The president and CEO of NAMM, the National Association of Music Merchants, which is a global not-for-profit trade association representing more than ten thousand manufacturers and retailers of musical instruments, professional sound, and live event production products. Their massive annual trade show is coming up at the beginning of June in Anaheim, the proceeds from which they reinvest into grants, scholarships, scientific research, industry promotions, and public and government relations programs. Well-versed across the business, he is also a musician himself and was a touring manager and even an installer.
“To be involved in the music business, you do a lot of things. Many players, teachers, maybe moonlight in the recording studio.”
“I worked in music stores and then I played drums in bands in northern California, in the Bay area. And, so, I was lucky enough to get into a band, Tommy Tutone. This was a little after (Jenny 867-5309) was recorded. That was not me on the song, unfortunately, but I was the touring drummer and played it a million times.”
“I think those drummers in the world realize how there’s a real brotherhood of drummers, sisterhood too of drummers, and we help each other out.”
“Certain people in your life come along and they just influence you sometimes more than you know. I’ll bet you everyone can relate to that, or, can relate to the fact that they are that person, helping others.”
“If you have an older brother, if you’re lucky enough, that’s where your record collection came from, or, your entrance into cool music.”
“Over time I found that while I thought I was a decent drummer – I knew that there were a lot of ‘em – what I found was I had a particular skill to do one simple thing, which was to make order out of chaos… Then I found out, gosh, you could make a living doing that.”
“102 countries have members that belong to NAMM. But the ability to have the linguistic ability to speak their language, metaphorically, is maybe what I got out of all (my prior music) experiences; to be able to understand where they’re coming from, what some of their key issues are. As a trade group, our role is to try to support them in their efforts to be successful.”
“We just love music. We think having more music in the world, having more kids have access to music, having more seniors play music as they age to be healthier, we just think that’s good. We just think that’s a really good thing as an industry.”
“We’re trying to be the United Nations of people who make gear... the people who sell the gear… and people who use the gear.”
“In 2020 in January we had the largest, most widely attended and exhibited tradeshow in NAMM’s history at that time, which was almost 120 years… And six weeks later the pandemic hit.”
“As an artist myself I believe that we are communal human beings, and we want to be together. And this kind of isolation we’ve had I don’t think has been good for anybody.”