We had the good fortune of connecting with Daniel Grimmett and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Daniel, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
Growing up I always had entrepreneurial tendencies. I was definitely one of those kids who had a lemonade stand, tried to sell random arts and crafts to the neighbors, and put on little magic shows expecting to receive tips at the end if I did a good job. However, I am not the kind of entrepreneur who would never work for anyone else. I spent 6 years working corporate sales jobs which gave me the foundational skills to build my own business and I enjoyed most of those companies that I worked for. Starting my own business was a necessity. There weren’t many traditional job positions for what I do in the music industry. I like the idea that whether I succeed or fail… It’s 100% my responsibility.

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
Dark Label Music is a consulting practice and business development company that teams up with working music professionals (producers, engineers, songwriters) and helps them expand their business and reputation using the internet. It’s no secret that the music industry is moving more and more into the internet-influencer space. In addition to the the typical revenue streams for music professionals like production fees and royalties there is now a treasure chest of ancillary income streams like ad revenue, sponsorships, educational services, and digital products (sample packs, plugins, etc). There are really two sides to what we do here at Dark Label. On one side, we help emerging music producers grow their client base and earn higher production fees so that they can make the transition to doing music full-time and start to establish a reputation in the industry. The second side is working with already established, industry-veteran producers to explore new ways that they can monetize their skills, knowledge, and experience in the internet-driven music industry as most of them did not ‘come up’ in this era.

Launching Dark Label Music was a natural progression for me. As much as I would love to tell you that I had this ‘big master plan’… That just wasn’t the case. My introduction to actually making great money in the music industry was when I started moving my music production company online back in 2012. It went from a small songwriting studio in Hollywood to an international business with hundreds of clients all over the world ranging from artists and labels to YouTube talent and Fortune 500 brands. Naturally, other producers started to ask how to do what I was doing and thus Dark Label was born (2018).

The issue right now is that although traditional audio education can do a great job at teaching music creators how to make music, they are mostly unable to teach them how to actually make a living with it. On the flip side, there are many business courses online for music producers but they are generally one sided… A single person simply teaching what worked for them. So I saw a huge gap in the market that needed to be filled. There needed to be a more dynamic and hands-on process for helping talented music creators monetize what they do while maintaining their reputation and integrity.

Our biggest challenge so far is that we don’t really have a solid roadmap to follow based on anyone that came before us. There are pros to being one of the first in the market and there are cons. However, this is also what has made this business a fun and exciting experience.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I would like to dedicate this to my first music industry mentor Chris Garges of Old House Studios in Charlotte, NC who recently passed away from cancer on 2/22/22

Website: www.darklabelmusic.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/darklabelmusic/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCw0ok0TVDHCln5T2VQuf_ZQ

Image Credits
Daniel Clark Cunningham

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