This week In the Hot Seat with Larry LeBlanc: Kelli Richards, CEO and president, The All Access Group.

Kelli Richards has more experience in dealing with the convergence of music, entertainment, and technology than almost anyone you can name.

She’s had over two decades of experience championing these worlds, in fact.

Today, as president and CEO of The All Access Group based in Cupertino, California in the heart of Silicon Valley and host of All Access Radio, Richards strives to create alliances between large content and technology companies, major artists, and consumer brands.

Richards guides her clients through the maze of leading-edge technologies and connections in order to get their products to more people. According to this savvy, fast-talking entrepreneur, her focus is on “strategic rainmaking, and creating opportunities between innovative technologies for digital distribution, and branded entertainment content.”

For established music artists and celebrities, Richards engages direct-to-fan distribution channels to try to create new revenue streams that leverage their brand and extend their reach to more fans and broader markets.

Richards is widely-celebrated within both technology and music worlds for having launched digital music at Apple Inc. As director of music and entertainment markets from 1987 to 1997, she spearheaded all of the company’s digital music initiatives. She was a key part of a very small team which launched Apple’s earliest music initiatives that led eventually to the company launch of the media player computer program iTunes in 2001 after her departure.

In the mid-90s, Richards co-developed PatroNet, the first Internet-based artist subscription service with her Waking Dreams’ partner, producer/musician Todd Rundgren.

A former A&R executive at EMI Records, Richards has co-authored several books, including “Taking the Crowd to the Cloud – Social Media for the Music Industry” as well as the book/DVD, “The Art of Digital Music,” a compilation of interviews with 56 artists, producers, programmers, record label executives and music industry figures, including Glen Ballard, Chuck D, Thomas Dolby, Herbie Hancock, Jimmy Jam, Alan Parsons, Phil Ramone, Todd Rundgren and Don Was.

What do you do at The All Access Group?

Before this I had run music at Apple for a decade before iTunes. That’s what got me engaged more actively on the tech side (of the music industry). When I left Apple (in late 1997) I basically took my job to the outside. I took the job that I was doing at Apple, which was being the person in charge of all of the music initiatives and the tech convergence, and I started working with disruptive technologies and working with tech companies and major artists, my two favorite groups of people. Bringing them together to create new opportunities.

If I am working with a major artist, I am leveraging all of my tech and brand relationships to help them with a digital strategy. If I am working with a start up tech company, I am bringing them relationships with big artists, and brand or tech companies; whoever they need (from) my network to accelerate their success. I am basically a rainmaker, but a very strategic one.

What artists have you worked with?

I have worked with about 300 artists over the past 14 years. I don’t like to namedrop with the artists that I work with or I have worked with. I do work with artists sometimes in a coaching capacity; and, sometimes in a strategy capacity. But more what I do is bring them into my work with tech companies. So I am reaching out to that network of artists that I am in touch with and cherry-picking which ones would resonate and make sense for new technology distribution models to bring them revenue.

What digital strategy would you suggest for an upcoming band with a great record and a regional buzz?

Unfortunately, I don’t work with indie artists. I only work with established artists that have a brand, and a following. I probably wouldn’t be able to help them. That’s a short conversation.

Why do you only work with major artists? In order to work on a larger canvas?

Yes. Because I deal on a bigger canvas. I want to be able to make things happen. I can do better for artists and expand their audiences because of their brand and their following than I can for a rising or an unknown artist. There are people who specialize in working with indie artists, I just don’t happen to be one of them.

It’s not that I don’t support indie artists; I think that’s the lifeblood of the business going forward. You have to have new artists, but I just don’t find that I can do as much for them as I can with the bigger artists.

You have also worked with numerous big companies.

Sony, Cisco, Motorola, Apple. Big companies all the way down to start-ups that you have never heard of. Some of which blew away in the wind in the 2009/2010 era, and some of which are still standing–and new ones all of time. That’s the power of being (based) in Silicon Valley, and I am very entrepreneurial.

There’s still a disconnect between the music and tech worlds, is there not?

Frankly, that’s why I have had a career over the past 14 years. That’s what I do. I help be a human bridge between those worlds, and I bring opportunity to both sides based on an understanding of how each works and the relationships that have been built.

Meanwhile, technology is changing so rapidly.

