Project Ethos Interviews: Music Professional Scott Warren

1.  Introduce yourself and what's your relationship and experience been with music?

Music has always been my passion.  I've played drums in bands, gone to countless concerts and spent too much dough on records.  I got into the music business 10 years ago, starting off as a talent booker/promoter.  Five years later, I joined Position Music, where I was responsible for A&R, artist managament, and film/TV creative licensing.  I've also been involved with the music portion of Project Ethos since the initial event. 



2.  How do you see the climate of music and entertainment shifting now with Social Media and the internet and how does that effect the aspiring artist?


Social media and the internet are changing everything.   It's an exciting time to be an independent artist because there has never been more opportunity to exploit one's music.  Through Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, etc. artists have countless ways to market themselves and be in direct contact with their fans.  There is so much interaction on these sites, anything can virally take off.  Look at Rebecca Black... no one would know her name without the social networks.  Indie digital distributors make it simple for anyone to get their music on iTunes, Amazon, etc.  The internet has also created countless revenue streams just like youtube's adsense. 

Unfortunately, the window is closing for traditional record labels, physical distributors and terrestrial radio.  The internet has broken the music business.  The fun part will be seeing how it's rebuilt.




3.  What do you see as the future of music consumption and how will continue to evolve and allow artists to prosper?


There will always be a demand for music.  The question will be how to monetize the distribution of music.  That may be a dying dream because no one wants to pay for it anymore.  Maybe the subscription model will expand.  Maybe P2P will become more widely (and legally) accepted.  Maybe major brands will to get financially involved with a band's career as a marketing effort.  Who knows?  Regardless, the door for new and innovative ideas is wide open.