Lady Antebellum’s Dave Haywood and Associates Discuss Working Together On Digital Initiatives

This week's Leadership Music Summit in Nashville included a panel featuring Dave Haywood of Lady Antebellum and two people associated with the band's business, Dawn Gates of Capitol Nashville and Julie Boos of Flood Bumstead McCready & McCarthy. Their association led to some tag team moments that illustrated the back and forth nature of team work for a major label act.

"Stakeholder Priorities in the Digital Age", one of the panels at Tuesday's Leadership Music Summit, understandably revolved around Team Lady Antebellum though David Macias shared his insights as did Fanfare Entertainment's Lance Kelly.

Moderated by Thirty Tigers' David Macias, the panel included:

Dave Haywood – Lady Antebellum

Dawn Gates – Capitol Nashville

Julie Boos – Flood Bumstead McCready & McCarthy

Lance Kelly – Fanfare Entertainment

Highlights From the Discussion

David Macias got things going, in part, by pointing to what he considered to be early "digital savvy" on the part of Lady Antebellum. Sounds like a topic worth discussing.

But the panel itself focused on how Team Lady Antebellum currently work together to take advantage of digital opportunities including relationships with music tech and music app companies. A successful major label act like Lady Antebellum sees a lot of opportunities and has to consider an ongoing flow of possibilities with numerous details that have to be sorted out.

Julie Boos described her role in this process as "business watchdog" for the artist. In reviewing legal agreements she has to look for nuances and new developments in a constantly changing landscape which can sometimes include renegotiating old deals. So there's a whole network of legal documents and agreements that can affect one single opportunity.

She noted that it can be difficult to evaluate the quality of opportunities with music tech companies, social networks and the like so that's what she leaves to her colleagues on Team Lady Antebellum.

Dawn Gates discussed the example of lyrics videos which illustrate how legal agreements affect artistic and marketing products. For example, some lyrics videos have been held up by music publishers because they haven't finished negotiating their deals. They've had completed lyrics videos they couldn't use because of such initially unforeseen conflicts. Now they have to preclear such projects with legal before they can talk to production companies.

Dave Haywood on Social Media, Videos and Mobile Apps

Dave Haywood discussed what the band has found useful for their needs. He said they particularly want to find things they can use on the road while touring.

He also pointed out that fans want to know more about them and that using services like YouTube has helped with that. For example, one of Lady Antebellum's most successful marketing/engagement initiatives has been a weekly Webisode Wednesday video to take fans behind the scenes.

The fan engagement possible through behind the scenes and more personal videos was noted at another Summit panel on videos for music marketing. Brody Harper said fans feel video is more personal than social media because they see the actual artist rather than a tweet that could be from a team member.

In Closing

Dawn Gates pointed out that they'd love more data from all possible sources including Spotify and filesharing services. She doesn't condone illegality but says she can find information about specific communities through such sources that she just can't get from SoundScan data.

Streaming music was a topic and David Macias strongly encouraged musicians to embrace services like Spotify.

Lance Kelly pointed to the bigger picture and the likelihood that we are headed for an on-demand environment in which people will expect to be able to get what they want whenever they want it.

As a constant stage of change continues, teams like those of Lady Antebellum will have to remain flexible.

More:

• Highlights From Nashville's Leadership Music Summit and Evan Lowenstein's Keynote
• Make Videos That Fit The Artist and The Audience [Panel]
• CUREative Content Wins Dream Project Competition At Leadership Music Summit

Hypebot Senior Contributor Clyde Smith (@fluxresearch/@crowdfundingm) also blogs at Flux Research and Crowdfunding For Musicians. To suggest topics for Hypebot, contact: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.