That’s why I have been leaning more in that direction for quite a long time now. We drive what is coming next, and we create new models and new revenue streams for artists, and that’s exciting to me. That fulfills the vision that I had from a very young age.

Are people in the technology sector becoming more music savvy?

Not really but, again, there’s opportunity for me and others who do get (understand) that space. What’s happening is more and more people are getting let go from labels and from the digital side as well. Those people are becoming peers and are consulting to the tech world. You see more of that happening all of the time. But, for the longest time, I was The Lone Ranger. There was me and, maybe, Ted Cohen and a couple of other colleagues. We were the only ones beating the drum (about music) on the digital side out there in the wilderness because nobody knew what we were talking about–trying to bring convergence between these two spaces.

I wouldn’t say that the labels were in denial about technology but…

I would. I would say that. And why wouldn’t that be? There was a (business) model that worked for over five decades where they were empowered and they had all of the profits. Why wouldn’t they want to keep that?

Gracenote’s Ty Roberts recently told me that the people running the record business now are his peers and that they know the technology world better.

I would have to agree with that. But do we have to wait for that first generation to retire before we see a seat change? Probably.

So many managers have beefed up their companies with technology experts while labels still seem to be lagging behind. At some labels, it just seems like there are a couple of tech whiz kids in the basement with no real power.

No kidding. We were just at one of the big labels, and it’s true. There were these 12 people huddled around this small conference table in the corner. But I am optimistic that the bright managers and the bright label executives are pushing tech, digital and social media as tools that are going to make a big difference in their approach to artists.

A decade ago, managers would ask their label what the marketing plan was for a project. Today, the savvy managers devise an overall marketing and digital strategy, and ask, “Where do you think you can fit in?”

Absolutely. That would be the right question. That’s what they do. Managers should be saying, “This is what our game plan is. This is what we are thinking. What are you aware of that we might be overlooking? What do you know about what we aren’t doing? That we should be harnessing. Either a technology or a company that has a platform we should be rolling into given what our goals are. Or what can you see that we are not even thinking about that makes sense to expand our audience to make more money for our artists?”

How many managers are truly qualified to deal with the changing world of technology? They really need outside help in most cases.

Let me tell you, I work as an extension to the artist team. They still have a manager. They have a booking agent. They have publicists. When I work with a big artist on strategy, I focus on their digital strategy, and what relationships they should align with. I work in tandem with the manager. I’m not trying to take the manager’s job, but to buffer what social media strategies they would use. Should they be engaging Topspin (Topspin Media)? Should they be doing online streaming concerts to promote a big tour? (Overseeing) all of these strategy components involving technology, digital and social media is almost its own role as you say.

A manager already has a lot on their plate.

Often, they will have a digital person on the team, if it’s a big enough management company.

You meet with majors’ managers. Are they not a lot savvier now about these technology issues as well?

You better believe it. Artist managers, in general, the best ones have become much more tech savvy. I just had a meeting with Jordan Berliant (partner) at The Collective. Jordan is extremely bright. He’s also one of these guys who’s been tech savvy from his early days. This guy is completely versed. You sit down with him, and you go through what you are working on with a couple of different startups and the guy is right there. Yes, he has a head of digital that works inside The Collective, but Jordan himself is extremely savvy about the power of these tools, and what they can do for his artists knowing which ones to engage. That is an example of a management firm really taking to heart the importance of digital. It’s not going away. It’s becoming a bigger part of the pie.

The smartest one of all was certainly Terry McBride for many years. I put Terry right at the top of the list with the Nettwerk Group. Terry had his vision of collapsed copyright and how to harness strategies to engage through all of these different digital and social tools in a very authentic way for his artists.

Still, the internet world has increasingly become much more complex.

Yes, yes. There are 180 social media platforms. How would you know which ones to even leverage for your artist if you weren’t in the middle of that world? You have to be in it. You have to be in the digital social world yourself to be able to guide an artist. It is a rare person who understands the artist; how they think and work and also understand the technology. But there are several people out there who do that. Myself included, but also Ty Roberts (chief technology officer, Gracenote) is another one and Ian Rogers (CEO, Topspin Media) is another one. There are so many of us out there trying to make sense of this for the artist. We are very artist-oriented.

Distribution has been made easier by the internet, but the one thing the labels still do better than anyone is providing a marketing sizzle.

