From novels to record labels: Interview with tiffanie DeBartolo
Tiffanie DeBartolo is an author and the co-founder/Chief Executive Super Goddess at Bright Antenna, an independent record label that has signed artists such as Wilderado, Fana Hues, and PREP.
Before starting Bright Antenna, Tiffanie was an author publishing novels such as God Shaped Hole and How to Kill a Rock Star. A fateful conversation with a friend sparked the idea for the label, leading to its launch in 2007. Over time, she’s found the space to continue writing while growing the label and its bands. Her most recent novel, Sorrow, is one of my favorite books I’ve read in recent memory!
I learned so much from Tiffanie about what it means to live a life dedicated to making meaning and finding the courage to go after what we want. I spoke to her about:
Starting a record label “5 minutes before people stopped buying records”
Her evolution as an entrepreneur
Mustering courage in scary moments
Finding the space to write again
Her wisdom for releasing work into the world
The impact Bono and U2 have had on her work and life
Note: The following interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length. While every effort has been made to preserve the integrity of the conversation, please be aware that the quotes may not be verbatim but reflect the essence of the dialogue.
What are you up to in life right now?
I am about to really dive into writing a new book. I don’t know what it’s about yet. I have an idea and I’ve met the characters. They are marinating inside of me. It will take place in Wyoming, which I’m excited about. Work at Bright Antenna is super busy. We’ve got some bands right now that are thriving. We’re also introducing some new artists to the world who I’m excited about.
The third piece of my life, which has been really important to me over the past 4-5 years, is the spiritual journey I’ve been on where I’ve been working with a lot of plant medicine. I’ve been having huge, monumental insights and wisdom about who I am and why I am the way that I am. I’ve been really growing and evolving from that. Those three things plus my new puppy (who is 4 months old and already 50 pounds) are what I’m up to.
You were a full-time writer for almost a decade before starting Bright Antenna. What was the impulse for starting the label?
Good question. My husband and I started it together. We joke that we basically started the label 5 minutes before people stopped buying records. It was super challenging at first. It came about because we are super passionate music fans. I grew up in this small town where there was nothing to do. I spent my entire childhood reading books and listening to music so those two things became my biggest passions in life.
One night we were sitting around with another friend of ours, who was an original partner in Bright Antenna, complaining about how crappy some of the music on the radio was. This friend of ours, who was a music producer, said: “You know what we should do. We should start our own label!” I said, “Yea! You put a business plan together and let’s do it!” I thought it would be this side project and hobby. We were so naive. My idea was we’ll find a good band or a good song, take it to the radio, they’ll see how great it is and play it, and then everything will be a success. Wrong!
It was so naive. The first couple of years were just throwaways because we didn’t know what we were doing. We ended up bringing on another partner who had a lot of experience in the music business who was like, “What are you guys doing? Let me explain some things to you.” We’ve been growing incrementally ever since. It really still is a passion project. We have 8 employees and we all have to really love the music.
We learned the hard way that you can’t just sign a band or an artist because you love their music. You need to get to know them a little bit and make sure they are kind people that you want to work that hard for and spend that much time with. There are times we’ve made the mistake where we’ve loved the person’s music but then found out that they weren’t open to input or collaboration, and it got really hard.
It’s super rewarding even though it’s hard work. You have these moments. I’m thinking of a memory of a band we work with called Wilderado. We first saw them on a tip from someone who told us they weren’t signed and that we should go see them. There were 7 people at their show. Last summer they played Red Rocks and there were 8,000 people singing every word to every song. Their families came from Oklahoma and all of Bright Antenna went to the show. We just cried our eyes out because we were so proud of them. Those moments keep us going.
What kept you going in those first couple of years when a lot of people might have thrown in the towel and walked away?
Honestly, it was the relationships we were making with the artists. They trusted us. One of the first bands we signed was a band from Sacramento called Middle Class Rut. They are no longer together but they were this loud, almost punk rock band and were so talented. They made so much melodic noise and you’d wonder how it could come from only two guys. But when we signed them, we had never signed a band for a multi-album deal and they trusted us. We felt this responsibility to them. Anytime we said, “This is too hard or people suck,” we’d say, “We owe it to these guys and these bands that are trusting us with their careers.” That really was what kept us going. It was wanting these people to be able to pay their rent. That really is the problem in the music industry right now. Unless you are streaming a billion streams or selling out Madison Square Garden it’s hard to make a living doing this now. I lose a lot of sleep wondering how my artists are going to be able to make a living, provide for their families, and have decent lives.
