Never Sell Out: Dan Smalls on Building Something Real in the Music Industry
5/8/20261 hr 1 min
Dan Smalls is one of the most respected independent concert promoters in the country. With over 35 years experience, he built DSP (Dan Smalls Presents) from a single 1,600 seat theater in Ithaca, NY into a company doing 800+ shows a year across the Northeast. He's worked with legendary artists Pearl Jam, Phish & Blues Traveler, produced Phish’s epic end-of-summer festivals that drew up to 100,000 people and runs the Green River Festival in Massachusetts, happening in June. He did it all while staying fiercely independent.
In this conversation, Dan shares his full origin story, from booking Blues Traveler at Cornell frat parties to getting hand-picked by the legendary Bill Graham, to nearly walking away from music entirely before finding his way back.
We get into what it really takes to be an independent promoter, how he thinks about risk and what artists at any level can learn about building a career on their own terms.
Clips
Showing 10 of 11Transcript preview
First 90 secondsSumi Krishnan· Host0:00
Welcome, Dan Smalls, to the Dream Life Club podcast. It is so great to have you on, and I am so excited to share you with our audience today.
Dan Smalls· Guest0:08
I'm excited to be here. Any time I get to, to, to talk to others about my journey and, and hopefully have some nuggets of wisdom that came out of what I've learned all these years, it's a, it's a super fun day for me.
Sumi Krishnan· Host0:18
Oh, thank you so much- Yeah ... and for sharing your time and wisdom. We're gonna get so much out of this. I can't wait. Um- Cool ... okay, so first tell me, you have been, you have n- now been called one of the top 100 promoters in the world, concert promoters in the world, and I wanna know how this story, [laughs] I wanna know how this story started. If I understand correctly, you were a kid from the Catskills, and- Yep ... now you're one of the top promoters in the world. Tell us the origin story.
Dan Smalls· Guest0:46
Yeah, yeah. Well, it's very funny. I, I, um, I grew up in the Dirty Dancing Catskills, I like to say, and most- Right ... people who've seen that movie know exactly what I'm talking about. All those hotels were there. But it was also seven miles from where Woodstock happened, and I was born in 1970, so my folks were there. I was not conceived there like many other people were, but they were- [laughs] ... at Woodstock. My dad had a motorcycle, so they went in and out. But, you know, I grew up in a very musical sort of town, and one of the coolest things that happened is, is that, you know, I had such an, a, a, a affinity for, for great music. My dad was into, you know, folk music in that era, and he, he knew, you know, Arlo Guthrie at the Gaslight Cafe in New York City and stuff. So it was around me.
Sumi Krishnan· Host1:25
Mm.
Dan Smalls· Guest1:26
But I never, like, played an instrument or never got really into it, you know? I,