Marketing, yes. You hit the word Larry. That’s what they do best. Marketing. That is what they do. That is what they are becoming — marketing firms.

Labels can still bring to the table their marketing expertise, which can be significant.

Yeah, I’m with you, Larry. I’m with you. There is still a role (for labels). I don’t want to be a label basher. (For) all of the different start-ups I work with, and with the models that I get excited about, I still have to go back to the labels, and bring them on board on some of these things. The meeting I took at the major recently, I could have gone artist by artist myself because I have relationships with the managers; but it would take me forever. I wanted some scale and speed. That is why I went to the label. But most people don’t have those artists and manager relationships, and they have to work with the label.

For a mid-level artist working globally, there are endless options, including releasing music through indies or through a major in some territories.

Oh yeah, there are so many options. That’s why an artist needs a manager to quarterback the strategy. That’s why they need a manager because the manager is more powerful than ever now. More so than when there was the full retinue at the label and everything else. The manager quarterbacks the strategy.

Today with the internet an artist can do a release themselves worldwide.

Of course. Or do a phase (of a release).

An artist can also still work with a major in certain territories.

As long as they have a reversion clause (in their contract), and get their masters back. That’s the important point. Keep your masters. Do one-offs.

With the internet being so global, how do you harness it directly to make an impact?

That’s the power of these social media tools is to let your fans be part of the process. It’s not linear anymore. It’s interactive. Let fans help promote you and watch what happens. For example, I’m working with Fankix where a band can do a concert online, and reach all corners of the globe with one concert in real time and have a time zone centric live Q&A after the show with the band and the fan base. They can do this all online. And they can have their fans engage with each other. The reason this is so powerful is that the fans get to meet each other globally. When did that ever happen?

Some artists use fan-funded tools like Kickstarter, Slice the Piece, and Pledge Music to pay for their albums, while others may leverage TopSpin to create unique bundles of goods that allow them to go direct-to-fan.

All of that. All virtual tip jars enabling bands to be underwritten by their fans much like what Todd (Rundgren) and I came up with PatroNet 17 years ago. Ian (Ian Rogers at Topspin Media) has just launched Sharealytics which is all about the data aspect of the power that we have with social media tools. Understanding where your fans are. What are they doing? Where do they live? What have they bought from you? What are they saying about you? Who are your biggest fans? This is powerful stuff.

The industry is moving from collecting data to finding out more what the data really means.

Yes. Wouldn’t you like to know where the majority of your fans work so you could route your touring appropriately? Which (fans), in particular, so you could do a shout out at concerts and encourage more people to become evangelists and street teams for you? Wouldn’t you like to know that? I think that an artist would like to know who bought how many T-shirts, and CDs from all parts of the world. How much money did they make?

Mobile phones becoming the indispensable voice/social networking-and-music companion has brought about the need for a deeper body of consumer and fan knowledge.

Absolutely. Smart phones, tablets, and apps.

Today, we carry around a traveling entertainment centre.

You’ve got it. The power of those platforms is that people aren’t tethered to their laptops or any other device in one place. They are carrying the artist with them everywhere they go. They are sharing the artist’s music with their friends, and with other fans on the fly. That’s the power of those tools. Now the artists are thinking, “Do I need an app?” Sting just spent close to $1 million on an app.

[Sting 25, released in Nov. 2011, celebrates the last 25 years of Sting’s career, as both a musician and a humanitarian and activist. Costs of the nearly $1 million app were apparently primarily covered by its two primary sponsors: American Express and Chevrolet.]

Not every artist needs an app, and an artist probably doesn’t need to spend $1 million on it. This is another example of artists shouldn’t do something for the sake of doing it because they are a lemming. They figure out with their team, what does it make sense for them to do, and in what context will they do it. “What would I do here that I could only do through this medium? How is this going to help me?”

Marketing has become a 365 day thing for artists.

That’s right. That’s a very important point. What a manager has to be thinking about is not just their marketing cycle around the band’s CD drop, and their tour. They have to be thinking about year-round engagement with the fans. What are they going to be doing for the artist and the fans year-round? You do have spikes around those CDs and touring and you can then really engage those fans in a much more authentic way as your street teams.

On the indie side, you want to look at collaborating (with others) and building a much bigger platform in a shared way so you can get more awareness.

