Ian Montone has spent 1 / 4 of a century constructing artists’ careers on his personal phrases.
The founding father of Los Angeles administration firm Monotone (and a accomplice with Rick Yorn’s movie and TV shingle LBI Leisure) has stayed defiantly unbiased in a enterprise that retains attempting to consolidate: no firm web site, no social media… answerable to nobody however the artists he represents.
A former music lawyer turned Grammy-nominated producer, Montone’s firm homes one of many business’s most fiercely curated rosters: Jack White, Vampire Weekend, LCD Soundsystem, The Shins, Angie McMahon, Briston Maroney, Spacey Jane, This Is Lorelei, So!YoON!, The Kills, Nonetheless Woozy, Pete Yorn, Solomonophonic, and Chanel Beads amongst them.
A champion of artists proudly owning their rights, Montone helped shift the paradigm away from conventional label possession. He bought began managing a two-piece from Detroit referred to as The White Stripes; he was later Jack White’s greatest man.
The final time MBW sat down with Montone, in 2019, he warned that the business had began chasing “music for algorithms” on the expense of nice artists – insisting that music was “essentially necessary to folks… not disposable.”
Seven years on from that dialogue, the majors are publicly listed, catalogs commerce like commodities, and AI can spin up a satisfactory sound-alike. The world round Montone has been rewired – however his ideas have stayed precisely the place they all the time had been…
What’s the scariest factor in regards to the music enterprise in 2026?
Being trustworthy, there’s nothing notably scary in regards to the music enterprise. Most of us aren’t working in warfare zones; we’ve got what are basically make-believe jobs. Typically nerve-racking, however a privilege. And for the artists we handle, there’s actually no selection; that is their calling.
Business-wise, it appears like we’ve been in a interval the place music has turn into too secure and conservative, a byproduct of algorithmic playlists. Artists, typically unconsciously, started making music for algorithms; now algorithms are making music for algorithms, shaping a whole technology whether or not they understand it or not. Every part’s a bit too polished, too formulaic.
Lyrically, a lot of it isn’t actually about something. Name it the commoditization of tradition or the industrialization of style; the result’s that every little thing will get safer and fewer attention-grabbing. There’s all the time been a cycle in music tradition: pioneers, then artists who broaden the enchantment, then copycats of copycats with one final industrial push… then imitators who kill the style outright. That’s not new – what’s completely different now could be the pace at which it occurs.
“We’ve been in a interval the place music turned too secure, a byproduct of algorithmic playlists.”
A part of the conservatism I see is that few artists wish to take a stand, fearing cancellation, demonetization, or alienating followers. Almost everybody performs it secure – not simply in music, however in comedy, journalism, and information. There are exceptions, however there’s been an actual chilling impact on artwork. I’m not saying all music ought to be protest music – in fact not – it’s simply noticeably tougher to seek out.
What’s the excellent news?
Loads of attention-grabbing artists are filling the void – artists who aren’t making choices based mostly on streams or algorithms, however by making actually distinctive work and doing their very own factor: Cameron Winter, Dijon, SAULT, Caroline Polachek, YHWH Nailgun, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, and Saya Grey, to call a couple of. There’s many extra and that’s actually thrilling – that is the house [Monotone] lives in with our artists.
Artists additionally appear to be re-embracing craft and musicianship and specializing in their reside exhibits. That’s thrilling; each metropolis has an actual scene of actual gamers. Possibly it’s a part of a broader starvation for what’s genuine? Possibly it’s a human must bodily work together with a tangible instrument. No one needs to see anybody at a celebration choose up a pc and “immediate”.
I don’t suppose the youthful technology’s rediscovery of music from the previous is just nostalgia. It’s as a result of it’s genuinely good, and these artists can play. I see increasingly more new artists shifting this fashion – honing their craft, being nice reside, and utilizing that to construct what individuals are truly craving for: neighborhood.
Loads of managers will let you know privately that streaming issues much less to their artists’ livelihoods than it did 5 years in the past. The place does streaming rank to your artists now?
