Chris Nardone – Venture Music
There are many sides to a successful music career. Some of those items are things we think of on a daily basis when focusing on music or the music industry. Some obvious ones are creating good songs and playing the music in a live setting, be it through touring or even a simple livestream. A few others are things like connecting with fans via social media or in person events like the increasingly popular (well before Covid) meet and greets that are essential to establish that personal connection.
What may not be as obvious is the marketing that goes on behind the scenes of everything I just mentioned. Even down to the good songs I italicized. Yep, even what we consider good songs can be a learned behavior through clever and precise marketing. However, I will always make the argument that perfecting your craft is the base of everything and anyone reading this even thinking about entering the music business as an artist.. Please take the time to learn and perfect your craft. For all of us, babe.
Chris Nardone has always known that his career and life would somehow be connected to the music industry. The basic idea for Venture Music started when Chris was taking music business classes at the University of Georgia in 2008–09. Venture originally started as an artist management company and today 
Venture specializes in custom-built marketing plans aimed to help clients reach and engage their fans across the digital landscape. Like I said earlier, this is an essential part of building a successful music career. I mean, think about it, if you play music to an audience of none, no one will ever get to experience the feeling or emotion you put in to your song. I wouldn’t go so far to say it is pointless but the argument can certainly be made.
When I caught up with Chris, one of the first things I mentioned was the feeling of artist management still playing a role in what they do. Even if it isn’t overt. Nardone tells me, “It’s the foundation. To me, it’s an important part of this because we’ve lived on the other side of the table for so long. We didn’t come up with some sort of salaried position at a label. All of us have treated this as entrepreneurs and I have been one since the very beginning.”
He continues, “It allows us to treat the work we do with a lot of respect and with a lot of hustle. I feel like a lot of times, people in our position just don’t really understand how hard it is to be successful in music. You make a paycheck every week and you don’t understand what it’s like to be commission based. You don’t understand what it’s like to invest a years’ time into something before you make a dime. So to me it’s context but also that experience of being a hustler and knowing when to stick to the script and when to think outside of the box and where the lines of that exists. Working with artist’s is a very nuanced thing. We’re trying to figure out this very delicate conversion of commerce and creative.”
One thing that stuck out to me during our conversation is this thought of doing the right thing for the artist. Chris makes no mistake about it. They are here to help further the careers of every artist they work with and that base of moving forward for the common good is a great foundation. One that artists and bands need going forward in the digital music world.
You can hear my entire conversation with Chris Nardone by clicking on the link to your favorite place to listen to podcasts.
-Tommy Marz
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