I find Facebook helpful in building business relationships.

I find it even more impactful in my world as a tool to engage opportunities between big artists and brands based on their fans–on both sides–having social graph profiles. Fankix does just that. It pulls all that together. Because you have access to those fans’ social graph profiles, you know a lot about them, and too few people are harnessing that to their advantage. And I don’t mean poaching in a negative way. I mean leveraging them (the social graph profiles) in a positive way.

How do you do that? By going through fan profiles on the artist’s and sponsor’s Facebook pages?

Correct. You basically know who the fans are for that artist because they are connected to the artist. The artist promotes to them and encourages, in this case it’s Fankix that I am working on. If there’s an online concert happening, it’s in the band’s best interest to promote it to their fans. The fans come to the online concert, and they bring their friends with their Facebook social graph profiles.

Meanwhile, the brands that are involved bring their fans. Someone like Heineken has about half-a-million fans on Facebook. They bring their fans to the concert. Now the band that is participating gets the benefit of the half million Heineken fans. This is how you grow the system. This is how you monetize a broader audience for an artist and a deeper audience engagement for a brand. That’s where Facebook becomes an actual tool. Not just something to have a profile on.

With some exceptions, the major labels aren’t yet delivering on all of the different things available. Why wouldn’t labels liaise closer with automobile manufacturers 5, 10 or even 15 years ago?

Now you are singing my song. The problem with that particular example is that the artist railed against the concept of selling or whoring out their fans. They didn’t want to sell their fans to the car companies. Many still do rail out against that. They don’t want to impose on their fans. That was the stance for many years. But, Larry, that’s what changing. It’s changing if it’s done right because the brands can be integrated into the social experience in a way that is not intrusive or offensive to the fan and brings the revenue to the artist. Some of the brands have started their own record labels now.

Where does your interest in the technology side of music come from?

I was one of those weird people that I knew what I was going to do for a living at the age of eight. I don’t know if it’s because I grew up in Silicon Valley. I’m a Cupertino native just like Steve Jobs. We grew up there; and it (technology) was kind of in the soil. Tech has always been a part of my world. I could see at a very young age where things were headed with the music and tech convergence. I could see what we were doing in technology in Silicon Valley and how that was going to have an impact on artists. I always knew that I wanted to work in the music industry ever since I saw (producer) George Martin when I was eight years old behind the Beatles on TV. I told my folks, “I don’t know what that man is doing but that’s what I want to do.” And I trained to be a record producer.

[Cupertino is one of the numerous cities claiming to be the heart of Silicon Valley, as many semi-conductor, and computer companies were founded there, and in the surrounding areas. The worldwide headquarters for Apple Inc. is located there. Among the companies also headquartered in Cupertino are: Trend Micro, Cloud.com, Lab126, Packeteer, Chordiant, and Seagate Technology. Over 60 high-tech companies have offices there, including IBM, Olivetti, and Oracle Corporation.]

Instead, you got an MBA at San Jose State University.

Yeah, I was the wrong gender (to be a producer then). But I got lucky, and I got hired by Neil Portnow (VP of A&R, EMI America Records) to be a junior A&R executive at EMI. That’s what led me in that direction. It was at the time that EMI America and Manhattan merged. It was late ‘80s. Joe Smith was running Capitol at the time. Jim Mazza was in charge (as president) of EMI America. Neil was in charge of A&R. It was in that era. It was a very turbulent era for the company. EMI had a funny roster at the time with Sheena Easton, John Waite, Thomas Dolby, and David Bowie.

I was at EMI for a good two years, and I worked with a number of artists, but I got tapped to go up to Apple to start their music focus. A colleague of mine was at Apple and he told me, “There’s rumbling around here that they want to start music as focus.”

You were at Apple Inc. for a decade. You lasted a long time.

Yes, I did.

What were you hired to do?

I was in the earliest group launching music. There was an interface that turned the Mac into a musical instrument that enabled musicians to have a home recording studio with Mac and ProTools. My claim to fame at Apple, unfortunately, was not iTunes. It was making sure that every musician and every filmmaker were passionate about using the Macintosh in their work, on the road, and in the studio.

That’s my claim to fame.

