have an A&R Yup. A guy or Gal and a and r person. Ah, you have a r stands for artists and repertoire, right? Sure, sure. And then you have a record label, right? You get a record label, you got a manager. Who else is involved? Who are there other characters involved? A booking agent. Booking agent. Okay. Got The booking agent here. Well who else do you have? You have a tour manager, tour manager, tour manager.

What else? I think those are the main and the pet hamster. I mean the pet dog

Or pet. Yeah. Okay. So it a hog animals, your dog Combo. So let me ask you, well, what role does the record label play with you? I can right now. What do you, do you interact with them directly? Do you, do you go through somebody else? How does that work?

The, the record label is, let me put it this way. The A&R guy works for the record label and he is basically your point person for everyone at the record label. There’s also publishing as well. You can jot that down. Okay. Let’s publish a thing. I’m thinking of them as I’m to, no, this is great. I’m taking notes here. But yeah, so your a and r guy is basically your go to guy and he’s, you’re also like your middleman between you and your management to the record label.

Are you allowed to speak openly about who your ANR guy guy is at this point or no? I won’t. I don’t think technically yet yet. Okay. So we won’t mention it. We’ll say whoever your guy is, but it’s really exciting. You, it’s, let’s just say he’s working with, he’s working with huge artists. Whoever your guy is. Yes. And so to be represented by that kind of guy, what sort of honor or excitement or, I mean, when you go guy, whoever you are, what we can do is you can disclose that probably six months from now, but when you say guy, whoever you are who represents me, you all also represent this huge mega, probably one of the biggest pop artists out there right now. Yeah, just smashing the top 40. What did that feel like when you said this is going to be my a and R guy?

It was kind of surreal coming from the Christian background when the, when the mainstream opportunity came about. I I don’t even know if I was supposed to say that, but here we go. Oh, okay. But, but mainstream opportunity came about. I honestly remember asking myself, well, why? I, I don’t know why they would have interest, but they saw something which is really cool and humbling. But when his name came across and I looked him up and saw everything and everyone he was involved with,

It’s wild. It’s really wild. You’re, I’m just saying, I know this is going to be a really awesome year for you. I’m so excited for you and your wife. It just gonna be so it’s going to be fun for the whole world. People who like all different genres for so many more people to hear your music. When you decide to put out an album that’s not quote unquote Christian, this is my observation. I’m just certainly, you haven’t told me this was my observation. I feel like with Christian music z, the lyrics really matter a lot. They will a lot. And then like the beat and you’re Kinda like, Eh, eh, but then you go to like pop music and you go, I mean, this is, I talked to a lot of people who I know who are not musicians, just, just people who listen to them, you know, soccer moms.

Sure. And I’ll say, what do you like about that song? This song could be about anything. Anything. They typically don’t know what it’s about. This is how we do. And you’re going, do you know what that Song’s about? They don’t care. The point is they’d like to be here. I like to be. Oh yeah. And they could be singing songs. I mean, a lot of the post Malone songs out there, I mean pretty fantastically interesting lyrics there. If you think about what they mean, it’s a nice way to put it, but nobody knows what they mean because no one thinks about the lyrics. So, and pop music’s all about the beat, the syncopation, the melody. And if you get great lyrics to that’s abilities, combine them, then you go to the top of the charts. And that’s what I see is that two of the guys that really are clever writers love their cheered, beat, love Ed Sheeran. He still does something. It goes to the top. I mean, so can I ask you, is your, is your new, do you agree with that observation that the beat matters more in pop in the sink, a patient or am I wrong there?

No. Music. Music definitely matters more. It’s, I actually view Christian and country in a very similar,

I quote Oh wow. Well is very

Lyric driven as well. And I think that’s great. If it’s the format, obviously when you’re writing Christian music, the lyric needs to mean something. Yeah. But yeah, and pop, you’re kind of just, most people are writing about sex, drugs and rock and roll. So it’s, people don’t really care because they don’t really want to listen to clothes.

I got a buddy of mine who worked in a studio with Kanye West for a long, long time and he asked Mr. West, he says, Mr Kanya, you know, can I, can I film you? He said, sure. So he was able to film his creative process, you know, watching him and Kanye would put together the beat and the melody, but they’re, the lyrics he put down meant nothing and they were just mumbling. Yeah. So he was mumbling out. It was syncopated the right way. It was, it was the, it was the, it was how it sounded when it was recorded by the here. No actual words, nothing rhymed. Nothing actually meant anything before he sat down and thought of the rhyme scheme. Do you do that?