Streaming issues much less for our purchasers’ companies, however we don’t ignore it; it’s nonetheless a tough gauge of who’s listening, and if you happen to’re in a label deal the place your accomplice solely participates in royalties, you possibly can’t afford to disregard it. Nobody complains when a music takes off! However I don’t actually consider it as streaming versus every little thing else.
Our job is to construct careers that maintain over a long time, and the form of that’s completely different for each artist. Touring is one thing our artists, and this firm, occur to be superb at, and it’s typically the muse. However we’re simply as deliberate about merch, sync, vinyl and bodily, and discovering new methods for an artist to succeed in the individuals who truly care.
What runs via all of it’s constructing a significant reference to a fanbase. Anybody keen to rent a babysitter, pay for parking, purchase a ticket, and provides an artist a couple of hours of consideration – that’s an actual fan. That’s a real time and monetary dedication. Fostering that relationship is tough work, however it’s way more necessary than pre-saves and clicks.
“It’s not ‘labels versus managers’. It’s about constructing the perfect workforce round any artist.”
As an business, we’ve confused followers with neighborhood. They’re not the identical factor. Music is meant to carry folks collectively, and that’s gotten tougher. Virgin Information began as a report retailer; folks went there to find music and join.
Third Man nonetheless builds that type of universe; so do the good unbiased report shops. Reside music can do it too, particularly as soon as folks put their telephones away for a few hours. We’ve satisfied ourselves that actual neighborhood exists on-line; I don’t purchase it. It’s the distinction between texting and speaking, between knowledge switch and communication.
On-line is much less about neighborhood and extra about being a goal group – one being bought to, and finally having its knowledge bought. To feed that, distraction has been monetized. However individuals are catching on, and that’s a very good factor.
Simply as necessary for us is who’s being attentive to our artists – not whether or not they’re on SNL, however whether or not they’re turning into a part of the cultural dialog. That’s arduous to quantify. Generally you simply really feel it. And once we really feel it, even earlier than others do, we go to work making others imagine it too. That’s the essence of administration: we imagine in what our artists imagine, and we amplify it.
You constructed Monotone with in-house radio, DSP, touring, licensing, and manufacturing groups – a ‘label companies’ infrastructure earlier than that phrase was modern. The place does that go away the standard label in 2026?
I constructed it this fashion as a result of I roughly needed to. A part of it’s the artists we work with, and what I touched on earlier – making folks imagine. That takes folks and sources.
Within the early White Stripes days, I had a map of the US and Europe with pushpins, understanding city-to-city distances – “van tour or bus tour?” That’s essential stuff, however I’m not nice at it; different individuals are, and I’m higher used elsewhere. So we constructed an in-house touring and manufacturing workforce. Identical with radio. I noticed I wanted my very own ‘translator’ [for that corner of the industry], so I employed my very own workforce, and their position now goes properly past radio and streaming.
I by no means needed to be depending on somebody with a unique agenda, or for our artists to reside or die by label politics. Our artists had been by no means going to be priorities at a serious, and most independents didn’t have the sources. So we constructed what made sense for us, as a result of shifting tradition towards our artists’ imaginative and prescient requires it.
There’s a bonus: working throughout touring, advertising and marketing, licensing, DSPs, and improvement offers us an unusually broad view of what’s occurring – not simply in music, however on this planet. I simply see us as a complete, well-resourced firm.
Good labels additionally do a variety of what we do – however everybody understanding their lane is paramount.
The very best music corporations now are “every little thing corporations.” It will depend on the label and the workforce round a given artist, particularly the place there’s belief on each side. Interscope can successfully handle a few of its artists as a result of they’re that near them – no shock, given the caliber and tenure of its senior workers, which is uncommon.
John Janick used to handle artists at a excessive stage; we’ve truly each managed M.I.A. at completely different factors. Rob Stringer has impeccable style and artists worth his opinion. He’s not afraid to have a tough dialog with an artist – they belief him.
All the perfect label and publishing folks have that in widespread. When there’s belief throughout and everybody has the artist’s greatest pursuits in thoughts, you’re all pushing in the identical course.
