Nick Meinema
Appearances
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
I do want to say something, if I can. There is a lost art, and maybe it's in all the towns, but there's a lost art to what Rod has with Tim McGraw and what you had with Toby, where there's just, you know the ins and outs of the relationship. I don't know your relationship with Tim.
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
That's not where I was going with it, but okay.
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
good lesson i know a lot of agents don't even have a relationship with the artist it's i'm totally right manager it's all managed i don't i don't i don't understand that at all i don't know how you can do it you know what it's it's not been tim or totally i just don't know how you can do that either you have to know the the person and the personalities to go no that doesn't work and here's the reason why but i'll say the lost art of it just the quick point that i want to make is the longevity of the ups and downs
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
There's no way that you went all of those years or going all those years with Tim without having, you know, butting heads. And I know for a fact that there was butting heads on that end, but the relationship was stead proof that get to the other side, there's trust on both sides. And I believe that's a real lost art here in Nashville for sure.
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
Maybe it's in LA and New York and London as well, but here it's a lost art. It seems to be, you know, you're walking into the room and it's that old, you know, shuffle where you're looking who's around. you know, what's the best situation.
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
And you guys, it's the last of that time where somebody can, I also don't know if an artist in this day and age with the way that they're breaking can have a 30 year, 35 year career. Maybe they can, and hopefully they can. I just don't know how, you know, it just becomes such a problem where they're looking at your social numbers before they're looking at your songs. or how you can sing.
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
And I think that's a stress level that I don't think, just like you mentioned COVID, I don't think we'll see the ramifications for what's going on right now for 20 or 30 years.
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
83.
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
The story that's amazing is that Troy has this band called Frame Rain and the Nervous Wrecks, and they make records, and he won't talk about it, but we three can. The amazing thing is, you know, if he plays at his festival, that's his people, right? He plays in Nashville. You know, people know, and there's relationships that go into it.
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
The most interesting thing, you know, Troy and I have been friends for many years. Like, what do you get a guy that's got kind of everything? And we went to see Billy Bob Thornton play in Alabama once, a tour that I booked, but we had another support act on it. And I just kind of thought, well, Troy's band and that they have like some similarities music wise.
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
And so we started the next tour, you went out and did like two weeks. But what was really interesting, and this is what he won't say that I will say for him is nobody knew who he was in these markets. They didn't know that he owns Country Thunder and he's got this production thing. He's got all these relationships and the music connected with an audience.
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
And it was such a flourishing thing to see as a friend that you went out and your music that you really care about, it's passionate to you. You went out and played for people who don't have to kiss your ass, aren't looking for an angle and dug your tunes.
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
Well, it's still, there's Landman. It's morphing, right? But they're filming it right now. And it's one of the tailors.
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
Well, the way that he looks at music is, you know, he's constantly creating. And, you know, he makes really long movies and he makes really long songs about things that are important and a matter to him. You know, that band tour is very different, right? You know, his schedule is different than... They're more one-offs, correct? No, it's one-off and then we build around it.
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
But his schedule is just so much different. But we've toured the world, you know. More commas. Oh, a lot more probably. Yeah, it's been a great relationship. But the interesting thing about him that I've always said, whether it was Brazil, whether it was the UK or Europe or Canada. Or Russia. Russia. Russia was huge, right? So I'm going to go back. Why Russia? Where was the connection?
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
It was before. Answers with wolves? Well, just general celebrity, if you will. But this was before all of the, you know, this is 15 years ago that we were doing this. And they were hard ticket shows. You know, they were hard ticket shows in theaters that a promoter, you know, we just went and cut those deals.
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
But what was interesting about that band, and I say the same about Billy's, is like, you can go out in vanity if you want and go, hey, I just want to do this for the sake of it. But nobody sticks around for 90 minutes. You know, wherever... I've been where these bands are playing, you know, at the end of the day, the audience does get into the music. They may not come for the music.
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
They may not know the music in the beginning, but nobody sticks around for 90 minutes of original music that they don't dig or get into. And, you know... been literally around the world with them and seen it, you know, the excitement for the first 15 minutes and people get their photos and I'm in a room with them or him. And then all of a sudden they really connect with the storytelling.
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
And I think that's another art that goes into movies, into television, into music is storytelling. And both Billy and Kevin are storytellers.
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
They're freaking movie stars. That's what it is. But they're storytellers. It's not really surprising when you find true storytellers to go, they have a musical aspect of it. I think it's very different than a rapper wanting to be a basketball player or the same stories that get told. I think this is just storytelling.
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
I think it's in line for somebody who's a singer-songwriter to go, no, but I want to act because I want to tell stories. I think those are a lot more similar stories than maybe media or public perception gives it. Oh, well, they want to do that now. No, they want to tell a story, and that's important. It is. I like that TV.
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
and they cannot function without you. You have to know the person and the personalities to go, no, that doesn't work, and here's the reason why.
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
Well, you know, it was scary in the moment because it wasn't something that I predicted that I would ever do. My plan was to be there until they gave me a watch or named a boardroom after me, and that just didn't work out. For a variety of reasons. And the reality of it is I never would have planned to do this since the greatest thing that's ever happened to me.
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
You know, I've got a niche that I think works really well. I think it's a part of the business that gets forgotten by the majors. And there's still real business to be had. And, you know... I think on our end of it, there's an ability to service an artist that it goes into that cruise ship speedboat thing.
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
So, you know, the majors, you know, which I was a part of their cruise ships in order to make decisions. You really need a bunch of people making those decisions to make a turn. We can kind of pivot that. And move really quickly. And I think that's benefited the clients and the roster that, you know, we're looking to service. And so it's been great on a professional level.
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
It's been great on a financial level. And it's been great on a personal level. It frees me up for a lot of the non-day-to-day tasks that goes into being at a major agency I just don't have to deal with anymore. Yeah.
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
You know, we represent everybody from Trace Atkins to TLC, Kevin Costner and his band Modern West, Billy Bob Thornton and his band, to Lone Star and Colin Ray and, you know, new Country Music Hall of Famer, John Anderson. It's the music that I love at the time that I love, so that's been very fortunate. But also, you know, I think there is a little art.
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
And Kurt and I, you know, worked together at UTA for many, many years. And I think... we shared this in the idea that you don't have to be the sparkling white hot act in the moment to still need the attention of representation.
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
they started with five artists and three agents. Well, if you're working eight, nine, 10 hours a day, you know, you can pretty much figure out that people are going to get represented and served.
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
And in our situation, you know, there's five of us, you know, that are making phone calls and coming phone calls and really navigating through the beacon of what is 30 artists when you work our Canadian roster in and the artists that work, you know, periodically like Kevin and his band and Billy and his band.
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
And so when you kind of work that out, you know, five divided by 30, you know, there's real attention there.
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
you know they're they're putting on the back burner for and there's also a cyclical time of you know when you know there was a time rod i don't know if it was you and i that talked about this but you know sticks at one point in time was not doing the business that they were a huge band and then you go through that little cyclical wine that exists they have a really lead singer yeah they went to a lawsuit with the lead singer so you know without dennis the young can sticks exist right