Yeah, I, that’s actually how I write music most of the time. Even on the Christian side. I, it’s a lot easier for me to sit down at a piano or behind a computer, make a beat, and then move forward with that, get along with the song and then that music will inspire me. And to a specific word or rhyme scheme we call it baby talk, baby talk colder. You’re a better writer or a singer. You tell me

He’s too humble to answer that question. I have no idea really. If I had done it,

If I had to pick one, I probably enjoy riding more. Really cool. But I, I

Cool you my point, what I was getting at since I’m knew it, you went right down the trail. Thank you very much Colton Dixon. So what you’re saying is that being a great writer that you are, that you could, you could write a song that clay and I could sing. Probably not very well. Oh No. Oh No. Oh No. Oh No. Oh, someone’s already done that one. My bad. Yeah. Can you write that for you? Yeah, I thought he did when I went from me to, now let me, let me cue up a little, a little audio from a previous album you’ve done in the past and hopefully you don’t sue us for playing your audio on the show. But here we go. I’m going to cue it up here on the right sets. Okay. We’ll see each other. So I’m going to come into play a little little segment of this song. And just, just enough to give the listeners kind of a look into what you’ve done in the past. And this new sound you have though. It’s pretty, it. Would you describe the new sound is optimistic? Upbeat? How would you describe your new sound? I know you have 60 something songs you’ve been working on. How would you describe the new sound?

Yeah, it’s think imagine dragons. One republic meets Adele.

There we go. Now see, I want house up. Now this song right here is going to take the room down just a little bit. And Z organ to do is we’re going to play the audio here. Where’s it? Let it happen. Just let it happen. 90 seconds or so. This song is incredible. This just shows you the range of Colton Dixon. I’m Colton Dixons, unofficial hype hype man here. So let me care. We got up here. It’s official now. [inaudible]

[Inaudible] Okay. [inaudible] Oh. This skin and bone. Sure.

And he plays the piano too.

I am [inaudible] King Sy [inaudible] see [inaudible] what a heartbeat from [inaudible]. [inaudible] what a hobby from [inaudible]. [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible]

Zee, do you still sing that high? That’s incredible. That’s incredible. I normally sing a little higher than that with that G, what? What, where, where are we on that? I love the commercials with it. Here’s, here’s my life. I love the commercial with Peyton manning and who’s the country guy that’s singing a yacht? A Paisley [inaudible] from living water irrigation there. So thank you Josh. Yes, he’s got a Lubbock of fat chapter, you know, but when we’re there talking and he goes, what, what cure you? And he goes, that AFI goes r e and he goes, go gt or that’s too hard for me. And Peyton goes, Nah, not for me.

It’s so funny. I feel like clay, I mean Colton Dixon, I can go on the road, right? And we can be that. That can be us. I would be fake man. Of course. Oh, okay. With, with great ideas for song writing, we’re ready to go. Like, you know, like a vanishing deductible. Why don’t we do a strong amount of dog, you know, at $100. Cool. I want to ask you, so you go, it’s, it’s to go inside the studio. You’re, you’re sitting down and you’re working with all these different songwriters right now. It’s, it’s, it has to be a lot of fun for a guy like you to work on songs and some of the biggest songwriters out there on the planet right now. What does it look like? Do you get into a room and you start doing the whole baby talk thing? Or do you start banging on the cowbell and you’re like, okay, I got it. Here we go. Need you start slapping around a wet fish? Well, how does it start? Honestly, every session is different. A lot of the time I walk in and they will ask me, hey, do you have any songs that you can play us so we can get a vibe? So I’ll do, I’ll play some songs that

I’ve written that have been produced, that come back and they kind of get an understanding of, of where we’re headed for the day. And then they ask, is there anything that you want to write about? If not, that’s great. We can pull up some sounds or I like writing in threes. Comps. If someone is at the computer kind of producing the whole time. So someone’s nerding out, someone is nerding out the entire day. Six or seven hours technically stuck. You can be in the flow. Yes. Okay. Something’s always looping. And then the other guy I get with on lyrics. That’s that’s probably my hardest thing to finish out for a song is all the details in the song and I’ll have the concept, I’ll have a title. But filling in the blanks is sometimes my hardest thing. So working with that guy to do that is super helpful. But there have been songs honestly that my label’s favorite song right now. I walked into the studio, I met the guys and then he pulled out his guitar and sang the first two lines to the song and it was amazing. So that’s the song that we wrote that day. And

Now you have like 60 songs is 61, 62 songs you’ve recorded, you’ve written down that, that how do you decide which 15 or 12 or 10 or nine, how you decide which ones make the album?

I have no idea really. I’m just kidding. It’s a, it’s a difficult process because I’m even in the place right now. Where there a couple songs that I feel really strongly about. Yeah. The label. It just, they just, the songs weren’t on their radar and I get that I’m coming from Christian background side and they are thinking pop radio and all that stuff. So our, our outlook on why the song is great might be a little different. But but yeah, so it’s about trying to find that middle ground with people who know what will work versus who I am as an artist. So we’re kind of in that tango right now.

What do you do with the song that you like that you can’t release? What happens? Do it, what do you do? Do you give it to the doctor z?

Yeah. You can pitch your songs. I’m absolutely, I would love to hear Dr z sing some of those songs.

Why can’t you just, I’m bad to our humor break for the show. Take one. Can you just let them go? I can’t, you just put them out there yourself. What’s, what’s the rules? What were the [inaudible] question come? Why don’t you just release him on like iTunes or whatever and just say, hey, how do I go free? I think he could

Then I think technically my label could sue me.

Oh, so good. So that could be a problem. Yeah, that’s it. I’ve got audio of Dr z singing the hits. Oh No, this is Dr [inaudible]. Incredible. Yes. Let me queue it up here.

