Jeff Betten and 2020k: The Future of the Pittsburgh Music Industry
Jeff Betten and I want the freedom to choose between drinking coffee or alcohol at noon on the day after Easter. We briefly wish South Side’s The Beehive was still around and we settle on Soluna Coffee & Mezcal in the Strip District. Jeff orders a pour over and doesn’t think they serve alcohol this early while I cautiously handle a wobbling Lumberjack Latte and mention there’s a bar with no bartender in the back of the cafe. We find seating and settle for early afternoon caffeine.
“It’s in collaboration with a company called C3,” Jeff begins by making small talk about the barely announced music festival at Hazelwood Green. “They’re bragging, like, ‘oh they did Lollapalooza and Bonnaroo,’ and it’s like, ‘yeah? Fucking shit.’”
I don’t particularly know how to feel about the situation we’ve found ourselves talking about. “On one hand you’re bringing something here, and Thrival Festival seemed successful,” I begin, “but, on the other…” and I’m not sure where to go from there.
The conversation dives into typical Pittsburgh discourse about astroturfing and hometown gatekeeping. Though, it’s clear that this is just another light conversation in our eyes. Our passion for understanding the psyche of Pittsburgh’s entertainment industry is always burning. More importantly, we’re constantly focused on how it can exist as a thriving industry.
It’s easy for us to make commentary: I’ve made Indie Electronic Pop music under the name 2020k since 2004 — all released on my own label. I've performed all over town, volunteered for WYEP in the 2010’s, and have an audio engineering background from the Conservatory of Recording Arts & Sciences. Jeff’s been an indie musician in his own right, is currently the general manager for Misra Records, heads Hellbender Vinyl, and is diving headfirst into the publishing business with the creation of WPMC (Western Pennsylvania Music Company).
I prod Betten to expound upon his open letter / essay A Vision of the Pittsburgh Music Industry, or: “Why Isn’t Every Town Like Nashville.” The conversation touches further on how to close the circuit and make Pittsburgh a music city.
Betten: I didn’t even know what I was writing it for. I just wanted to share it with people.
Kozain: That was the question I had — what was the point of the letter? It felt like a business manifesto.
Betten: Manifesto is a good word for it. It’s everything but a call to arms — that part is deliberately missing. I didn’t feel like saying “you all need to follow me,” it’s more or less [about] diagnosing the problem. In theory, I could have closed with saying that we need to allocate funds.
Kozain: That’s where I thought it was going. Especially since you sent it to Sara [Innamorato, Allegheny County Executive].
Betten: It wasn’t my style to write this, then beg. I can come up with my own money. But, if they think it’s a good idea and they want to help fund it, then I’m not going to be in opposition to that.
I just don’t want to make a PowerPoint on why you need to think this is important. I’m going to prove it’s important because I’m right and [they’re] going to figure it out when we start scaling it out. I almost want to start small and learn from any mistakes along the way.
Kozain: That’s what I assume you’re doing with Hellbender Vinyl, which seems very successful.
Betten: Hellbender’s doing well and I hope we’re not making mistakes. We’re in our Friends and Family phase. Not anyone can walk in off the street yet, but you can still get a meal here. I shouldn’t even have this publishing company (WPMC). I should be 100% focused on Hellbender.
Kozain: I was thinking that.
Betten: I can’t help but do stuff. It’s still in the early days — I’m building up the catalog [of music]. It’s getting a small number of musicians in Pittsburgh used to the idea that—
Kozain: …that they can have a career?
Betten: That this can be a transaction. We’re trading goods and services — there’s no reason why that can’t be music/songwriting. We lambast people who think we should pay for exposure, but I’m offering money. I know people can get funny about it.
Kozain: There’s a difference between playing for pizza at a venue versus a company providing a wage and hoping to provide musicians health benefits. I don’t think that’s exposure at all.
Betten: Yeah. This is the most artist friendly thing. I’m down to haggle [terms] because I’m not trying to exploit anyone. It can be a back and forth between how much will be paid versus the product I’m receiving.
