The Power Of Collaboration
March 24, 2021
Featuring DJ Brian B from The Travel DJ Blend; Originally recorded July 23, 2020
BRIAN: Well hey everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Travel DJ Blend. I'm so pumped for this particular episode because I've got two really good friends of mine and colleagues that I work with. And they're going to tell a little bit about their story and I think we're going to gain a lot of perspective for people who are listening who maybe you're a DJ, maybe you're an entertainer, but just like, the whole concept of collaboration, which I think is kind of like this -elephant in the room- subject that not a whole lot of conversations are had about the positive sides of that and with me today from DC, we're virtually doing this obviously, I've got Rebecca and Lauren from Lucy Black Entertainment. Ladies, thank you so much for joining me on this today.
REBECCA: Thanks for having us.
LAUREN: Thanks, Brian.
BRIAN: Give us a little bit of the background of how you guys started. How'd you come up with the name? I'd love to hear that because I don't think I even know that and you know, just anything that kind of sets you guys apart from everybody else that's in your space.
REBECCA: Well, I'll start. This is Rebecca. Just so everybody knows who's talking. Starting with how we even started is kind of a cool way. So Lauren and I have actually known each other since college.
BRIAN: Okay.
REBECCA: Good friends. Both violists. Played in the same viola studio. We split ways, you know, life happened. She moved away. I moved away. I moved to the East Coast. We were both in Tennessee. And she ended up moving to Williamsburg which is just a few hours from DC. So I started calling her to sub with one of the string groups I was managing. From there I ended up running, you know the back end of this company and I convinced Lauren to move to DC and within a few months she ended up being my assistant. And then it rolled into her and I basically co-running this company and it got to a point where we decided, you know what? We kind of should do this on our own. Went off and started Lucy Black Entertainment.
BRIAN: And when was this? When was your guys' launch?
REBECCA: 2018 - Actually August. We're coming up on 2 years.
BRIAN: How'd you guys come up with the name Lucy Black Entertainment?
LAUREN: This is Lauren Brettell, other co-owner of Lucy Black. So it's obviously not either of our names.
BRIAN: Yeah.
LAUREN: It was really important to us that the company be that other people could stand behind. That anyone who worked for us they would, you know, really feel like Lucy Black could be something that they embraced. So, we chose Lucy actually after Rebecca had a sweet, amazing black rescue dog named Lucy. She was a black lab. Best dog on the planet. Had her in college. I have a black Chiweenie named Lu Lu. She's a little 7-pound, ball of love. So we chose Lucy as that kind of sweetness and Black as something more strong. A lot of times in the industry or in the world in general, if you're a woman and you're nice, you're not respected and if you're more assertive, then people don't like you.
BRIAN: Right. Right.
LAUREN: That is the nice way to put it.
BRIAN: Yeah.
LAUREN: And so we feel like you can have both of those things. You can be strong. You can be a badass. You can do all of these things in your business and be respected at the same time. It doesn't have to be one or the other. And so, in short...
BRIAN: I love that. That is so cool. I think it's a great kind of segway into where I wanted to go with this a little bit because as 2 women running an entertainment company. First, it's really rare to have a woman running that. It shouldn't be, but it is kind of what it is. Right?
LAUREN: It is, yeah.
BRIAN: So, what has been some of the challenges that you've had? I think all the men that are listening to this could probably learn a thing or two from kind of what you guys have had to endure. What's been some of the positives too? I think we can look on the flip-side and think, hey this is something that allows us to really shine that maybe, you know, your male counterparts really can't do. I'd love for you guys to kind of speak to that.
REBECCA: You know I think what was interesting when we started, especially in the DC area, we knew a lot of the entertainment companies already. So I think there was this sense of not really taking us seriously at first. And some did, like anyone who's listening. Like we had really good relationships with most of our agents, but there were definitely some comments of like, "Oh we thought you guys were just secretaries" or "Is this something you’re playing at?" Very kind of demeaning language of like, what the heck is happening? I also think a lot of people think we're a lot younger than we are. Which is always, they kind of just...
LAUREN: Yeah.
REBECCA: You know, we're not 60 years old by any means, which is the average age in our entertainment world. But that's been an interesting challenge. You know the other thing I've noticed and it came out especially during Covid, I think some of the fathers of the brides don't respect us as much. I think that there's this kind of male-dominant in the entertainment side that permeates even the wedding industry. That's been something we were a little surprised at.
LAUREN: And I think on top of that, people thinking we're younger, also not knowing how much experience we actually do have. As musicians, as people who have been doing events since high school, essentially.