I’d like to apologize up front. You want it? You want it? JB Bust a move for one. Now I wanted to show by making all of my travel around.

Oh, it’s a price light commercial. My bad. Sorry, I got, I thought [inaudible]

Audio. So I mean William Shatner, I mean I you want it, he and I are tight, but I’ve got a hard hitting question for, for the rest of the world. Listening to this, you just have to vicariously visualize this through your brains. But this hair dude is something special. Some impressive hair. And I just want to know how long have you been? Wait, okay. What the thought process. See I blocked out an hour for the hair. Okay. Oh, just an hour. Okay. Hurry it up. [inaudible] Phase. When do you look in the mirror and go, okay, I’m gonna rock this coming to do the next time? Or do you just sit it on a chair and said, have at it? I mean, were you very purposeful? I mean, what, what do you, what are you thinking? What does this say? What does it say? Because for those of you, I’m going to picture, can I, can I describe it? May I? Okay. First of all, it’s kind of a full Mohawk. I’m, I’m old enough to back in the day it was kind of that

You don’t the sides or trim very neat and close to the head. And you just had the sinner swaps of hair that’s left. It’s like you missed it. Did you, was it an accident? We don’t know. But to accentuate it. You want to make sure we notice it. So you color it [inaudible] and you think yourself, I don’t want to go too crazy this time cause I’m just kinda getting into my flow. So you go up platinum blonde, sorry.

Boom. It’s oppressive hair. It’s oppressive. Cold. I’m just jealous. Ashley, what’s the Vision for the hair? What’s the vision for the hairs feature? I’ve kind of painted myself in a corner and fortunately the hair’s catching on. It’s a people. People know me by my love that, yeah. How long? Sorry you get the hair own you or do you own your hair? Is it we who own too? I think the hair is kind of a dictator here. I think it is too. It’s kite. It’s like Colton Dixon’s hair. And when did it start? When did it start? This look,

I was in high school and went to a private high school and they had very strict hair rules trimmed above eyes, ears, shirt, collar, and I was a really good kid unless it was a rule that I thought had absolutely no meaning that was whenever I would get a little rebellious. So they made me cut my hair because it was too long and so I, it wasn’t as extreme that I kind of did a version of this and I spiked it up. Did Graphic calculators make you mad? I didn’t like math in general. So yes. Planes and things we’ve never used as adults. Yes. Yes.

Have you seen, we’ll go, going to get Josh’s take on this, Josh, you, you, you remember Algebra. Can you remember like the truth, false tables and stuff like that? Almost every entrepreneur I’ve ever had on this show says I can’t stand theoretical stuff that I don’t implement it. It bother you too. Or

Am I the only one who’s irritated by the Mesopotamia River valley? Absolutely. Energy Jurors. I mean, we could, we could get in some integers. We could get into some [inaudible] water irrigation. Do you ever say, man, before I get you a quote, let me slope. Let me grab that on a sloping plane real quick. Let me look at my papyrus here. Let me discuss my vast knowledge of cuneiform. Can we do that real quick? Please? Likely Catherine

The great invaded whatever and see memorized it for the next two days

Where we install the sprinkler system. I need to look at the periodic table and uranium. You’ll notice this over here. I remember eyes that, and by the way, the capital of Maryland is a, I mean, do you ever do that kind of stuff?

I’ve never tried to recall the capital of India in my life.

What questions do you ever before Colton Dixon about songwriting?

Sure. So it’s kind of a about songwriting or can I go a different direction? Whatever you want. I mean, you know, it’s whatever. Okay, so you and I kind of share the same views. So there’s an awesome quote out there that a, and I think it’s great for a lot of the listeners out there that your greatest accomplishment is just on the other side of fear. So I know for you with doing American idol and all the amazing things that you’ve done and all that, I think on Ellen a lot of times as Christians, and I’ll shift this show and I don’t mind, I think we get stuck in this world or get stuck in the pattern of this world and those things and, and wanting to appease people and wanting to go with the flow as opposed to step on our own and step out on the other side of fear. And for a lot of entrepreneurs that listen to this or a lot of people around here, they’re just so fearful of that. So what would you say to those people?

Well, cool. Yeah. As it pertains to faith or just in general? Either or. Yeah. So as it pertains to faith when Peter got out of the boat to walk on water, he had to get out of the boat. Sometimes we forget that he actually had to go count to three and make the step, and then he was part of the miracle. So for us as believers we just have to trust that God knows what he’s doing. Shocker, right? But sometimes we doubt it. Right, right. Because we’re human. But yeah, sometimes we just have to take the step out of the boat. For me, that’s what this is right now. Was very comfortable in the Christian music industry. I love it. I’m not leaving it for any other reason other than I feel, I feel like it’s time to step out of the boat. But it can be a scary time. But just in life in general you see so, so many times where you have to risk it to get the biscuit, you know, whatever the saying is. If you’re not willing to risk a little bit, you’re not going to see the reward. If you don’t swing, you’re not gonna hit.