Kozain: So, you’re not locking artists into a contract? It’s just a come as you go deal?
Betten: Yeah. There’s loose agreements that say it’s a walkaway thing. No one’s signing six months to a year. That’s why you never hear from certain musicians again because they’re locked into bad deals. I wouldn’t want to do that — it’s not my style.
I do want to lure people away from Nashville and LA and back to Pittsburgh. I don’t pick on LA or New York in the letter because there’s other reasons musicians would want to move there. If you move to LA, maybe you just want more out of life. I pick on Nashville because it’s the most comparable. I could have [talked about] Atlanta too — Ted turner said “this is going to be an
entertainment town,” then started all those Atlanta industries, which is proof that something can arise from nothing. Pittsburgh doesn’t have to just shrug their shoulders and say it’s not a thing here.
Kozain: …Or scream in a Town Hall unnecessarily [in reference to the Pittsburgh Music Ecosystem Project].
Betten: It was fun to hoot and holler at the people on that board, but I blame Scott Mervis [Pittsburgh Post Gazette writer] for that.
Kozain: You can’t take shots at him in everything!
Betten: It was him on Facebook saying something along the lines of ‘Well, Pittsburgh, because you don’t know how to run a music industry the city had to bring in this consultant from Austin’ and it set everyone off.
Kozain: Was that his angle? Jesus. You should bring in outside people who know how to successfully set something up. We got the data — I look at that report all of the time.
Betten: I use that data in the first part of my letter. That was the most damning stat that I found in it — 85% of creatives are relying on their own personal funds to finance their music. Though, out of those 85% I think 15% could be lying.
Kozain: I’ve been very open that I don’t make shit. Even if a percentage of those people were embellishing, on some level they still feel as if they don’t have security in what they’re doing. It’s terrifying when you think about the fact that successful people in Pittsburgh feel like they don’t have a solid foundation.
Betten: Let’s be painfully real and establish the fact that there is no industry in Pittsburgh. If there was an industry, I would want to be leading the charge.
Kozain: There’s talent, heart, and a lot of people who successfully try, but nothing that’s built an industry. Even the people whose jobs are to think of it — like, I’ve criticized LovePGHMusic over giving [local musicians] one month of coverage.
Betten: They’re not getting paid to think about it full-time.
Kozain: If there’s not enough time allocation for somebody whose job is to do something like that to accomplish anything, then that’s in and of itself a systemic problem.
Betten: Tangentially to Misra Records, I’ve spent ten years thinking about trying to make individual bands and artists successful. A band like Buffalo Rose, okay, there are six members, and if I work to get them unbelievably successful, then that’s great for them, but it’s not going to help anyone else in Pittsburgh. Wiz [Khalifa] and Mac [Miller]’s success was great for Wiz and Mac and their circle.
Kozain: But, then you had every rapper after that aspiring to it and not understanding what it took for those two to break out.
Betten: You have people from and living here who are successful, but I’m going to ask the uncomfortable question: if that’s the path, then where is this incredible Pittsburgh industry that should exist in the wake of those successes?
Was industry even on anyone’s mind then? If it was true that all you needed was a good live music scene, then there would be 50 cities in the United States that had a music industry. It doesn’t mean having record labels, a healthy live music scene, good musicians — we need to take that off of the table. What’s one thing you can do in Nashville that you can do in Pittsburgh?
Kozain: I’ve taken music business meetings in other cities and they’ve all said the same thing — they’re surprised that I’ve gotten as far as I have in Pittsburgh. That there’s nothing here. The conversation [usually pivots] to songwriting and how songwriters in other cities work up through publishing. It seems to be a direction a lot of professionals take and have the opportunity to take in other cities.
Betten: I shouldn’t give the impression that it’s only in Nashville — you see it with ASCAP and BMI that you can do this in Chicago, Miami, or other cities.
Kozain: Miami is such an underdog in the discourse of a thriving music scene. Betten: Well, because it’s Florida. We need the Bugs Bunny cartoon where they just saw it off.
