Founder
Green Tea Distribution
Years with Company: 1
Address: Los Angeles, CA
Web: greenteadistro.com
Email: info@greenteadistro.com
Clients: THEY, ZHU, Gallant, Mindchatter
BACKGROUND
Green Tea Distribution is about much more than just getting music into the hands of listeners—it’s a new service that helps guide the careers of young artists for a low monthly fee. The company is a partnership with David Dann’s Mind of a Genius Records, which specializes in hip-hop, R&B, and electronica.
Spilling the Tea
Green Tea was started by Barry [Rosenblum] and Joni [Myllari], who had been running a studio here in Santa Monica for the last eight or nine years. Eventually, they took it from a studio rental to more of a community-based thing that lived online. And Green Tea Studios was the brand they built that around.
Then they started doing events. They had me come to one called Night On The Aux, where their members play music in front of each other and the panelists give them critical A&R feedback. I was immediately shocked at the amount of talent inside that room. It was this beautiful moment of being with artists that I had never experienced. And I was already trying to find something to add to the record label portfolio I had been building since 2014, because I was growing tired of that side of the business.
So when I met Barry and Joni, I told them, “Let’s get together in the morning. I have this idea.” Green Tea Distribution was the idea to build alongside what they had already built.
Opening the Funnel
Originally, GTD was going to be a funnel into Mind of a Genius—we were just going to do a joint venture, and they were going to have all their artists put out their music through us. As we kept building the product, it changed and changed until it became a subscription service. There had been [online artist development] subscriptions available before, but we tried to add things we felt artists needed.
Physical Versus Digital Distribution
We don’t do physical unless there’s a need for it. We’ve had some artists ask about it, and we’ve linked them with people that I’ve used for small runs. Digital distribution is kind of the meat of the business. It’s the least exciting part. It’s more about all the other services.
For Serious Artists
We’re looking for people on the same wavelength as we are. [We want] hard-working artists that want to better their craft. If you’re a hobbyist, that’s fine, but [we’re for] people that want to take that next step in their careers. We’re trying to attract people who have that same level of thought and need.
Helpful Feedback
We have a private chat that you get a link to when you sign up. And in that chat, you can upload a song a week. You can ask for any sort of feedback on your music. It can be like, “I just did this demo. How do you guys think I should move forward with it?” Or, “What do you think about the writing?” “What do you think about the mix?” Any sort of feedback that one would want from a professional, you can ask. One of the A&Rs from Mind of a Genius will respond within a day or two. And then you can go back and forth with that A&R person until the song is finished. You can do a new song every week; it doesn’t have to be the same song. You can also ask any marketing and branding questions in the chat. It’s like a day-to-day care manager for your career.
Pitching for Sync and Playlists
There’s a form to fill out that asks a bunch of questions, all the things that labels typically need before they pitch their artists. The sync thing is a little longer, because it asks for things like publishing information and other things that sync agents need. And then those songs go into a library. Any time there’s a brief sent from a sync agent, our agents have your music available.
Social Media
We’re always trying to give people ideas on how to make their socials better and more performative. We’re giving them all that information through our educational workshops. We also have a content-creator pitching tool. If you have a song that you think is strong and want to get it in front of content creators, you upload your music, the link to your bio, any marketing materials, and then a budget. And then we have a content creator guy who reaches out to his network and says, “I have this song from Green Tea, and they have a budget of $1,000. What can you guys do for this budget?” And we’ll take that information and give it back to the artist.
Funding Creators
Say your song is making from $500 to $1,000 a month and you’re like this thing is starting to move. Can you guys jump in and help me shoot a music video? Or put some money into promotion? We’ll give you funding against your income. It’s something to get your fire going so you can put as much gas as possible on it while it’s hot.
Artist Vibes
We have a bunch of different events. We have Night On The Aux. We have an event called The Tea Room, where our artists perform as part of a festival. We also have an event for artists in L.A. It’s small performances, drinks, and an opportunity for artists to meet and talk about what they’re doing. The whole thing is to encourage collaboration.
Subscription Plans
We have an entry level [plan] that’s pretty basic. It gives people access to certain features but none of the real meat and potatoes. It’s kind of a way to get your feet wet with us. The artist plan includes all the services—the free events, the A&R feedback, all the pitching services. And the third one, which is the white glove, that’s a lot more hands-on, like private workshops with the Mind of a Genius team every week, to really uncover what you’re doing with your strategy, plans and marketing.
Success Stories
We have an artist named Jalen Chords. He was probably at 4,000 or 5,000 monthlies, and then he put out a song through us that got a bunch of editorial. We also kind of coached him through his TikTok. I think the song “Good Denim” now has over three million plays and over half a million shares on TikTok. We have another group, Audrum, based out of Europe. They’ve had similar success with the album they put out through us. With our help in the A&R side and pitching side, we were able to get them to the next stage.
Artist Advice
Do as many collaborations as possible to cross-pollinate audiences. I’m really big on that, especially with how the algorithms work. And then, focus on making strong, replay-able singles. You’ve got to have that in your catalog to get people cooking on your stuff. Focus less on the storytelling of an album and more on the fishhooks.
When Starting Out, Focus on Songs, Not Albums
Albums only matter once you have a true, built-in audience that is there for it. Otherwise, it doesn’t make any sense. It’s hard to get people to listen to a full 40-minute project. I don’t recommend that people put out albums until their audience is really hungry.