And I feel like you leaving the comfort of being, you know, consistently on the charts of top 40 Christian music,

That is a whole different game. That’s like going from crew. It’s like going from country music to hip hop in my opinion. It’s that big of a jump is an odd, it’s it, what’s interesting is politically yes. The sound of my music, maybe not country hip hop politically. Sure. yeah, the politics of Christian music is very interesting. I won’t dive into all that, but they, they just want you to be very blatant and obvious about your faith at all times. And that’s great. I’m proud to be a Christian. I’m not ashamed of the Gospel, you know, all of those things. But to the, the average person in America they’ll respect your belief, but it’s the moment you try and force feed them your belief that they get turned off. So I’m in this spot where I had the opportunity to just share a little bit of light, maybe on some subjects and, and and then when they start to ask questions, that’s when the doors open and I can answer their questions.

You know, as we, as we dive back into the, the music industry in this recording. So you, you were in the studio, how long are you in the studio typically before you have a version of a song that’s saveable you can say that thing digitally and go, we know we can come back to it later and produce it out if you want to finish it. But how long does it take before you go? All right, we’re good on piecing out. I say the normal

Day is five, six hours. And you’ll have something that you can go back and listen on and get an idea. Oh cool, this song’s going to be great. Or maybe the song isn’t for me or, or add. We’ll try to against tomorrow. So what role does the manager play in this whole thing? Manager is my buffer. It’s so funny because sometimes artists can look around and be like, what does my manager do? I’m paying him a lot of money to manage something. I know it’s all I know, but honestly if nothing else and my manager is awesome, he does a great job at talking to booking and talking to the label and he honestly helped orchestrate the whole mainstream opportunity for me. So even just to have the buffer is so important because as an artist, especially a Christian artist, I cannot be the bad guy ever.

If there’s something that I don’t want to do or, or a show comes in where unfortunately there’s just not enough money there to make it happen, we would be losing money. Yeah. I don’t have to be the bad guy and say, I’m so sorry we can’t come to your church. And does it, does it matter? Does the manager work with the booking agent? He does, yes. The different person, the agent manager, different people in different people. Yeah. So booking agent they, they are the ones who help you find tours, find shows. They also take calls of people who want to book, say if they wanted to book me, they would say, hey, how much is it to get Colton Dixon in to play this event? And then they would tell them, well, they need this, this, this.

So see we’ve got the ANR guy. Yes. Got The record. We got the record label. Got The manager. Yes. The booking agent. Yes. I, then we got the, the, the Zohan Zohan. What role do you play in Colton Dixon? I’m, I’m, I’m Iran. I’m, I’m role. They didn’t put it on there, but it’s called and B. F

In B f. Oh, this is, I’ll take 10 take notes here right now. Right. You know, you have, you can, it’s an acronym for new best friend. Oh Wow. And the fact that he’s going to name his perse monkey after, after me. It’s actually, it’s actually very exciting, you know, and I guess I had a cup of coffee I can, couple of questions for, I want to kind of dive in a little bit to the American idol. Yeah. I mean, I know there’s some kids listening out there right now, or even some adults or some, anybody that don’t have a kid or a kid that have parents or parents have carrots or combination, their, I don’t know, going, hey, how did that work? Did you just show up randomly at a, at an audition? I mean, seriously, just off the street. Like you’re just like, I’m just gonna show up, get in line, fill my name out and go sing. Yes. It was really that simple. It really was. And where did you actually do your entry point? I’m trying to remember. I’m

First they were in Nashville weep. I grew up in right outside of Nashville. My wife and I, Annie lived there now, but yeah, they were at the big arena in Nashville. Sure. My sister really wanted to do it. We were big fans of the show. Yeah. so we found out that Richard, how old were you at the time? I was 17. I think you gotta be how old you were just writing the cuts bride you’ve gotta be. Cause what’s the Lehigh to be? You have to be 16, I think. I think 15. 15. Okay. 15, 15. All right. 15 to 27 I think is their range. But yeah. Anyway, so we went my sister was going to be the only one auditioning. I was still kinda like observing and while we were waiting out line overnight that she’s an older sister, I’m assuming younger three years younger.

So she was just barely minimum then. Yes, yes. She was young and she’s like, you’re here, audition, you know, the whole thing. I’m like, alright, cool. Let’s just do it. And, and so you didn’t have a song picked out or anything or did you kind of had one year or thinking about it? I don’t remember to be honest with you. But you walk in and they have these huge, these 10 stations on the floor of the arena. Okay. And the entire arena is packed with people. Wow. People are finding corners in the hallways, singing and some great singers. And then some not so great singers with the group. In fact, I think I saw you there. It’s really interesting. But anyway, I was

On the not so great guys, real quick. I made to take the show to that, to that. No, please do it. I have audio of Colton singing. I think we got it right. I get, I get so much audio, so much, so much facts. Mike’s everywhere. There’s so much going on and you never know sometimes. Is Andrew going to slip me the wrong audio file? I’m gonna kill him. I just wanna play the first minute of it and we’ll see if this is Colton Dixon or not. Okay. Okay. I think let’s just try out video. Let me see. Are they gonna get sick again? Oh No, it’s the silver spoons theme song. Colton Dixon, is this what you sang during your audition? Is this way? A couple of this is a little burst. Kind of. Sounds like a little bit. It does open. There’s Ricky Schroder Reiki Chi. No. Hey, kid a go. Dad’s not, that’s not a cold and it wasn’t cold, but it was close. Gage drew. Why would you slip that to me on this? Just did you like, you

Liked it for silver spoons? Colton Dixon, I’ve never heard of the silver space over 400. Okay. Back to it. Okay. So you’re waiting in line with your sister and all of a sudden you get the, you, you, you say, okay, I’m going to do it. Yeah. That the song pop in your mind or did you already, did you just have, I’ll just get up there and sing whatever.

