The harsh reality is that few record companies, among the major labels anyway, have either the time, money or interest to nurture an act for four years, as Blue did with Linkin Park before the band became a platinum-selling smash.
Grierson, Blue and their colleagues Kenny Kerner and Barry Squier are hoping to equip a younger generation with the skills they'll need to succeed in a more demanding professional climate. Instead of partnering singers, instrumentalists or composers with producers, they might pair them up with a music supervisor working on a popular television series or a video game franchise, media that have become great ways to break artists.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Tuesday, January 06, 2009 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 40 words Type of Material: Correction
Musicians Institute: An article in Monday's Calendar about the Musicians Institute in Hollywood identified Kenny Kerner as head of the school's artists and repertoire staff. He is director of the Music Business Program, of which A&R instruction is one component.
By adapting bedrock A&R principles to a new media landscape, they're mining rock history to shape the future.
Kerner just might be the perfect person to oversee a school of rock. This beefy, no-nonsense industry veteran with an old-school East Coast accent spent nearly 40 years in the music business -- in the 1970s, he discovered now-legendary band KISS. He heads up MI's A&R staff, working with Grierson, Blue and ex-Columbia and Geffen executive Squier.
Instruction goes beyond textbook theory, or even the real-life examples Kerner, Grierson, Squier and Blue are always ready to supply. Students are assigned to set up virtual record companies. They have to find a band they would like to sign (some use fellow MI instrumental or vocal music students; others recruit them from local clubs or the Internet), make a recording and then promote, market and publicize it.
Matthew Williams, a 25-year-old heavy-metal singer who moved with his guitarist brother, Jason, from Minneapolis to Los Angeles a couple of years ago, didn't have to look far to find a project. Both enrolled at MI to hone their chops, and after a few quarters in the school's guitar program, the brothers' aspiring metal group landed a song in a movie that's due to be released next spring.
Matthew Williams decided he needed to know more about the industry, so he signed up for the two-quarter music business program, in which students earn a certificate after 30 units of course work. It can be combined with one of the instrument or voice courses for an associate's degree or taken independently. At any one time, 100 to 150 students are enrolled in the program.
Williams said that Grierson's A&R class and Squier's guest lecturer series opened his eyes to realities that have been valuable in helping him navigate the initial steps in his career.
