25: Janet Billig Rich - Her Trailblazing Music Industry Journey that Led to Nirvana and Broadway
Janet Billig Rich is an artist manager, music supervisor, producer, and Tony Award nominated Broadway theater producer. Born in New York, in the 1990s she worked at Caroline Records and Gold Mountain Entertainment, where she managed or publicized bands such as Smashing Pumpkins, Hole, White Zombie, Nirvana, The Breeders, The Lemonheads, Lisa Loeb, Walt Mink, and Dinosaur Jr.
She became the youngest senior executive at Atlantic Records in the mid-1990s, where she developed artists such as Sugar Ray, Matchbox 20, and Jewel. She currently operates the Los Angeles entertainment company Manage This!
Summary:
Janet Billig Rich talks about how her love of live music, the ability to fill holes, and the desire to get things done, led to an unplanned career in the music industry that has included getting Hole signed to a record deal, managing Nirvana, and a Tony Award nomination for the musical Rock of Ages.
The Dish:
- Why she loved working on the O Brother Where Art Thou concert tour
- Working at Caroline Records
- Why it just made sense for her to mange Hole
- How she kept her sanity while managing multiple bands
- Her system for prioritizing
- Learning the music clearance and licensing business
- How sharing office space led to her work on Rock of Ages
- Why not knowing what you’re getting into can be an advantage
- Why Def Leppard songs don’t appear in the stage version of Rock of Ages
- Poison playing the Tony Awards
- Why you have to dream big
- The advice she would give her younger self
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