Like I said, I don’t, I don’t really remember. The very first one I did, they never showed on TV. There were like three rounds before they showed the televised deal. I think I sing a lifehouse song hanging by a moment, I think. So you’re, you’re like at a desk, there’s like 10 desks on the floor and you’d walk up to this desk. I’m Colton Dixon Sing and you start singing that said, okay, next level, stand over there. Yeah, there, there were four. We came up four or five at a time. We each step forward said her name saying my sister and I were standing in side by side and you move on. We were the only ones that made it through. And it was kind of wild too. I think it was a god thing because we saw so many people seeing an audition for them who are really great singers. So they were casting for TVs.

Here’s our deal, now send us, see that’s the secret weapon or weapon. I do have audio. Let me keep this. This is actually, it turns out the title tag. It doesn’t say silver spoons theme, so I think it’s not the silver spoons theme where the other one said silver spoons theme. I didn’t know F was in fact the silver spoons theme. So Z, do you still sing like that? Only in the shower at a very early in the mornings. Wow. Oh No. It’s hard to get a piano in there by the way, but I figured out a way to do it. Wow. Okay. That would be a great invention. A waterproof piano, great creativity plots in the showers. Think oftentimes. I asked my wife on top, I love reading and I said, Vanessa, I wished they would laminate books. And she goes, do you realize how heavy the book would be? They actually had like, oh my have a waterproof, you know, my youngest bode loves reading in the shower. So he actually got laminated Bible. They have the book, then he sits in there and reads his moves. I don’t, I don’t, I don’t sit there and I don’t monitor it cause he’s on his, he’s a grown man, although he’s 25 now. So you quit checking on him this year.

Why are you doing it? [inaudible] You’re using hot water. Hello? So they make these things called iPads. They have waterproof cases. Oh my gosh. See, I think I have audio. Oh No.

[Inaudible] Get out of here. [inaudible]

Oh, I should just apologize in front of every show just for those moments

Like that. I mean, too late. Okay. Do you like to apologize? Okay, so now, so now I gotta ask you this now. So hold on. Harms, I’m okay. So they see you move on. So boom, boom, boom to the first time it was televised kind of a, now you’ve got a little pressure on you. Third time to sync or fourth time or whatever. And they were, we did the first round. We went home, there was about a month, we came back, did another round. Oh Wow. Wow. And then there was another couple of weeks and then we came back for the [inaudible] in the interim, in between the day one of you doing it today at them giving your golden ticket, right. They did the golden ticket. Did you have any training in there? Did you have anybody kind of step in and go do what song are you going to sing?

Like come on. We’ve got to get serious. I’m ready. Come on now. Yeah. We went and met with a lady in Nashville who actually coached Melinda Doolittle, who was on American idol. Okay. Two years before we auditioned. Very good. She taught at Belmont Music School in Nashville and so we went and she’s awesome. So she she kinda helped us get prepared for that round. She knew firsthand what the round was like. So I’m really thankful for her. It was honestly more about confidence and arranging the song short in a short, condensed way that shown our range and make sense that, that whole thing. What was the first time he sat down with like attorneys? Are you assigned something or like it became like serious, like a legal, like here’s the deal. Did you have to do that before you went to California? Yes. So we did our big arena deal and then if you made it through, you follow producers through and you sign something saying you’re not going to release any music. It, I don’t remember everything that was in there, but it was pretty like, okay, they own me for a little bit. It’s not like a permanent thing, but during this window I can’t do anything. Sure. That makes sense. Yeah, totally. Totally.

This is an entrepreneurial show and I go, I want to know this. We’re talking about you got the ANR. Got It. The person number one, you’ve got the record label. That’s, you know, to manage three. You’ve got the booking agent four, you got the publishing going on, you’ve got the tour manager. You might have a pet or an animal here. W who pays you? Like how, because this is an entrepreneurial show. I remember the first time, I remember the first time cidJ had a big event and we’re going $1,000 to do what I love. I got, you know, when you just put it on, you have that moment where you’re going, I’m getting paid to do what I love to do. Maybe not a lot. Maybe someone says that’s not a lot. Maybe someone says that’s,uthat’s amazing. Udo you remember the first time you got paid and

Who pays you? I don’t know if I remember the first time I got paid check in the mail. Maybe the first, I guess it would have been an advance for signing to a label. That would have been my check. They give you a check or they it, they mailed it to my business manager who is another guy to write down. But really, yeah, it was manager. My business manager was like, Hey, we just got a check for x amount. For the signing bonus. Basically.

Do you ever, or have you ever been financially excited about a check? Because I know you’re a, you’re a musician, you’re a musician, you’re a musical. Puritan. I’m not just saying this because you’re on the show. You love your craft, you love your fans, you love the music, you’re passionate about putting out positive music. I believe that. I know that that’s true. But do you ever remember, do you ever remember going, this is cool, this is so cool. I get paid to do what I love. You ever had that thought?

