Music Manager Scott Brickell Talks MercyMe, Christian Music, and I Can Only Imagine

Michael Foust recently sat down with author and music manager Scott Brickell to discuss his new book on the ins and outs of the music industry.

Michael Foust: The book is the business behind the song. Of course, most people know you from Trace Adkins portraying you in "I Can Only Imagine." Folks knew your work. They just didn't know they knew your work before that movie. I think that's kind of how it usually is with people who work behind the music. So, how long have you been wanting to write a book?

Scott Brickell: I have never wanted to write a book. It's not something that I have ever thought I would do. It's just one of those things that kind of happened. I mean, when COVID hit, and, you know, I was like, 'Oh, I gotta find something to do with my time or, you know, fire my staff.' And we just decided, you know what ... basically, what we did was, we took the, the talk that I've given hundreds and hundreds of times to potential artist, or, you know, even a sound guy or something, and, and took that talk that had developed over 15 years into a very sort of precise talk presentation, I even got on prezi.com and turned it into, like, you know, some visuals and things like that, just because when you're talking to a young artist, the dad wants something to hold, right. So I made this presentation so he'd have something to look at. And I have done it so many times and ended up doing the presentation to a group of college kids at Liberty who were part of the worship collective up there. And after the praise after the presentation, I opened it up to Q&A. And we sat there for about three hours. And I was answering questions and telling stories. And they had good questions. They had listened to my talk, and they were asking really good questions about it. And I left there thinking, 'Maybe one day, I should turn this into a book.' And that was the fall of '19, before the pandemic hit in the spring. And so I just started the process. And you know, the pandemic lasted so long, you know, it got, I almost got done before we started back to work. And once we started back to work, I pushed the book aside, but I got encouraged by a bunch of friends to go ahead and finish it. And so I did, and it was released two days ago.

Foust: The book is kind of a how-to book for those who want to get into the music business, correct?

Brickell: Yeah, it started as specifically talking to artists, and just the more I did it, the more I realized, hey, I can throw out all these other jobs that exist in and around the artist, in and around the record label, the booking agent, the promoter, the road crew, merchandise, being a social media person, you know, like all the things that go along alongside an artist to make an artist's career work. And there are quite a few. Matter-of-fact, we were trying to come up with a title for the book, and my team and I were sitting around, and I just kind of threw out, 'Hey, what if we call it 182 jobs in the music business?' Well, at the end of each chapter, I started writing down all the jobs in that field, right? And so while we're sitting there, coming up with other names, one of my staff, they thumbed through it, and they started adding them all up. And sure enough, there were 182 Exactly. Well, he kind of stopped and said, 'Hey, there's actually 182 jobs, and you just threw that out there.' I was like, holy cow. That's crazy. So you know, there's a lot of jobs, and they're out here if you have something you want to get into.

Read the companion article here.

Video created by Kayla Koslosky.

Music courtesy: ©Soundstripe Library

Thumbnail: ©SWN Desgin