At that time, I don’t actually care what somebody’s title is or the place the standard traces are. I welcome the assistance and interplay; I’m not threatened by it. Greatest case, we plug into one another and play to one another’s strengths – typically main, typically following, however working as a workforce. The place there’s crossover, labels usually welcome the additional sources. It’s not ‘labels versus managers’ anymore. It’s about constructing the perfect workforce round any artist.
Reside Nation and Firebird have been rolling up administration corporations – Firebird with funding from Raine Group, Ares, and Goldman Sachs. You’ve stayed proudly unbiased. If you see an organization buying administration corporations at scale, what does that let you know about the place the business’s heading?
The very first thing it tells you is that good managers have actual worth and play a vital position in orchestrating success. Funds can allocate capital wherever they need, so it’s no shock they’re all in favour of shopping for administration corporations – if we’re doing our jobs properly, we’re typically on the heart of an artist’s profession. It additionally tells you that only a few corporations are really unbiased, whether or not they admit it or not. Look below the hood: finally, any individual is reporting to any individual else, and often anticipated to generate a return on somebody’s funding.
I don’t wish to be in that place for the artists we signify. I don’t wish to report back to anybody however our artists – not to mention clarify to a banker why an artist is taking one other yr to make a report, or, particularly, why a two-piece band with a guitarist and a drummer doesn’t want so as to add a bass participant.
“I don’t wish to clarify to a banker why an artist is taking one other yr to make a report.”
This can be a broader pattern throughout a number of industries. Roll up companies, create scale, and hope scale creates higher service. Possibly it does, possibly it doesn’t. Personally, I’m not satisfied larger means higher. [Monotone has] all the size and tradition we’d like – and tradition takes time to construct. Artists don’t rent us as a result of we’re the largest; we aren’t, and don’t wish to be.
They rent us as a result of they know precisely who they’re getting. Might a a lot larger firm have extra leverage? In fact. However that additionally creates priorities and agendas – any individual should determine which artists get extra consideration and extra sources, or provide a greater return. An artist who’d be the largest consumer at a smaller firm can turn into simply one other consumer inside a a lot bigger one.
None of that’s essentially incorrect. It’s simply not who we’re.
On the different finish of the spectrum, famous person artists – Bruno Mars, Beyoncé, and so on. – are meting out with the commission-based supervisor and bringing administration in-house. What’s your view of that?
No matter works for these artists and their groups is nice. It’s simply not how I’m personally programmed. I bought into administration as a result of I didn’t need one thing that felt like ‘a job’. If I’d needed that, I in all probability would have stayed a lawyer, or achieved one thing extra steady.
As artists develop, we preserve our independence. As they turn into extra profitable, the circle of individuals keen to inform them the reality usually will get smaller. Our job is to all the time be on the heart of that circle, even when the reality is uncomfortable. Being a salaried worker can compromise that.
I’ve all the time considered myself as way more of a ‘accomplice’ to an artist than a ‘supervisor’. When our artists make cash, we make cash; once they don’t, we don’t – we stock threat alongside them. Individuals suppose fee is just how managers receives a commission, however it additionally aligns everybody’s incentives. I don’t suppose a salaried mannequin creates that very same alignment.
Each UMG and Warner at the moment are public corporations, answerable to shareholders. As somebody who sits throughout the desk from them, have you ever observed a change in how they function?
Actually, probably not. It’s in all probability made issues a little bit extra clear from my perspective. Transparency might be painful in a enterprise as unpredictable as ours – however it’s good for everyone.
One factor I like about public corporations is that they inform you numerous about themselves if you happen to’re keen to do your homework. I learn the annual studies. I hearken to the earnings calls. I concentrate as a result of it’s one other method to perceive how an organization thinks and what pressures it’s below. It’s helped me perceive the folks throughout the desk, as a result of – as we’ve mentioned – somebody is all the time reporting to somebody. With public corporations, it’s the shareholders!
What all the time makes me smile in these annual studies is that, however all of the business-speak, there’s typically a line buried someplace saying that so-and-so’s album launch has shifted by 1 / 4, or that an artist’s album didn’t hit expectations – and it turns into obvious this stuff are large drivers of an organization’s earnings. I discover that empowering.
