Meet the man who discovered some of music's biggest stars

The Street

Jeff Blue is responsible for finding some of your favorite music artists like Linking park and Limp Bizkit. Blue sat down with TheStreet’s J.D. Durkin to discuss some of his biggest wins, as well as one artist he wishes he hadn’t passed on.

Transcript

00:00 There is no doubt there are a lot of artists that you are closely connected to over the course of

00:04 your career. Who are some of those artists that undoubtedly our viewers would be familiar with?

00:08 Linkin Park, Korn, Limp Bizkit, Macy Gray, Daniel Powder, Huba Stank, Better Than Ezra,

00:15 I did Leah's Queen of the Damned soundtrack, which you may know because a lot of hard rock

00:19 artists on there. And I've been super, super blessed to work with so many incredible artists.

00:24 And one of the most amazing things is the ability to help nurture. And that's why I've always loved

00:32 business, because you can see something from the ground up and you know, these, you see IPOs,

00:38 but before that, these companies that have a vision, and nobody believes in them, and they

00:45 become, you know, generational icons in business. And that's kind of how I feel music is, you know,

00:54 the ability for an A&R person like myself to go out and discover something that nobody else has

00:58 believed in or experienced and, you know, having a vision of how that artist can change the world

01:05 and inspire people and do good. Jeff, talk to me about any potential artists that maybe you

01:10 stumbled upon many years ago, maybe had some skepticism or doubt on, and maybe that person

01:16 or that group had a little bit of a bigger trajectory than you suspected. I still have

01:20 some laughs about it, but The Killers. I was introduced to a demo tape that actually became

01:28 their album for the most part. I mean, they really didn't change it. It was so amazing.

01:32 And I always stood by the fact that Linkin Park was not good live before. They had played maybe,

01:38 I think, one show before we actually signed them to Warner Bros. One real show in front of an

01:42 audience. Everything else was showcases. And I was like, I don't mind about, you know, live shows.

01:46 It's not the live show that matters. I went out to Vegas, and it was in the middle of the day,

01:50 and they did a showcase in this bar in about 110 degrees and about a thousand degrees humidity,

01:56 if that's a real thing, sweating. And I was like, this is so uncomfortable. The stage was no bigger

02:00 than this. It was maybe like 15 feet by like four feet. Every guy crammed up in there. I'm like,

02:06 this is horrible. And I ended up walking out, dismissing the fact that I knew every one of

02:13 those songs. And the demo was incredible. It was already mixed great. It was produced amazing.

02:17 And going, yeah, really cool band, but wasn't doing it.

02:20 [END]

02:20 The End of the World is Coming.

02:21 The End of the World is Coming.

02:22 The End of the World is Coming.

02:23 The End of the World is Coming.

02:24 The End of the World is Coming.

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