How much was music held in…

I was the lone voice. To be fair, I had other colleagues to work with in and out of that 10 year period. People like Dave Pakman, who later ran eMusic (and now is a partner at Venrock in New York). Kevin Saul had been the lawyer for me there. (As associate general counsel at Apple, Inc.), he remains the lawyer for the iTunes music stuff to this day. Some people have stuck around. Some people have gone in and out (of the company). In many ways, I never really left. I am still only a mile from the (Apple) campus. It’s my hometown.

You obviously worked with Apple’s co-founder Steve Jobs.

Steve and I had many conversations. In fact, I kept the pilot light lit for him (when he left). I knew that he would come back to run the company in its darkest days. Everybody around me was saying, “You are absolutely crazy. This man is running two other companies. He’s never coming back.” Meanwhile, there I was like Don Quixote fighting windmills; trying to make sure that people (at Apple) would understand that music was the killer app for the company. There I was running around the hallways saying, “Music is the killer app.” Nobody wanted to hear it.

So I was keeping the pilot light going, and Steve was able to come back and enable the vision I and some of my colleagues had to make music key and to change the industry. I would have loved to have been part of if I had had the power when I was there. But I was not empowered because the CEO, the people at the top (before Jobs returned) didn’t see music as driving everything.

[In a May 24th 1985 board meeting, Apple’s board of directors sided with CEO John Sculley in a dispute with co-founder Steve Jobs, and removed Jobs from his managerial duties as head of the Macintosh division. Jobs resigned from Apple five months later, and founded NeXT Inc. the same year. In 1986, Jobs bought The Graphics Group (later renamed Pixar) from Lucasfilm’s computer graphics division for the price of $10 million. In 1996, Apple bought NeXT for $429 million, bringing Jobs back to the company he co-founded. Jobs became CEO again in 1997.]

It was really tough to know that is where it (music and technology) was headed. It was like when Todd (Rundgren) and I knew where artist 360 was headed and we had to wait a decade for our vision to come to life. It happened to me several times in my career.

Between 1978 and 2006 there were a number of legal disputes between Apple Computer and Apple Corps owned by The Beatles.

Yes, the problem was we got ourselves into a few lawsuits with Apple Records. I had to then hold the line with a three page edict (of limitations) when we lost the first two go-arounds so we couldn’t cross the line as to what Apple could do in music. When Steve came back, of course, and won the third lawsuit (in 2006), everything changed.

What sort of limitations had there been?

I can’t divulge, even to today, what the terms were, but I had to toe the line with three pages of things that we could not cross the line. That was under Neil Aspinall’s rule. Neil (manager of Apple Corps) and I became colleagues as well before his death (in 2008). He was a great guy. But it was just the way it was. It was business. It wasn’t personal.

What did you learn working with Todd Rundgren for four years?

Well, Todd and I were two people that shared the same vision. We absolutely could see where things were headed. We were both music tech geeks. Put Ty (Roberts) in there too. Because that’s when I first hooked up with Ty. We all shared the same vision to where things were headed. Todd and I were very complementary. I was very business-oriented, and very tech-oriented. This is an artist. Todd is very artistic in his approach to everything he does. I think that it was a good partnership. I think that we were very complementary and God, to work with a genius. To have been able to work with Steve Jobs, and Todd Rundgren, these are two of the smartest people that anybody could be able to work with. They are brilliant. They are geniuses.

I remember you organizing Music Biz 2005, a futuristic conference in 1999.

That was my conference. I produced that.

One of the first technology and music conferences?

Well no. I am a pioneer in digital music from day one. But that was in the mid-90s and there were other conferences. There were Plug.In by Jupiter and Web Noise. There were many of these conferences; maybe about a half-dozen, and there were many people that were there in those days that are still very active now.

[Music Biz 2005 (MB-5) took place Oct. 15-17, 1999 at the Ex’pression Center for New Media in Emeryville, California. The event was organized by a group of Bay Area industry veterans: producer David Schwartz; co-producer Kelli Richards; operations manager Keith Hatschek; executive producers Leslie Ann Jones, Steve Savage, Gary Platt, and Peter Laanen; and associate producers Andrew Keen and Craig Deonik.]

Still Music Biz 2005 was the first conference to offer industry leaders the opportunity to dive into the latest recording, music creation, and internet technologies. Most conferences then were technology driven.

Actually, they were run by research companies for the most part or by journalists. You’re right. We designed that conference very deliberately. We pulled together people out of the artist world, and the technology world. And I think that we were one of the earliest to do that.