You possibly can construct all of the methods you need and make every little thing extra environment friendly, however this all runs on music. In the long run, it nonetheless comes down as to whether an artist creates one thing folks need. The artists nonetheless drive every little thing else.
As a supervisor and a educated lawyer, how do you reply when a fund affords your artist a big-money catalog deal?
Rather a lot has modified for the reason that Bowie Bonds within the late ‘90s, although the core idea holds. The catalog has all the time been the bedrock of what made publishers and labels beneficial; Wall Road has merely caught up. Artists shouldn’t neglect that, for many of them, their catalog is what they go on to their household.
I’ve all the time believed artists ought to personal their recordings and publishing when potential, so I naturally hesitate to encourage purchasers to promote. However it’s a private resolution, and if it’s knowledgeable, I’ll assist it. Lots of our purchasers personal 100% of what they’ve created, which places them in a stronger place than most artists.
There are extra patrons available in the market than 5 years in the past; whether or not there are extra certified patrons is a unique query. Promote to somebody who genuinely understands music and is aware of how one can construct in your catalog? That’s one factor. Promote to somebody who sees it purely as a monetary asset? That’s one other.
“The market can let you know what one thing is value; it will probably’t all the time let you know why it issues.”
The true query isn’t simply who’s providing the very best a number of, however who’s going to care for these songs ten years from now. Nice songs don’t exist in a vacuum – somebody should take care of them, introduce them to the following technology, make considerate calls on licensing, movie and TV. An ambivalent proprietor can do actual harm. Copyrights, opposite to well-liked music-business opinion, do complain – and in the event that they’re being mismanaged, rightfully so.
It’s good that artists now have extra selections; that offers creators energy. The one factor I’d watch out about is complicated monetary worth with cultural worth. The market can let you know what one thing is value; it will probably’t all the time let you know why it issues.
The AI music debate has exploded. As somebody who manages artists outlined by singular inventive imaginative and prescient, how do you concentrate on AI’s place on this enterprise?
Actually, I believe extra about AI’s affect on humanity than on the music enterprise. So far as artists are involved, I’m not nervous in regards to the genuinely inventive, imaginative artists who’re forward of the algorithm.
They’re those influencing what’s subsequent and being copied. A human, lived expertise can’t get replaced – it’s what offers music its soul. However we even have the luxurious of working with artists like Jack White, Vampire Weekend, LCD Soundsystem, and others who’re all visionaries in their very own proper. However issues are altering so rapidly, I don’t know what we’ll encounter subsequent.
Nearly each opinion feels instantly dated. What we do want to consider is how artists’ music is valued, notably when it’s getting used to coach AI platforms and labels are being compensated in return. The artists must take part in that worth too. Some argue that AI is just the following evolution of the musical instrument.
As soon as upon a time, drum machines ‘weren’t drums’; sampling ‘wasn’t taking part in an instrument’; DJs ‘weren’t musicians’; Professional Instruments was ‘dishonest.’
We’ve been shifting the road eternally, and finally somebody does one thing unimaginable with every new instrument and the arguments turn into irrelevant. However there’s an necessary distinction: a guitar doesn’t have an agenda. With AI, individuals are creating via a handful of platforms that any individual else owns, trains, and controls. That issues me.
It additionally raises necessary questions on how we worth human contribution. Nothing comes from nowhere. Jack White performs a riff and one other artist hears it years later, it sparks one thing in them, they usually take it someplace utterly completely different.
That’s how tradition has all the time labored. One factor influences one other, which influences one other. There’s a lineage to it. AI complicates that lineage, however it shouldn’t make it invisible.
We are able to’t neglect that AI is studying from human concepts, human work, and human tradition. If we are able to perceive how the machine bought from A to Z, and which artist’s work and concepts had been significant constructing blocks, credit score and compensation can circulation again via the chain.
That’s a extra attention-grabbing place to begin than pretending AI creates out of skinny air.
“AI hasn’t fallen in love, misplaced a father or mother to most cancers, or stood on stage in entrance of 10,000 folks.”
