NCEC in the News!
John Epstein: Hard Rock Entrepreneur
Written and researched by Michelle Lampley
When Jon Epstein asked his professor, David Purpel, for his help in pursuing sociology in graduate school, Purpel agreed on the condition that Epstein would never stop making music because it was obviously his passion. Epstein has since surrounded his work with music. Jon Epstein maintains his musical status as the bass player and producer for the band Last Stone Cast as well as guitarist, bassist, keyboardist, and programmer for Haymarket Riot. On top of this, having obtained his PhD in social theory from Kent State University, he maintains a scholarly career as a Visiting Professor of Sociology at UNC Greensboro. “What I do is outside of the mainstream. Reactions tend to be extreme. To me it’s perfectly coherent, and at the end of the day I know who I am and what I’m doing and fans e-mail me letting me know it’s worth it.” While on the surface it may appear as though his two career paths, a professor and hard rock musician, have little in common, Jon Epstein sees his knowledge of social theory as a tremendous asset when marketing music to the public. Epstein sees his bands as appealing to a “niche market” rather than the mass market, top-forties audience. He uses his knowledge of a niche market within the framework of social theory to find innovative ways of marketing his bands to the public to appeal to each person individually.
In 1984 Epstein, Sam Seawell, Keith Barbieri, and Susan Christopher became the first band members to form Haymarket Riot. Vocalist Susan Christopher and bassist Keith Barbieri left the band in 1988. Later that same year Charlotte Whitted became the band’s main vocalist. In 1989 the band decided to disperse to follow new career paths. It was during this period that Epstein went to Ohio to pursue his PhD in social theory. In 1995 Epstein was offered a position as a faculty member at Wake Forest University. Upon his return, Epstein and Sam Seawell dared to recreate Haymarket Riot by adding their music to film created by Patrick Lichty. They have created two music videos, "Machine" and "Machine II", which are praised in many scholarly communities for their representations of social theory.
In 2001, while living in Ohio, Epstein began to look for a new project to embark on, one local to Ohio. He began answering ads looking for bassists since he decided he could better market himself as a bassist than a guitarist: “I decided to switch from guitar to bass as my primary instrument, mostly because everyone is a guitar player, and bassists are always at a premium.” Through answering ads he found guitarist Angelo Incorvia, and they formed the band Fast Chester. Fast Chester gained a large amount of international fame, and the band played with such well-reputed hard rock bands as Anthrax and The Darkness. The magazine Brave Words and Bloody Knuckles wrote that Fast Chester had “an encyclopedic knowledge of classic heaviness.” In 2007, however, Epstein found himself and guitarist Incorvia moving in different musical directions, and Epstein chose to break away from the band.
After leaving Fast Chester, Epstein began putting together a new hard rock band with his friend and drummer Josh Lipply. The two joined with guitarist and vocalist Scott McConnell in 2007 to form Epstein’s latest project, Last Stone Cast. Since 2007, Bill Morrison has become the present drummer for Last Stone Cast, and the band is working on their first album, Life Construed, which is set to release between late 2008 or the spring of 2009.
When asked why he got into music as a business rather than just pursuing it as a hobby, Jon Epstein replies, “It’s simple. I didn’t want to have to pay for it.” Epstein felt there was a way to make his musical endeavors self-supportive. He found his inspiration for his musical pursuits and guidance in how they’re achieved in the band Rush. Rush comes out of Toronto, and Epstein claims, “They’re like the biggest cult band in the world.” He sees them as an example because they never grab public attention from embarrassment and because they are always giving back to their community. He admires that “They can be musicians but they can also be middle class guys.” Another band that has inspired Epstein, particularly in a business way, is the British rock group Marillion. “Their business model is revolutionary.” After becoming one of Europe’s top selling bands, members of Marillion noticed a large amount of their money was being lost in production and distribution. So the band brought everything “in house.” They hired a full time producer who is paid on salary. Everyone involved in their music, along with the musicians themselves, is paid on salary. The band has been recording this way for nearly twenty years, and they have an extensive online fan base. Epstein is inspired by their business strategy and uses it as a model.
When it comes to marketing, Epstein sees that “People make the mistake of thinking that what the product is considered is actually important. Whatever is going to resonate with the people is what’s important.” Epstein feels that Last Stone Cast allows their band to be called “southern rock” because “it’s what people were hearing in the music.” In order to better market themselves within a niche audience, Last Stone Cast finds its audience and targets them and the media around them. To publicize his bands, Epstein has used the public networking system of Myspace. By utilizing Myspace his bands are able to express their values without a fee. “You have to take risks.” And like many other entrepreneurs, Epstein believes “You have to be willing to lose before you gain.” Epstein worked to promote Last Stone Cast for a year before a record company even noticed them. And even after signing with a record company, Last Stone Cast works to maintain their own self-sufficiency and position in the music industry. “A record contract is just more help,” he says, “you can’t just stop working.”
