Rod Essig
Appearances
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
They're too afraid to fire you. You know too much. Whatever.
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
Same deal with that. We're seeing it. But again, we've all gone through with our clients. You know, Tim McGraw had five or six number one records in a year at one time. Every 15, 16 weeks, there'd be a brand new single. We can't, that doesn't exist anymore.
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
It did, but it went Blackhawk, Tim McGraw, Little Texas. And the guys in Little Texas were not very kind to Tim. So it started happening really big. So they wanted Tim to headline because when Tim got done, a third or fourth of the audience would leave and they'd be playing. And so anyway, he goes, no, no, I'm just fine right in the middle.
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
I get two shots at my merch before and after my show and then I'm going down the road. And so he never closed those shows out.
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
Tim McGraw, I go back, there's a number of people that have always been this way. And I'll say it. Garth, Taylor Swift, Tim McGraw always were involved in business meetings. So Tim didn't do as much as Garth. I mean, Garth, when you book a date, before you know it, he's on the phone marketing it and doing everything else. So he's doing all the stuff.
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
But Tim has always been involved in every aspect of his career and takes responsibility for it, as opposed to just, well, you're going to go play this show tonight and that's it. He wants to know what's going on and all that kind of stuff. And he watches ticket counts and he watches this and that and everything. He looks at where open seats are in the building.
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
In fact, the Soul to Soul Tour, he had a camera in the middle under the scoreboard, and he sat under the stage while Faith was on, and he looked around the whole hall, and he'd call me and say, how come these seats are wide open? How come this is? So we used to try and figure out how to black them out. That's why I was at every show. Yeah.
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
And so it was just like, but it was always, but he had that camera in the middle of the room. I'd get a call at night saying section dah, dah, dah. It's like way up here. How come it's empty?
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
We're going on 32 years. So congratulations. It's been pretty, pretty amazing. Like he did with Toby. I mean, you know, he's besides my client, he's really a great friend. Yeah. And you know, and it's, that's helps an awful lot and, and everything like that. But again,
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
like toby tim has constantly we've had we've had three or four careers yeah you know we've gone from the music into motion into you know the blind side was huge for tim mcgraw and then you come back and then we had don't take the girl or and you know some a couple more career songs not number one it's career you're dying Live Like You Were Dying, yeah.
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
And now we got, we just finished up 1883. So in the show, when they play 1883, people start crying. I mean, it's like, I think it was one of the best things Tim and Faith ever did in their careers. Very impactful. You know, and so it's pretty amazing. In a life of an artist, and again, it's all you guys do, there's great teams.
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
I get to be a quarterback, but there's great teams around all these people that work with motion picture, work with, you know, we've got three best-selling books. on the bestselling list of Tim McCraw. So all these different people help create a so-called 30 year career too. It's not just all about music. It's all, it's about everything he does.
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
And then it didn't hurt that he married Faith Hill and she became famous. So, you know, there's all those kinds of things.
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
And I'm going to say one thing. We were sitting in Milwaukee last Friday night. It was Tim McGraw, Brian O'Connell, and myself. And Tim said one of his regrets in life is that he and Toby never went and did X amount of dates together. Because they were really good friends. They really respected each other.
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
She is, I think the best thing is when she comes in the office, she goes around to every single assistant's desk and goes, hi, I'm Joan Jett. What's your name? She's the kindest lady in the world, but she's a punker. She wants the leather pants when she's out. This year, she's out with a lot more set and that tour is going through the roof. And it's a power women's type of tour.
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
And she's really, you know, next year we're doing Billy Idol, which is going to be a really fun show. I've tried for years. Billy Idol, Joan Jett. You know, yeah. I mean, so there's, we try all those kinds of things, but Joan is also one that, you know, not 90, 100 shows, 60 shows in a year. That's it. Done. Yeah. She lives in Long Island.
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
So she said to me one time, she said, can I at least go back to my home and see the ocean without snow on it? Because we all toured here this summer. And she said, I'd like to just be home for a little while in the summertime. I'm on the beach and everything like that. So, but she is just, she is an incredible person to be around, but she is so true to who she is.
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
And again, being a Hall of Famer, when Carrie Underwood and people like that just almost bow to her when she walks in, I mean, she... She's truly a legend. She's a total legend. Absolutely. But don't you do the production for her? Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
You know, it's a unique... And I'm going to say, I just kicked off your favorite band, Cheap Trick at Heart, last Saturday night in Greenville, and they went to Savannah, but... Ann Wilson is 74 and Nancy is 71. And Ann can hit every single note to this day. And it's unbelievable. And that tour is doing incredibly great. That's right.