I have to ask. Your official title is “Chief Executive Super Goddess.” How did that come about?
I mean, I just got to make up my own title. My husband said, “You’re the CEO.” I just thought that CEO was so boring and I wanted to put a feminine spin on it. There aren’t a lot of women in the upper echelon of the music industry. I wanted to remind people. I’ve gone into so many meetings where people don’t know I’m the CEO. They just think they are meeting with Bright Antenna and I walk in with my two partners, who are male, and people will refer to me as the secretary. I sit there laughing until someone later tells them that I am not the secretary.
You started the label in 2007. It’s been a while! What have some of your biggest shifts as an entrepreneur been?
That’s a hard question for me to answer because I am, admittedly, a terrible businesswoman. I can’t read an excel spreadsheet to save my life. I don’t want to look at budgets. I don’t do any of that. I am the visionary person and the creative person. My husband is the one who will come to me and be like, “While I know you approved this video budget but…” and I’ll say “No! They need it.” So I’ve learned nothing in that respect. I’m just not good at that. That’s not my gift to this company at all. There has to be someone who is reasonable about understanding that you are running a business. I have a really hard time disconnecting emotionally from the work I do, so it’s impossible to look at numbers and make decisions that way. I just can’t do it! The excel thing is a real problem. Tour managers will send tour budgets and I’ll look at it and say,“This might as well be in another language.” My brain just shuts down when I see numbers and columns.
In an interview with ReadMoreCO you said, “All of the important decisions I’ve ever made have hinged on that feeling, of being scared — of failure, of disappointment, of being wrong or ridiculed or not good enough — and nevertheless listening to my gut and mustering the courage to do it anyway.” What helps you muster the courage in those moments?
Honestly, in a way it’s fear. It’s a fear of not having a meaningful life. That’s what drives me because I was raised in an environment where everything was dangerous and everything was scary. I had to work so hard to break out of that, but I’m really conscious of it. Even down to when I was younger and would like a boy. I’d think, “He’s not going to ask me out so I just have to muster the courage.” I had to stalk my husband for five years before I could talk him into going on a date with me. It was always about, “If that’s what you want. You just gotta keep going.” The fear of regret is way bigger to me than the fear of failing.
It worked out with your husband! What’s the rest of the story?
It’s a great story because growing up I never thought I’d get married. I wanted to be like a modern-day Anais Nin. I was going to move to Paris, and be a writer, and have lots of lovers, and that was going to be my life. Then the first day of junior year of college, I was sitting in an acting class, and in walked this guy. I literally heard a voice in my head say, “You’re gonna marry that guy.” It took me five years to convince him to go on a date with me. He had a girlfriend when we first met so that got in the way. Then he moved to Boulder to go to grad school and I moved to LA after I graduated for a job, and I just kept tabs on him. A couple years later he sent me an email and said, “Hey, how are you? I just broke up with my girlfriend.” So I wrote him back and said, “Can we finally go out on a date?” He said, “You live in LA and I live in Boulder. How is that going to work?” I said, “Pick a weekend. I’ll fly there and let’s see what happens.” He said okay and I flew to Boulder for a date, which was 28 years ago today. We had a three day long date and the rest is history.
What a great story! I know we’ve been talking about Bright Antenna but I also want to talk about your writing. I read that you didn't write for 7 or 8 years as the label was getting going. What led you to start writing again? What did you feel was missing without it?
My soul was begging me to do more. I wanted to and I just couldn’t figure out how to balance it all. Trying to get a company off the ground is a lot of work. I really had to teach myself how to switch brains because I didn’t know how to do that at first. Once I did, I got to a point in 2015 where I said, “I have to start writing.” I would get up at 5:00 every morning and would write for 4-5 hours before I went to work. It worked for me. By the time I got the book to a place where I really knew who the characters were and felt comfortable in a flow, I was able to switch back and forth at work during the day. When emails were quiet, I could get back to a chapter. It was a process, and I’m glad that I worked through it because I really missed writing. I will also say that part of it is inspiration. I got really inspired by music. I was out on a hike one day listening to an album by The National (my second favorite band of all time). I’d listened to this record hundreds of times but on this particular day, this one song conjured up this whole scene in my head and that was the start of the book. I went home and wrote this scene that ends up coming later in the book. It’s a scene in Sorrow where everything explodes at the Greek Theater. That was the first scene of the book that I wrote. I had to ask,“What is this all about? What led to this? Is this the beginning?” I didn’t know but that was how Sorrow began.
