181 – Following Your Heart as an Artist – with Videographer & Musician João Filipe

Are you listening to the voice within? Are you doing what you’re meant to do as an artist? In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, I chat with my friend João Filipe. We touch on a variety of topics, including what João got out of the podcast, strategy vs. tactics, the current state of music entrepreneurship and more. Podcast Highlights: 00:34 – Who is João Filipe? 02:16 – How did you end up in video? 05:41 – Knocking on the door of a record label 11:14 – What did you get out of the podcast? 17:28 – Strategy vs. tactics 18:59 – The music + entrepreneur connection 20:54 – Revenue streams for artists 21:42 – The value of coaching 26:17 – When the student is ready, the teacher appears 28:19 – Being grateful for teachers 28:51 – What is going on with the music industry? 34:48 – Being easy to work with 35:44 – One of David’s most streamed tracks 37:49 – Episode wrap up Transcription: David Andrew Wiebe: Today, I’m chatting with videographer, and musician, and a dear friend of mine, João Filipe. How are you today, João? João Filipe: I'm doing fine, man. DA: Thanks for joining me. João: Thank you. Thank you for inviting me. Finally, man. After two years I was every day thinking when is it going to happen? DA: I bet you were, yeah. Like you say it's been a while since we last talked and this conversation is really long overdue. But as they say, better late than never, right? This isn't the only open loop I've created with the podcast rest assured. I've started talking about growth hacking and other things that I haven't even started to put the bow on yet, but this is one of those things that needed to happen. So, just to get this out of the way, why don't you share with the listeners what you're working on these days? João: Well, it's really good that you're asking me “these days” because damn it would be really long story. So, right now, I'm a creative producer in the fields of video, music and events. So, basically, what I'm doing right now, I work as a freelancer in Europe. I'm a videographer in the music industry. I either work with artists, labels, tours. I also do a lot of production things in Portugal. Not as a one videographer, but I assemble teams and I direct teams accordingly to the projects to answer video needs from festivals to anything related video. DA: I know that wasn't your original focus. So, how did you end up in video? João: Well, when I was a teenager, I grew up with computers, so I had this time in my life that I was just experiencing as much as possible from the internet and from software. So, when I was 15 years old, I already messed around with Photoshop, Sony Vegas, Cinema 4D, all kinds of creative software. So, I had that spirit already in me. But then, I got into video more seriously when I started my music project. I put it out. I put EP out, social media, website. Like everything. And, after the release, I realized that I wanted to keep up with content. I realized that video was like the best thing that I could do to keep up with content. So, I started to document what I was doing in a vlog for months. What I was doing to promote my project and what I was doing around the projects. Really quickly, people started to ask me for a video. And that's when kind of a light turned on in my brain and I realized that I was doing something interesting that people wanted from me. That was the first thing that never happened. And then the most important thing is that I could use video to bring value to the others in the way that I video in a way to put myself in touch with the people I wanted in the industry I wanted with artists and labels that I wanted. Video was the way, basically. So, I was offering the first year as a videographer I was just up doing all this free work all around Europe with several different people/projects, like completely different stuff. But I was just planting seeds, basically. And I was making sure that every work I did, no matter it was free or not, I was just putting all of myself into that. And I was just, you know, doing the very, very best and a little bit beyond that to every project. Eventually, it grew. People came to me again. It was just a rollercoaster of getting better and doing more and more and more as well as it gets. DA: I remember being very tech focused as a kid as well. I built my first website when I was 14 and then evolved pretty quickly from there into graphics and other types of content in other fields. So, I like your story. I love that you chose video as the medium. I honestly think that probably is still one of the best ways for musicians to go these days. If you're great at writing, blogging is good. If you're great at speaking and communicating via audio, then podcasting might be an opportunity too. But yeah, there's something to video. And we know all know that. Video is just huge right now on virtually any platform. João: Definitely. DA: So, I like that. And you had an early vlog too that went right into the record label. You just knocked on them and, “Here's my CD” right? João: That's crazy. DA: Talk about that. João: That's one of the many crazy stories but it seems like a really cliché story and it kind of is. So, basically, I had this music project, it was progressive rock, which is not very mainstream. There was this label called Kscope that I was always a fan of. I love the artists and they had all my favorite artists at the time. For me, it was always like the dream label, the label that one day if I sign myself to that it will be like a dream. So, what happened was I was in London attending a masterclass at Warner Music. I had a couple days off, and I decided to… I was recording everything I was doing in London through video. I decided to check Ksope. So, I went to their website and I realized they had the address there. So yeah, all right. So let's go there, right. What's the worst thing that can happen? I went there. I literally knocked on the door. Well actually I rang the bell, not knocked on the door. I talked with the guy that first came downstairs and when you see the vlog it will seem like I was just there to promote my EP but what really happened it was really not about that. I was listening to a lot of podcasts with Gary Vee in particular and I had this thing on my mind of free work. Offer something to the people that you want to get involved with. That's exactly what I did. I went there with a focus of making it clear that first, I love the label. I know all about the label, the artists, the podcast, the newsletter. I know the label. And second, I want to get myself involved with it. So, I want to give you something for free. I will not ask for money. I just want to do something that is valuable for you. I will not distrub. While I did this, I recorded it in video and that's the funny part. So, it's online. It's on YouTube. And then I posted the video. It was like, probably the really important video I took like two months with. It was crazy. It was when I was starting with video, but they watched the video, they liked it. And eventually it made me connect with a very important person there, which is now my friend. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7kJ7fgfTlE And one year later, they got in touch with me out of nowhere. Basically, it was 10 years anniversary of the label at Union Chapel with Anathema, Godsticks, iamthemorning, and… I'm so sorry, I'm not remembering all the artists but… They wanted me to make like a behind the scenes of the anniversary. It was crazy, man. Like one year later, I had no contact with them and they called me out of the blue to do this and they wanted me to make a vlog out of it. So, it was just a dream come true completely. I was giving my face for the label I love and I'm finally doing a work video for them. It was crazy man. DA: And you’ve basically been working with them ever since, right? João: Yeah. So, I made that free video for them as I promised. It's called Behind 10 years of Kscope. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MphSUw7mAA What I wanted and what I was expecting, I just wanted them to see me working. And to see that, you know, I know I can work good and I can really bring value to you. So, I managed to show them that. Since then, like I've been… Yeah, it's quite crazy. I do different kinds of projects with them. I go to London regularly. It's mostly like I have some crazy idea that I'd like to do with some of the artists in Kscope and eventually I send a message to them and they trust me and they support the work, which is like a dream come true. It's amazing. Yeah, I'm really happy with that. DA: It just goes to show too like, there's huge opportunity in video right now. I have a friend who got into it. He was making a pretty good living at it for a while. I think he's changed his focus again. I have friends that, you know, shift focuses every few months. But that's the world we live in right now anyway. João: Who doesn't? DA: Exactly. I've changed my focus many times. So, I mean you are one of the early supporters of the podcast, which I loved. And to this day, your testimonial is one of the main ones featured on the website. So, I would love for you to talk about what sort of results you got from applying the ideas I've been sharing on the show. João: I can't remember exactly what was the… I remember this comment. I remember having this time in my life that I felt I need to write a huge comment to him, because I was getting a lot of value. I don't remember the exact like, intense like this thing. But I know that I was hearing a lot to the podcast. I started to listen to your podcast when I was promoting my music project. In that time, I was just searching for all kinds of content. Everyone who's talking about how do you get into the industry. I was just, you know,...