Epstein is the sole producer for Last Stone Cast, which means he coordinates their music when they record. Not only does he direct the music when recording, he manages the whole recording process and directs the musicians as to their roles in the process. He believes there’s no reason to pay someone else when he can do it. After all, he knows best what their music is supposed to sound like. To produce a good track, Epstein pays close attention to the sound of every song “second by second.” The members of Last Stone Cast feel a duty when recording an album to make their recorded songs sound as much like their live sound as possible. They never record anything they cannot reproduce themselves at a show.
The members of Last Stone Cast have found that as musicians they carry a responsibility to society. They’ve “always been concerned with justice.” Epstein and fellow band members see anger, suicide, and homicide occurring in the current youth and ask, “What is going on with these guys?” Last Stone Cast attempts to speak to this generation in a language its members understand. Epstein feels, however, that his goal in Last Stone Cast is to make sure they remain self supporting. “Having the band be financially solvent is what’s important. We are interested in justice and social issues. We do our part for Rush Aids, Animal Rescue, Rock the Vote, but the band isn’t a soap box.” Beyond business or social issues, Epstein places the value of the band in what they love to do most. “Really it’s about continuing to make music.” He also believes in the community of music and honoring his band mates as individuals, since “loyalty and commitment mean a lot to me.”
Jon Epstein currently sees corruption in the music business in which, unless you’re a known musician, you may end up paying venues just to play your music. “Why are we paying you so you can make money off of us?” Epstein sees this as bad business; “We’re the musicians, you (the vendor) promote, you sell tickets and make people want to come to your bar.” Epstein also takes a firm stance against paying to gain popularity with certain venues, believing that “In order for a music scene to thrive it has to be organic.” “It takes a lot of practice to make the music look easy. We know these songs inside out.” Epstein’s bands practice their music zealously, and they take pride in knowing that when they headline a show they’ve “ended up getting that spot the way you’re supposed to.”
Aside from producing and playing bass, Jon Epstein also does all of the artwork, graphic design, and marketing for Last Stone Cast. As the graphic designer for the band he has stretched his abilities into new mediums by doing work for sociology book covers. He proposes that “Postmodern society relates through something visual.” This can be seen not only through Epstein’s ideas of marketing but also through the ideas behind the music video projects of Haymarket Riot. Haymarket Riot feels it necessary to make visual representations of the messages they are translating. Epstein quotes Elvis Costello as Haymarket Riot’s reason for using music and film as their medium, “Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.” Eventually their first short video, “Machine,” “started clicking with cultural studies” and became known as “the first truly postmodern theoretical text.” The band had, however, taken most of their images from copyrighted material. So while it was praised as being very “visceral,” Haymarket Riot was unable to make any commercial profit off of it. Their upcoming “Machine III” is intended to use images that will have an impact while allowing them to profit from the video’s creation.
Epstein’s education has been a very valuable business asset that has benefited his musical endeavors. He connects his music closely to the social theory he learned in graduate school. Sociology taught him the concepts of demography and marketing so that he now understands semiotics and how to figure out who is in a market, which is essential for the wide distribution of his music. His research in sociology allowed him to understand a niche market and gave him a direction of how to approach marketing. “The thing I see lacking in young kids is that they have a really good head in music engineering or business, but not both. They talk two different languages. Music is a business program; it’s not just about making a good record.” Epstein feels that a band not only needs to make good music but also to keep an eye out for marketing trends and to try to know “what’s coming next.” He examined how he did this when three years ago the hard rock band The Darkness became famous. He says he knew “hard rock was going to come back,” and he found innovative new ways to approach and market his music.
Along with releasing their first album, Life Construed, Last Stone Cast is currently in the process of a discussion with the band Lynard Skynard about touring with them in the winter. Epstein assures, “we’re not doing it for free.” Haymarket Riot is also in the process of a new release, their third music video, “Machine III.” In between marketing, producing, and playing the music for both of these groups Jon Epstein still finds time to fulfill his duties as a Visiting Professor of Sociology at UNC Greensboro. And like all of his endeavors, musical or scholarly, he maintains an ability to “do it well.”
This case study was conducted in November 2008 by Michelle Lampley, a Film and Television Studies major in the Media Studies Department.
These case studies were compiled and archived as part of the former BELL (Building Entrepreneuruial Learning for Life) Program's Entrepreneurial Innovation in the Arts (EIA) initiative to provide a library of examples of how artists in many different fields have achieved success. The cases were researched and written by UNCG students.