Soundstripe Sessions

Tai Anderson is a founding member and bassist of Third Day, where he also ran the business side of the band, and the author of Market Like a Rock Star. He and Jeff cover the band’s 30th anniversary reunion tour, turning customers into fans, why spillover beats crossover, VIP ticketing and moments of delight, handling complaints, and AI in music.

Jon Steingard is a director and cinematographer who runs Steingard Creative and spent 16 years in Hawk Nelson, first on guitar and later as lead singer. He and Jeff cover what studying great frontmen taught him, learning cinematography on set, why he edits audio first, using AI to pre-build shoots, and the viral song that launched his touring career in China.

Robyn Davis builds exhibitor training programs for trade show organizers like SHOT Show and IMTS, and her new book, Exhibit Smarter, is a step-by-step guide for exhibitors. She and Jeff cover eight-week pre-show marketing, why bought attendee lists are a scam, booth design and activations, budgeting beyond booth space, and post-show follow-up.

Jelena Grozdanich runs sync at Soundstripe, placing independent artists in film, TV, advertising, and video games after a decade of work at Columbia and Sony. She and Jeff cover how a supervisor's brief becomes a placement, the sounds trending in briefs right now, what makes a song work for sync, Soundstripe's sync camps, and her advice for artists.

Josh Rabinowitz spent 14 years running the music department at Grey Advertising, choosing music for the NFL, Volvo, and Gillette, and was the first to preside over the music jury at Cannes Lions. He and Jeff cover the importance of music in advertising, clearing rights with estates and songwriters, the ethics of AI music, and why influencer content still needs licensed music.

Cody Martin has been writing cinematic music for Soundstripe since 2016, out of a home studio he paid for with two years of water damage restoration work. He and Jeff cover skipping music theory, building convincing orchestras out of virtual instruments, the composers behind his sound, and writing for a licensing catalog versus scoring to picture.

Jim Cook is a producer, director, and co-owner of CookHouse Media, a Nashville production company whose work includes campaigns for Qualcomm and Adobe. He and Jeff cover his punk band days in San Diego, 14 years selling cars up to GM at a Mazda dealership, the importance of music in video, and why weddings train better filmmakers.

Walker Beard is the CEO of Super Canoe, an Atlanta production company, and was head of business and legal affairs for Netflix's experiences team behind the Stranger Things Experience. He and Jeff cover playing in the District Attorneys in law school, why venues lose money on a packed calendar, Netflix House, and his upcoming docu-series about developing bands and the scenes they come from.

Teddy Cheek is VP of retail operations at Great Big Game Show, from the team behind The Escape Game, where he led marketing for close to a decade as it grew to 60 locations. He and Jeff cover his years in a Nashville boy band, artist marketing at Crowdsurf, how games get built at the Adventure Factory, the pivot to virtual escape rooms during COVID, and why he'd trade budget for NPS points.

Rebecca Rechtszaid is a Harvard Law grad who was senior director of business and legal affairs at Global Music Rights and lead counsel for creator programs at Meta before founding Rechtszaid Law in Los Angeles. She and Jeff cover why music licensing is so tangled, exclusivity and perpetual usage traps in brand deals, IP disputes between creators, and free legal help for artists.

Jennifer Pyken is an Emmy nominated music supervisor who won a Guild of Music Supervisors Award for This Is Us, with credits including Happy Gilmore, Felicity, and Workaholics. She and Jeff cover learning the job as a coordinator on Pulp Fiction, commissioning an original song for Hallmark's The Way Home, why clearance shapes what makes the cut, and the course she teaches aspiring supervisors.

Joe Koufman is the founder and CEO of Setup, an Atlanta marketing matchmaking firm that has made over 1,400 introductions between brands like Coca-Cola and Chick-fil-A and the agencies that serve them. He and Jeff cover his retail management years, why networking is the wrong word for what he does, replacing the four-month agency RFP with a one-week match, and his book The Connector's Compass.

