Zeisler explains that his billing methods differ from those of "the big boys in L.A.," whose fees are commission-based, commanding up to 5 percent of their clients' gross income.
"We don't do it that way. We just bill on an hourly rate," he says. If the band sells "100 times" more records, he argues, doing the math "might take an hour longer."
The 33-year-old Zeisler claims another significant distinction from the big boys: Unlike many of his peers, he won't act as a financial adviser to his clients. He pays the band's debts and the members' personal bills, and he processes their royalty checks.
"I don't want to pull the trigger on investment decisions. Once their income is high enough -- a half million, $250,000 -- I'll set them up with a financial planner."
The decision to incorporate a band, Zeisler points out, is "not tax-motivated -- it's exposure-motivated." Lawsuits over ill-fated stage dives at concerts or car crashes, for instance, can strip a partnership of its assets, whereas an act that incorporates protects itself from such potential disasters. One of the pleasures of working with Green Day, Zeisler says, is that the band can hit the highway with just a couple of roadies, hiring production teams at each venue. The days of 18-wheeled juggernauts are largely a thing of the past, certain classic rock relics notwithstanding.
Addressing other concerns for big-name acts, Hearn points out that a band with Green Day's sure sense of self has to guard its image in the marketplace.
"Talk about perceptions of sellout," Hearn says. "This is an area where they can easily lose control over how they're perceived. Not just the image projected, but also the volume of things that go out there. And not just T-shirts and hats, but the coffee cups, pogo sticks, everything else. You could find yourself licensed to dozens of merchandisers for dozens of products, much more exposure than you ever intended." The challenge, he contends, is "maintaining control over who you are."
That control is crucial to the publishing side of a band's affairs, an aspect of the business traditionally pockmarked with pitfalls. Bands can set up their own publishing entities, but they then receive none of the administrative benefits a large firm can provide. Established houses will actively promote their performers' music for use by other artists, on soundtracks and in advertising. Groups that go it alone also forgo the often substantial advances publishing companies offer. (Advances, however, are very often wiped out in the blink of an eye, as creditors come calling and touring costs offset any headway made by a debut album.)
Many artists choose to enter co-publishing deals, as Green Day did. With any luck, a band with some weight to throw around can land a nice advance and still retain the right to veto certain usages of its material. For a Green Day, such a stipulation is imperative; as Cahn says, the trio is not the sort of group that wants to end up in "armpit deodorant commercials."
Of course, Green Day's handlers are well-aware of their good fortune to be working with a band with so much leverage. To a man, they don't claim any great genius in discovering or grooming the trio. In the wake of this phenomenal success, Cahn's company may now enjoy the benefit of rapidly returned phone calls, but that doesn't guarantee success for every project it takes on.
"You can't make people buy records," he concedes.
You can, however, put them in the stores and hope to move a few copies. Cahn and Saltzman are about to launch a new venture: their own label. Their start-up, 510 Records, has been named in a direct nod to Reprise's Klein, whose Bay Area-based 415 Records became a force in the music business during the early '80s. Despite this noteworthy display of back-scratching, when it came time to choose a distributor for his new label, Cahn went with MCA -- not Klein's company.
"That was difficult," he admits. "Although we have a really nice relationship [with Klein], there are times when I have to go to bat for my clients." 510 will debut in a month or so with a release by England's China Drum, to be followed by Bay Area ska-punks the Dance Hall Crashers and, later this summer, the soundtrack to Mall Rats, Kevin Smith's follow-up to the sleeper movie Clerks.
Given such a run of prosperity, Green Day's advisers would seem to have their finger on the pulse of the current pop culture bloodline.
"Maybe the finger is on us," jokes
Cahn.