One thing else I take into consideration: Are artists expressing themselves via AI, or is AI slowly instructing artists how one can categorical themselves? That’s actually the identical concern I’ve with algorithms usually. The hazard isn’t essentially that expertise replaces human creativity. It’s that we expect we’re making utterly unbiased selections, whereas the expertise is quietly narrowing our choices.
Artists with actual creativeness already form what AI can do; every little thing it makes, it realized from somebody. The human brings expertise, intention, and most significantly, style. AI hasn’t fallen in love, misplaced a father or mother to most cancers, had a music inexplicably make you cry, been bullied, or stood on a stage in entrance of ten thousand folks. That also belongs to the artist. AI can be taught patterns, however it will probably’t reside a life.
In 2019 you predicted the majors may pull their catalogs off the DSPs and construct their very own platforms. That didn’t occur. With hindsight, did they miss a window, or was the motivation by no means actually there?
What’s occurred is definitely way more attention-grabbing. The streaming corporations have largely settled into being extremely efficient world distribution platforms. Report corporations have more and more expanded into label companies.
In the meantime, many artists have neatly adopted a direct-to-consumer mannequin. I underestimated who would turn into the direct-to-consumer model. I believed it will be the main labels; as an alternative, it was the artists.
The true worth isn’t the place any individual streams a music – it’s who owns the connection with the fan. Who’s promoting the live performance ticket? Who’s launching a pageant, like Olivia Rodrigo’s Daisy Chain Fields? Who’s constructing direct relationships via one thing like The Vault?
The Grateful Lifeless in all probability understood this earlier than nearly anyone. They had been constructing a neighborhood lengthy earlier than anybody referred to as it ‘direct-to-consumer.’ That ties again to the place we began: neighborhood. The neatest artists have all the time understood it. They don’t simply make music – they create universes, and invite folks to affix them.
What in regards to the fashionable enterprise would most shock your youthful self – and what hasn’t modified in any respect?
This enterprise is all the time altering, however the factor that hasn’t modified is the one half I’ve ever actually cared about. The legendary movie producer Larry Gordon mentioned one thing to me years in the past that’s caught with me ever since: “It’s all about having one thing that different folks need.”
That’s nonetheless the enterprise. I don’t notably care in regards to the pipes, or the supply mechanism. I care about ensuring the artwork exists – and that folks get the prospect to fall in love with it.
‘It’s nice to see artist possession turn into extra commonplace’
The White Stripes broke via to mainstream recognition 25 years in the past with basic third album, White Blood Cells, that includes hits like Fell In Love With A Lady.
The LP was launched through Third Man Information with V2 in the US in addition to XL in UK/Europe, however, unusually for a label-priority report on the time, the underlying masters remained inside the band’s possession – a sample that the duo would repeat for later information Elephant, Get Behind Me Devil, and Icky Thump.
Ian Montone performed a pioneering position in securing the band possession of their copyrights, years earlier than such offers turned customary observe – one thing that’s since turn into the norm for a lot of of Monotone’s artists.
Says Montone: “As a supervisor I attempt to create freedom – be that inventive or monetary – and optionality for my purchasers. And when an artist is in charge of their recordings it offers them each.
“As a younger music lawyer, I labored at a agency [Davis, Shapiro, Lewit, Montone & Hayes] that represented expertise in addition to a handful of labels. I all the time questioned why artists didn’t personal their recordings. It was one thing nobody ever requested for, as if it had been merely set in stone. As a supervisor, with Jack and Meg, we decided to make possession a part of any broader deal. And to their credit score, that they had the braveness to face by it, turning down a number of cash within the course of. We already had management of the primary two albums, so it made logical sense. XL and V2 weren’t afraid to suppose exterior the field.”
Provides Montone: “As somebody who’s all the time been a champion of artists’ rights, it’s nice to see possession turn into extra commonplace. And if that’s performed a job in labels constructing extra service-focused companies inside their bigger ecosystems, in flip giving artists extra choices, then that’s additionally an incredible evolution.
“That’s to not say that is the way it ought to work throughout the board. Labels typically take vital monetary threat, and usually lose cash on extra information than they make cash on. There are many methods to construction these relationships. Regardless of the construction, it must make sense and be truthful to each side.”
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