Steak Shapiro has been a fixture in Atlanta sports radio for 30 years, including 17 as owner of 790 The Zone, and he now runs the content agency Bread & Butter. He and Jeff cover mailing cassette tapes to 14 program directors, writing the business plan that got him a station, building Atlanta Eats, and why the 30-second commercial is finished.

JR McNeely is Soundstripe's senior mix engineer, a Grammy winner who has mixed more than 300 albums over three decades for artists like Underoath, Relient K, TobyMac, and DC Talk. He and Jeff cover his path from studio janitor to chief engineer, his art-over-science approach to mixing, working with Soundstripe composers, and his one-man band YouTube channel where he plays every instrument himself.

Thomas Golubic is an Emmy and Grammy nominated music supervisor behind Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, Six Feet Under, and Apple TV's Silo and Pluribus. He and Jeff cover his path from journalism into music supervision, collaborating with Vince Gilligan, why he presents multiple song options instead of advocating for one, and what makes a strong music brief.

Aaron Sprinkle is a senior staff composer at Soundstripe and a longtime record producer who produced MXPX's debut album as a teenager and later worked with Anberlin, Pedro the Lion, Copeland, and more. He and Jeff cover his self-taught start on Vashon Island, producing the mid-2000s emo scene, writing under a dozen monikers for Soundstripe's catalog, and why he calls himself anti-AI.

Matt McCabe is the creative director at Visit Big Bear, the destination marketing organization for Big Bear Lake, California, where he grew up and built his career. He and Jeff cover Big Bear's storytelling approach, the viral bald eagle webcam, adapting cinematic footage for social media, scoring projects with original Soundstripe music, and an upcoming documentary.

Ali Rogers is a filmmaker and visual storyteller behind PranaLens, known for cinematic work with 29029 Everesting, endurance athlete Colin O'Brady, and the Rich Roll podcast. She and Jeff cover learning the craft through weddings, capturing raw moments of struggle and triumph, scoring by feel, and finding the human thread in every story.

Paul Carpenter, founder of the Atlanta creative agency Plural and president of AMA Atlanta, has spent nearly 30 years in marketing. He and Jeff cover the evolution of agencies, why curiosity beats optimization, AI's impact on video and music, the neuroscience of storytelling, and the resurgence of indie shops.

Daisha McBride, the Nashville rapper known as The Rap Girl, turned a high school nickname into a career spanning freestyles with hundreds of millions of views, a Queen Collective documentary, and the BET Awards stage. She and Jeff cover standing out in a country-first music city, her fast and prolific writing process, going all-in as an independent artist, and the discipline behind it.

Scott Welch is one of the most accomplished managers in music history, having guided the careers of Alanis Morissette, Paula Abdul, Steve Perry, and Collective Soul. He and Jeff cover his path from merch truck to managing icons, telling artists the truth, spotting talent you can't quite bottle, the early mp3.com IPO, and his front-row seat to StubHub.

Aaron Mercer, co-president of Premier Music Group, has spent 30 years in Nashville shaping how music moves through advertising, film, and TV — from his early days at BMI and Sony ATV to leading a firm whose clients include Samsung, Adidas, and the NBA. He covers the nuts and bolts of music licensing, why AI-generated music is a legal non-starter for commercial use, and how a Chevy commercial broke...

Grammy-nominated producer and songwriter CJ Oliver has 180+ tracks in the Soundstripe catalog and sync placements on NBC, Hulu, and Netflix. Her self-taught start at nine selling her first instrumental, breaking past being known as the violin kid, producing across R&B and hip-hop, AI in music, and advice for young artists.

Leo Falkenstein is the owner of Consume Media, an Atlanta video company he founded 13 years ago that now works with Calendly, SalesLoft, and Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Leo and Jeff cover starting out in the Athens music scene, how AI is reshaping video production, turning one shoot into 25 assets, and why he calls the work video connection, not video marketing.

Noam Kroll is an LA-based filmmaker, director, and cinematographer who runs one of the most popular filmmaking blogs and podcasts on the internet at noamkroll.com . He talks about the slow build of a filmmaking career, working in a way that fits how he's wired as an introvert, and picking ideas worth committing to.