Kozain: Right, we don’t claim them or Texas, but it’s proven across North America that you can do this.
You make points about how touring is still viable. Like, if I worked for something like WPMC, I’d have the capacity to plan out a tour as opposed to having a normal 9-5 in an industry I don’t enjoy. I’d be doing what I love to do, which is what musicians of a certain level in somewhere like Nashville can do. They can write, then perform — that structure is built.
Betten: Part of my frustration is that I tell people if they want to be a successful musician they have to tour like crazy. You’re better off doing that where you have cheaper rent and a support system. Don’t move to Nashville, LA, or NY if you want to be a successful musician because all of your money is going to go to rent. Why not stay put?
A lot of people would very much like to have a 9-5 and a home life, with that 9-5 being songwriting or producing. There are people who just want to be a studio musician or demo vocalist, but you can really only do that once songs have been written. I’m not ignoring other career paths, but it stems from there.
Kozain: Are you looking for all genres with WPMC?
Betten: Yes. The tracks I’ve had the most success with have been the ones that are the most unique. I want people to feel free to experiment and for this to be The Brill Building meets Bell Labs. We’re not giving people writing prompts, it’s a safe space for musicians to create without worrying about whether anybody likes a song or not. The hope is that eventually, with those types of guidelines, we’ll end up in a space where we’ll put an artist on payroll and worry about how we’re going to make money later. We have faith, with all creative endeavors, that an artist is going to write something incredible. Not everything is going to be a success, but you have to gravitate toward that one in a million chance.
Kozain: I have to hit this. You saw my alarm bells go off the first time we ever talked about WPMC.
Betten: Sure.
Kozain: If something does get licensed, are you modeling WPMC after ASCAP or BMI where you are splitting royalties or are you just contracting artists to write songs week-by-week, paycheck-to-paycheck?
Betten: Right now the work is the legal definition of a Work For Hire. I want to keep this as clean of a business transaction as as possible — I give you money, you write me a song. That being said, I’m open. I’ve already had other musicians negotiate other deals. My feeling is also that these contracts are statements about what an artist is going to do and what I’m going to do. I’m not locking anybody into anything, so if an artist gets placement in a Super Bowl commercial we have to renegotiate.
Kozain: Okay.
Betten: If a song made 10 million dollars, I’m not having a party because I made 10 million dollars.
Kozain: That is the worry though, especially in Pittsburgh where we don’t have anything. Like, this man, Jeff Betten, is coming in with this lovely publishing company and I get a lucrative sync and I am broke.
Betten: I would say that it’s an irrational fear because 0% of 0 is 0. I just ask that people have faith that we’re going to do this as a partnership. It’s not my intent to make a large profit off of somebody else, but we’re also imagining something that hasn’t happened yet, so bear with me up until the moment [something like that] happens and then we’ll deal with it. This [letter] is the first step — I just wanted to tell someone that I figured out the solution and I’m going to start working on it. Getting to the Super Bowl is years down the line.
Kozain: It is very punk to dive into something that you think is going to work on the creative side of things and however you get paid later is however the Hell that’s going to work.
Betten: I don’t have a business model. I just have a conviction and believe that this is going to work and be cool for the city. We’re not going to wait for approval, I’m just going to fucking go for it and worry about everything else down the line.
RJ Kozain makes Electronic Pop music under the moniker 2020k. They’ve performed for Pittsburgh Pride and the Carnegie Art Museum. They have recently ventured into the realm of installation art and serve on the board as vice president for The New Pittsburgh Exposition. @Twenty20k on Twitter and Instagram.
Jeff Betten runs Misra Records and Wild Kindness Records. He launched Hellbender Vinyl based in Lawrenceville, and is currently in the planning stages for a publishing company called WPMC. @JeffBetten on Twitter and Instagram.
Both Betten and Kozain have executive produced a Pittsburgh Supergroup album called Pittsubaagu No Yu (Side A), bringing together the who’s who of PGH music to create songs inspired by the 1928 painting of the same name by Hiroshi Yoshida. It will be released 4/12/24.