The conference was timely being in 1999; in the midst of Napster and a recording industry not knowing how to react to the internet, and music downloading. It was an era of uncertainty.

Yes it was, however, a lot of us in the room had a very clear road map–a blueprint–where things were headed. We could see it as clear as day. And it took a decade for a lot of people to even get close to what we were talking about. It all came true. Everything that we said.

For example, Todd and I came up with the company Waking Dreams, and a venture that turned into the earliest form of an artist 360 (deal). The venture was called PatroNet. The goal was to have established artists break free, and go direct to their fans based on the fact that they were the brand, and they had a powerful following in their fan base. And their fans would underwrite them. They wouldn’t need a label anymore, and they would have multiple revenue streams. This, of course, has all come about; but, at the time, it was heresy. This was in 1995. First of all nobody understood what the hell we were talking about and even if they did understand it they were terrified. What if we were right? We were right but we were way too early.

An almost plantation mentality existed back then between artists and their labels.

Oh, you used that word very deliberately. That’s what happened with Prince. Don’t you recall when he changed his name into the symbol? That is why he did that. His whole stance was, “This is a plantation mentality. I am a black artist. I’m being screwed just like my predecessors were. I’m going to re-record my masters and stick it to the man,” and that is exactly what he did.

Artists were absolutely tied to the labels.

It was a linear, one-way system. It was the only way you could have a career, period. That was it. One way linear; one-dimensional. An artist either signed to a label or they didn’t. They gave the label all of their rights or they would just forget about having a career. Of course, that is what we were so up in arms about, Todd and I, in the mid-90s, along with many others.

The power of the labels was then that they controlled distribution.

They did and when the internet came about many of us could see that that was the crack in the ice that was going to change everything.

Why did you believe that? The internet was such a narrow pipe in its earliest form.

Yeah, yeah but we could see where it was headed. We could see that broadband was going to come. We could see that everybody was going to be using this. We didn’t really foresee social media at the time; but we did foresee direct to fan and we were evangelizing–even at that 1999 conference–the importance of artists starting to engage directly with their fans with whatever tools that were available in technology and that more would come and that is exactly what has made all of the difference. Now we talk about social engagement.

Newcomer bands need to sign with a label to become successful internationally while a major act isn’t as dependent.

It’s funny, that coming from a label background, I’m not a big label fan. But even for the big artists, there’s still a need for them (labels) in a controlled way. For one-off distribution to big-box retailers; and for their marketing and promotional muscle. Period. You never want to give them your masters. You never want to give them your domain names. You never want to give them your publishing. You want to keep all of your rights and offer them a seat at the table on your terms. That’s the way it works now. If you are a big artist, you’ve got that kind of leverage. Or forget it. If you are big enough, you don’t need to use a label at all.

You are also a talent producer for award shows, and you organize celebrity fundraisers.

I cross-pollinate. Being that I am based in Cupertino in Silicon Valley, one of the things that I do is that I bring artists and celebrities opportunity to perform in front of tech companies; to be part of marketing campaigns; play at conferences; play at CES (the world’s largest consumer technology tradeshow), what have you. So there’s that brokering part of my work as well. I recently brought Jerry Seinfeld to perform at Cisco to perform at an employee anniversary event at the request of John Chambers, the company’s CEO. That’s another piece of what I do. I work all across the spectrum.

I am also a certified life coach, if you can believe it, and I work with celebrities and artists as well as innovators and entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley to bring them the next phase of growth in their lives. What is it they would like to do that they are not doing? Have they been on the road too long? Do they want more balance (in their lives)? We work through those kind of softer issues as well to bring them more fulfillment and more enrichment in the life.

My career has always been about working with artists, and enabling them new opportunities to reach and engage with their fans. It has always been my core passion for my whole career; for my whole life.

Larry LeBlanc is widely recognized as one of the leading music industry journalists in the world. Before joining CelebrityAccess in 2008 as senior editor, he was the Canadian bureau chief of Billboard from 1991-2007 and Canadian editor of Record World from 1970-89. He was also a co-founder of the late Canadian music trade, The Record. He has been quoted on music industry issues in hundreds of publications including Time, Forbes, and the London Times. He is co-author of the book “Music From Far And Wide.”