I’m fascinated by the phrase, “I’ve met the characters.” What’s that process like?
I find that they become so real to me. Sometimes I write about characters that are inspired by real people that I know, but they always become completely original when I fictionalize them. After my second book came out, I was riding the subway and there was this guy sitting across from me. I thought, “How do I know that guy? He looks so familiar.” I’m running through my head and then I realized that he looked exactly like a character in a book that I had just finished.
When you are writing you get so connected to it and the characters become so real. When I finish a book, I miss them so much. I get depressed for a few weeks because I’ve spent two or three years with these people every day, and then they are gone.
It’s hard for me to believe that people who write aren’t writing because they are searching for answers. It’s a process of trying to discover who you are. Even if you are writing fiction, I am constantly inspired by questions I have about life, about my own life, about how to be a human. That’s what drives me to write.
I work with clients who are often in the process of building something for the first time or sharing work publicly for the first time. You’ve done that a lot yourself and work with a lot of artists that are starting to release music. What advice do you have for people who are on the precipice of sharing something but feeling afraid?
The way I always write is that I pretend that no one is ever going to see it. I don’t want to be influenced by what I think people might think or feel about the work. I start from the place of, “Write whatever you want. Say whatever you want because no one is going to see it.” Then it just becomes this jumping off of a cliff. You just have to stand by your work. When I work with young artists that haven’t had a lot of experience putting things out into the world, I see them get self conscious about what other people are going to think. I always caution them not to worry about if it’s cool or if people will like it, just care about: Are you saying what you want to say? Does it mean something to you? Do you feel connected to this work? Don’t sacrifice yourself for likes and streams.
How do you talk to your artists about social media? I imagine there is a push-pull between making art for art’s sake and getting that work recognized.
It’s funny because as the head of a label, I can actually see the statistics about content and social media and how it positively affects the artists’ careers. I am always lecturing them about doing more. We have a digital marketing person constantly making marketing plans for our artists. We’ve worked with some artists that are super resistant and it shows in their careers. The flip side of that is I’m terrible about doing it for myself. When Sorrow came out, my husband was on my case all the time saying, “You need to post more, you need to talk about the book, you need to do an instagram live.” I’d say, “I can’t. I don’t want to!” and his response would be, “You are as bad as our artists!” I can market anybody that I love, but I’m really bad at asking people to read my books.
You do a lot of philanthropic work and have said that Bono has been a huge inspiration for you in this area. What inspiration have you taken from him?
I saw U2 for the first time when I was in eighth grade, and they have been my favorite band for over 40 years. The music of U2 has had such a huge impact on who I became as a person. I’d seen concerts before, but when I saw U2 it was like a spiritual awakening. I was in the 4th row and I remember them playing “Bad,” which is still my all-time favorite song. Bono was singing in a way where I could see him feeling every word and suffering through it and feeling the joy and the pain. It was all happening at that moment. I remember leaving the arena that night thinking, “I’m never going to be the same. I am a different person now.” That just raised the bar for me, not only in music but in how I want to experience life. I want to feel things the way that person was feeling things.
When I was in seventh grade, we had an assignment to make a poetry book and my entire poetry book was about apartheid. My English teacher sent it home with a note to my parents saying, “I’m giving her an A because it’s really good, but she’s too young to be thinking about this.” What a terrible thing to tell a seventh grader who’s caring about the world! But U2 really did open my eyes to so many things about injustice and love. They taught me so much about how big love can be and how powerful love can be. Even now, every time I go see a U2 concert, I feel that feeling again and it reminds me. I’ve traveled all over the world to see them. The last time was in Japan. I was at the airport and I looked at my husband and said, “Is this ridiculous going to Japan to see U2?” But once I got to the show I thought, “Thank god I’m here!” Their shows always remind me about what it means to be a human and how to be a better human.
You and your husband founded the Shinemaker Foundation which supports lots of the themes we are talking about. Can you talk more about starting that and the impact it’s had on your life?
My husband and I started that when we said, “Well, we’re never going to have kids so we don’t have to save money for anybody. What can we do to make the world a better place? How can we do that?” We established the foundation and we have a partner who runs it for us. He cares about the things we care about. It’s a very small way to try and contribute to making the world better humans, for animals, and the planet.
What’s next for you?
Hopefully the next chapter for my music career is more success for the bands I work with. I see all of my artists growing in really great ways. I’m hoping to get really deep into this new book. By early next year, I think I’ll be really deep in it.