Oh, absolutely. Money’s a tool. Like anything else. So yeah, anytime a check comes in we get paid quarterly from our publishing, so they’re one of the people that make sure we get paid. How does that work? So when your songs played on the radio or it’s, or it’s bought on iTunes or whatever. Publishing is the writing side. So there’s a performance side of a song and then there’s a writing side. So whoever wrote the song, if you wrote it with two people, you get 50% of however much money you get per play.

So is it z and I a streaming on Spotify? Are you making like 2 cents?

Depends on how much you stream. I think it’s like 0.0, zero, zero six something percent per play, which is crazy. Which isn’t a lot.

It’s not you. So you have to, as an artist today, so I’m going to prepay for, make your money through March. I’m going to list, I want to make sure the listeners get this because this is a, a powerful, then we had Ross Golan on the show who’s really helped make sure that artists get paid. Yeah. And Ross is huge. I mean he’s worked on songs with Celina and Bieber and huge artists and writers and artists. You guys used to get paid and when people bought the cds, that was how it happened on. Now it’s pretty much down to merchandise and touring is, am I wrong there? I’m like, I’m exaggerating. Is that pretty much correct as how you make most of your money?

No, you’re absolutely correct. Radio helps some. But yes, streaming has has made the industry have to reinvent the wheel. I think they’re catching up with the helps of people like Russ Golan and but yeah, it’s it’s kind of a tricky spot. It really was when we dropped my third studio album called identity, cause my label was kind of like we were, this is new for everybody. This happened between your second and now third record and we’re figuring it out.

So if the people out there that wanna learn more about you or get more involved in the Colton Dixon thing, can they see you perform here because we’re going to air this show. This’ll be out. If you’re listening to this show right now, you have time to buy tickets, I believe for your performance in Oklahoma here. And you said, where’s that Taylor? It’s in Stigler. Stigler hour and a half away. Maybe. So we Google search Colton Dixon Stigler we can probably find a place to get those tickets. Yes. But are you going to be, is your goal to tour or toast the goal for the new album and the new maybe two, or what? What’s your vision for the next 12 months? If everything goes the way you want it to go.

Actually love this question because when we first signed with a label we thought the, which some of the tours were awesome. Actually all the tours we’ve done are awesome. However, what we were doing, we were jumping on these huge tours, huge with Toby Mac and with third day and with winter jam, which are amazing tours for the industry that I’m in. But we were never servicing our fans with just a tour with Colton Dixon, if that makes sense. We were never going out on our own [inaudible] on your own. Right. So they would get the commercial, how I like to say it, they would get 15 to 20 minutes of me playing in hopes that they would come to a full on bonafide Colton Dixon show. However, we were not necessarily playing those shows because we were always on these big tours. So moving forward, yeah, I would love to drop a record and go play, even if they’re small shows, 500 to a thousand cabinets

On the piano. You, you are you’re gifted, you’re skilled, you’ve worked at it, but it’s, it’s fun to watch on the piano. Do you perform, do you love performing where you got the mic in the hand and Andrew playing the piano or do you prefer just be singing? What do you prefer? What’s your preferred move?

You know, recently I’ve, I’ve had the opportunity to play some just me and piano shows. It’s crazy. It’s been a lot of fun actually. It’s very informal. I wind up saying stuff that I regret, but it’s fun and yeah, it’s about time out. We can’t just roll by that. You gotta tell us one thing you said that you regret calling dodger and he was stealing some of the lines on all the ladies night tonight. I mean, today, I mean guys, have you seen my pocket monkey here? Hey, whoa. Hey, my birth to you in a box. No, it’s really a hamster. Sorry. It’s not a monkey at all. Shut down the WHATSAPP, whatsapp thing that you’ve said that you would come on. What are the kinds, we won’t share it with anybody. It just [inaudible] to six people in the studio. I’ll give you one of them. Okay. And it was one of those, my wife was, was kind of off to the side and you just look over and she’s just shaking her head. I was trying to relate with people and say, Hey, just because I’m up on a three foot stage doesn’t mean I’m any different than any of you. I said, my poop stinks just like yours does.

And

They weren’t going. That’s true. Okay. So tell me something you regretted. Say, let me, come on. Tell me. Give me something good. I mean, that’s interesting information sidebar, but it fits with that. We have a listener here. We’ll end the studio and we’ll is an aspiring musician of the hip hop genre. I wanted to have a will come on in here to be able to ask you a question here. So let’s put [inaudible] on him. And then Josh, you get a final question and sodas, Dr Z, and then we’re gonna Colton’s gonna kick us out of our studio and he’s gonna, you know, do what he has to do, especially Colton Dixon does, you know, I said kick us out. He’ll probably leave nicely call me, but a will. What’s your question for Mr Colton Dickson? Make sure you eat that microphone. Okay. Yes. So I have a couple questions here. So

Just being someone who does music rights myself, I constantly am like trying to create this a environment that is conducive to me creating myself. So how do you kind of get out of like the daily routine or the fast moving pace and kind of get into that creative zone where things start to surface? Hmm.