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
And so was it a hard negotiation? I mean, did you tell me, you know, the opening act, so when you get X amount of dollars and free, you're getting paid this year.
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
Have they played your festivals?
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
Yes, the legitest of all.
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
Thank you.
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
Well, I go way back to what you guys weren't. Well, maybe we're when I graduated college in 1971. They have this little thing called the draft. So you kind of watch the ball come down. Well, my my number was 30 that year and that year they were taken up to 140 people on their way to Vietnam. So that was in May. I have a music education degree with a vocal major.
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
And so I tried out for a backup singer to Sonny and Cher. And I got the gig. So from June until I had a report to Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri on Christmas Eve, I sang backup singer to Sonny and Cher. And those are the years that they only played Playboy Cubs.
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
So being a 21-year-old, making money, knowing you're going off to war, may die, and playing Playboy Cubs, it was probably the best summer of my entire life ever. So then I went through training. I was in service for 15 months. I got back in 74, and I had bought my talent at our college from a guy named Gordy Singer at Variety Artists. And in Minneapolis, I said, I want to be an agent.
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
And he said, okay, here's a yellow piece of paper and here's a dial phone, you know, a dial phone. So anyway, I started dialing for dollars and with about six months later, I met this guy named Jim Croce and I signed him. And in those days, different than today, all the big arenas were in college campuses. So the colleges were, you toured colleges. because they all had money.
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
They could all afford to buy the big acts and everything like that. So before I knew it, and then we would buy, sell too. So we, so I'd be on the road with Johnny Cash. I'd be on the road with, with a number of the people. But anyway, I just kept signing Cornelius Brothers, Sister Rose.
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
These are things that really old bands, you know, and at that point, REO Speedwagon was one of the big acts that we booked in college. And then they kept going and same with Styx. So pretty soon, uh,
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
within six or seven years i had signed a lot of the acts so pretty much had became a 50 50 partner with gordy and lenny then i went moved every day we moved every day la and in turn uh after 20 years i went over my best friend was bobby brooks And so they hired me, and three days later, when I started at CIA, he got killed in a helicopter crash with Stevie Ray Vaughan.
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
So I worked a year in LA, and then they said, do you want to open up an office in Nashville? So John Huey, who I'd known at that point was at ICM and then Paragon and FBI before that, and Ron Baird, they said, and my wife and I did not like LA at all. We'd been there for 10 years. And so we moved to Nashville and started up CIA in Nashville,
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
with, literally, it was kind of crazy, because we started up with Clint Black, which was the main guy, and then we had Bill... Was that when Clint Black was just starting out, or was that when he already had some success? Oh, no, he had success by that time, and hated our competitor, one competitor, so he wouldn't go there.
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
So in turn, we had Billy Dean, Clint Black, Stephen Curtis Chapman, Michael W. Smith, and Amy Grant. Five acts, and there was three agents. And from that point, it just, we got very lucky and started signing acts. And it just kept going and going. The big one that we took out of being in-house was Barbara Mandrell.
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
So once we got, once I signed Barbara, all of a sudden we were able to do what CAA did. And that was to have, we put her in a residency. Then we got a TV show. And then from that point, it just all, then it was Randy Travis and then Reba. So we took a lot of people from that were in-house.
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
And then they came to the agency, but we were allowed at that point to help them into their television, motion picture world besides touring. So that's kind of how we got it all going. And then it just kept going and growing. And now it's grown into what it is.
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
In a life of an artist, I get to be a quarterback. So all these different people help create a so-called 30-year career, too. It's not just all about music. It's about everything he does. And then it didn't hurt that he married Faith Hill, and she became famous.
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
And I'm definitely the oldest one here. I know we're old friends, but definitely the old one, okay?
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
Yeah, they can.
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
Larry Gallen. Yeah, exactly. And then you've got Foreigner that just got nominated for the Hall of Fame, doesn't have one original member in it.
On the Bus with Troy Vollhoffer
Backstage Pass with Legendary Music Agents Rod Essig, Curt Motley, and Nick Meinema
Troy, I think you're sitting here with three guys, though. And again, I'm going back. We all have had to eat what we book. Yes.