I had scheduled time. So something for me that I’ve realized is if I wait on being inspired to write one, it will rarely happen. Not never true, but it will rarely happen. This is my job. Music is my job. So I have to treat it as such. So when I’m out in California, when my, you know, my wife is getting to hang out with their folks and they’re going to Ruth’s Chris and they’re going to other places. Sometimes I get to go with them, right? But other times I’m, I’m stuck in a dingy apartment studio some days some days it’s nice and glamorous, but most days it’s not. Right. But I’m with two or three other guys and we’re putting in the time regardless if we’re inspired or not and hopefully talking with these people or knowing that, hey, this is my time to, to write whatever. I look inward and I go, okay, God, what do you got for me today? Or, you know, whatever. But scheduling is huge.

Okay. Yeah. Okay. Awesome. I want to do, just try me on something with, I’ve seen this with people I’ve worked with who have a certain profile, certain everybody around you. If you’re not careful, if you’re somebody who has a personality of some kind people around you, everyone wants 1%, 2%, 3%. Can we got a minute, quick meetings or you run into that? Can I have a minute? Can I grab your vape? Can we go out to eat? Can I go over here? And if you’re not careful, you get nothing done. I think it’s gotta be one of the biggest things you probably have had to learn is just time management, like shutting the world off. And just, especially in this world of perpetual connectedness, I mean that there had to been a, a, something that was hard to learn. Right?

Yeah. Honestly, the, the, the not the hardest, but one of the most important things for me to learn is, is to set aside time for not just me, but for my wife and for my, and my parents and, and, and just realize, okay, yes, this might be my job and this is super important right now, but it’s still just a job. Yeah. do I feel called by God to do it? Absolutely. But family becomes before ministry and realizing that and carving out time my wife is going to listen to this and she’s going to go, really, you, you do that? I’m working on it.

Any, anything to that, right. Andy? Anything that’s on a schedule that you don’t like? It’s probably my fault. I just want to stay and I just, I’m just saying, I just want to jump onto that bus there. So, yeah, no goodwill. I believe we have time for two more questions. Okay. So for me, yeah,

I kind of feel like I’ll be driving in the car, I’ll be in the shower like z sometimes. And th these things will come.

You said legacy, not with Z sometimes,

Right? Like z not lipsy yet.

There’s no room like, hey, hey, I just dealt with that. So crap. Well, Hey, I got a song idea. Oh Hey, pass that. So,

Nope. So [inaudible]

So yeah. So so you know, what I was saying is I always feel like I am like constantly writing stuff down. Is that something that you do? Like are you constantly putting stuff in a note pad on your phone or your iPad or is do you only do it in certain times or,

Yes. I do that all the time. I’m pulling up my song ideas folder here and it’s just, it’s just full of titles or lyrics within a note or whatever. Because you can’t write a song necessarily while you’re driving. There we go. Right. Or when you’re about to go to sleep or you wake up in the middle of the night and you’re like, I’m going to remember that in the morning. Do you ever remember that in the morning? Oh, no, you don’t. So you pull out your voice memo, you right. And your notepad and or voice memo was number one important because you can write all the lyrics she wants you. You’re not going to remember how it goes. You’re going to see lyrics and go, man, that’s beautiful. I have no idea what the melody was. [inaudible] It’s happened to me too many times where I just do it. So yes, to answer your question, awesome.

And do you ever like, do you record or anything on your own? Like to get those ideas down? You know on your own computer and then say, okay, now I have something that I kind of like I’ve, you know, came up with on my own. Now we’re going to go record the final thing, you know, in the studio or do you

Yes. Something that I would tell any musician regardless of your genre is no enough to be dangerous. And what I mean by that is know enough to be able to talk the lingo. So if you’re in the studio with the producer one, you know what you want because you’ve spent time producing or making a beat or whatever on your own enough to know, oh, I like it when you put this reverb on my voice. Right, right. And then they’re going to be really impressed that you know your stuff and they’re going to want to work with you again. So there’s that. But then you also get a a product that you can stand by. That sounds like you. But even with writing, I also cannot stress enough writing with other people. I don’t know. Tulsa, Oklahoma has a huge hip hop music scene or not.

But yeah you know, but finding other people who are at least just down to talk about things with you and even if they’re not writers, they’re just willing to talk about whatever topic you’re writing about. And then they’ll wind up saying something and you’re like, hey, that’s really good. I’m gonna write that down. It will make you a better writer. I’m okay always now. We’ll, I appreciate you for coming on the show there and my friend. Appreciate it. Yeah, man. Best of luck, Steve, for sure. Thank you z. We got a final

60 seconds. Give us a thunder question, Josh. Get ready with your thunder question. Paint him into a corner. Make it political. Make it religious. Make people upset, make it happen too. Two part question two, part one. When you started getting the tools called money, you’re body thing, fun and frivolous and to happen, like you just said to myself, you know, growing up as a kid, you’re like, I’ve always wanted some chickens. Did you, did you go and make a purchase? That’s just kind of for you. For Fun. I did. And what was that? It was a bat suit that, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, whoa, Whoa, whoa. Okay. Back Up. Okay. Like a Batman suit. It was a Batman suit. Like a real one. Yeah. Can you, can you give me a little Batman?

I’m not very good at it. [inaudible] Asked me about, hey, why are we the salad here? Look how water resistant. Let’s do this. That’s amazing. [inaudible] Did you put it on first? You mentioned recording. Oh, that’d be good. You reach down there and getting it. Why does by Robert Robertson.

Okay. Bad, bad suit. That’s fine too. And you, you’ve worn it. Yeah, I’ve worn it. Okay. Yeah. And he was your favorite. He’s your favorite superhero, I’m assuming. I love Batman. Love it. That doesn’t love a good Batman. I’ll tell you. That’s true. That man. I love him.

Oh, that’s

Amazing. All right, and number two, listen, for those of you are listening right now, one of these days you’ll listen back to the Shingo. Oh my gosh. I actually heard an interview with this guy before. He was that guy. I mean, cause you’re on the upswing. [inaudible] Colton Dixon check it out. He is, it’s like interviewing Justin Bieber before he was just Justin. We didn’t even know his last. I think God’s given this guy some profounding. He has a real Derek’s that everyone needs to hear Tony. It’s unbelievable. My point is you’re going to have a lot more tools coming to you. I’m prophetically call it out, but you’re going to be making some Mola Mola Mola. What’s something down the road? Cause I mean a lot of guys just sitting there, I asked, I remember I asked clay this question three, four years ago. Yeah. Clay came to me with this idea of how to mentor millions and how to change the world and you know, just that story.

I’d, Hey, let’s do this kind of thing. I thought that’s, I’ve been shark tanked a lot. This was a shark tank to said yes to and so, and I asked him, I said, well, when we, when we get success and whenever you reach that, what do you, what are you gonna do with that? [inaudible] Chickens. He looked like a deer in the headlight. Took me like a, I’d never thought about that. So for you, I asked the same question young man, you’re on your up swing up. I mean, you’re obviously blessed beyond belief and you’ve got a lot of talents seem like you’ve got your act together, which is hard to find in your industry, I would imagine as you’re smiling, what, what do you want to do? What, what’s your like what’s the end, not the end game, but what is something that you want to do down the road with all the money? You don’t spend all that on spatulas let’s be prudent here. Yeah, I mean it gets Boehner too. Doesn’t hurt by it. I mean don’t just always default move spatulas we know, we know we got that. Yup. I’m a firm believer in whatever I’m doing now

With my money is what I’m going to be doing. Whenever I make millions money, the habits are going to be the same. They’re just going to be magnified. So my wife and I really love to give. We really do. Just turning it into a faith thing for God’s to love the world that he gave. It was like one of the big things for him. He’s just a giver and we want to reflect that. So yeah, it’s just it’s gonna be a big tool to use these. I did, I get

You got a pair of Yeezys. I know it’s so strong in the ministry as fixed enterprises. For those of you that are my age, you have no idea what it is. Easy as, but you explain what a Yeezy might be thinking that like a fungus or something. The thrive, the shower, she did a three 50 boosts that a, a member of the thrive nation just mailed me. These are, so it’s in a Tonya is an Adidas tennis shoe. Yeah. And they’re like a, it’s like a slipper meets a shoe tennis shoe.

Yeah. And they’re kind of military looking ish.

They so cool. The ultra boost platform is an ultra boost tennis shoe that’s been sub branded by Kanye.

Yeah. They use the same boost

Cause I tend to look at all that. Got My ultra boost that I wear, but I never heard of Yeezy before. Oh yeah. You to get out of the tire, it’s a beautiful thing. And they’re like, no, you can wear ultra boost that way too. So they look like the same thing. I hate to, I hate to wrap up the center cause we do have to interview another person who’s not as important but [inaudible] as a person. How much fun hair like this though at down. No he doesn’t. And that’s why I’ve told them. Yeah, I like that. Okay. Josh, final question. You got, you guys do final final question. We’re coming in hot 15 seconds of fun. Here we go. So really quick, obviously with the new John Ruh and going into that called, do you feel that you’ll be able to still carry that kingdom message or just in a much a, I hate the term would be positive or gangster rap. So do you, do you feel like you’ll still be able to carry that light?

Yeah, that’s a great question. And I feel like that is the big question that I’m going to get faced with a lot. Yeah, I do.

His new stuff is awesome. I’m just telling you, if you liked this previous stuff, it’s next level. It’s like I’m serious. If you will listen to like one republic I lived or imagine dragons, whatever it takes. It’s like that, but in his own way. I’m just telling you it is. It’s awesome. You’re gonna love it.

Yeah. It’s incredible. Yeah. So to answer your question, yes. I was always kind of on the outside of what the typical CCM song sounded like anyway. So I don’t think it’s that much of a stretch, but kingdom mind is still very important to me and my wife. So yes.

Hey, Z, I’m speaking of

Shower technology and laminated [inaudible]. Are you ever use the conditioner? Let’s go ahead and end the show with the boom in the shower.

Okay. Here we go. Three, two, one. Boom.

Can I use your laminated shower? I’ve got a two for one. Or is that a separate ship? Who would get this life out of here? I want to use that Bible myself.

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