BRIAN: Right.
LAUREN: With our own string quartets and groups. I think that's something else that people now come to know more about.
BRIAN: Do you see it kind of changing? Do you think this is a long game approach? It's going to take a while for this kind of pervasive thought that “hey you know, we can slide this one by the ladies because they don't have the experience”. What's your thought on like, where it is? Where it's headed with that?
REBECCA: Actually people really embraced having women running an entertainment company. I mean and I'm speaking just to the DC market because that's really where we've been based. We already were friends with so many wedding planners in the industry.
BRIAN: Sure.
REBECCA: A lot of people came to us and they felt like not having the ego in the room made things a lot easier. Part of what we try and offer is it doesn't have to be difficult. Like, we're going to do it right. We're going to make it perfect, but we know it's not our show so that collaborative spirit I think is something that so many of the predominantly female of the wedding industry really enjoy.
BRIAN: We've had some like different iterations of our company in general, but when I had a female partner for a while it was great because we could kind of play off the energy any way it came at us. You know, like there were somewhere I couldn't understand that viewpoint where she could address some of those things and I found the beauty and also the strength in having a female partner. I felt like we could conquer anything. She could look at someone's engagement ring as an example, and this isn't just I don't think a female/male thing, but just a trait that she just has in general and she could tell by the engagement ring what the budget was. I can't do that. I have no idea. I don't know jewelry hardly at all. And I definitely don't have that sense, like that 6th sense to be able to go ok, that's the budget based off that. And she had that gift and it was just great to be able to have somebody like that on your team to be able to you know, help grow the business.
So where do you think encouraging more women to step out and run their own companies? Do you think that there's still the stigma that it can't be done? Is there anything that we can be sharing with some women who are kind of on the fence about doing this?
LAUREN: Yeah I feel like honestly, it's all about just taking that leap. The initial leap is the scariest, most terrifying part about it, but if you have a strong support system, if you know that you can do it, even if you don't have all of the skills that everyone has, you can learn them. You can figure it out if you're a hard worker. You can do whatever you want and I feel like there are a lot of these new emerging women-owned run businesses and I think that really helps the energy of everyone. And hopefully builds that momentum and positivity and encouragement that they need to say you really can do this. You're going to be fine. It is very scary in the beginning.
BRIAN: Yeah, of course.
LAUREN: But it gets better and it's, you know, the best thing that you could ever do.
REBECCA: I also think there's a huge trend, not just recently but in the last decade of women stepping out and owning their own company. Like the resources, especially when we hit Covid, we realized the resources and scholarships offered for women-owned businesses are huge. And so...
BRIAN: Great point. Yeah.
REBECCA: I think so many people are realizing, especially if you don't find that corporate life works for you, a lot of them are the boys club you don't want to be a part of any way, so.
BRIAN: Right. Let’s talk a little bit about the partnership stuff. I think this is always interesting. I kind of mentioned with mine, in our case, she was the saleswoman. She could go and sell ice to an Eskimo you know kind of thing and I was more like the operations, put systems in place. Do you guys find yourselves in the same place? Where like you have strengths and weaknesses that you kin of complement each other? Or I've also seen other partnerships where it's like they have the same skillset and they just divide and conquer and go after it, you know?
REBECCA: We have a bit of both, I think.
LAUREN: Yeah.
REBECCA: Because Lauren and I both love the administrative and logistics side of things. Like operations, we both really love, but I definitely would have to say...
LAUREN: We geek out on it.
REBECCA: Yeah, we geek. Like spreadsheets are my happy place. Like, I open up my spreadsheets and I love it.
BRIAN: Right.
REBECCA: But I also know that like the marketing, the sales are probably my strength. Definitely good cop bad cop.
BRIAN: I love that, yeah.
LAUREN: Lauren, me, I'm usually the bad cop.
REBECCA: But not always.
LAUREN: It's true.
REBECCA: We've also realized that we kind of unspoken divided and conquered difficult people. Either planners, clients, artists. There are some artists that Lauren does not write and I always deal with. There are some planners that I do not deal with and Lauren will.
BRIAN: Sure.
LAUREN: Or those horrible calls where you have to sit on hold for half an hour and you're dealing with something like that?
BRIAN: Right.
LAUREN: That's usually me.
REBECCA: I don't have the patience. I'll have the patience with other things where she won't have the patience with maybe artists being dramatic. I can deal with that. Like, I... that's fine.
LAUREN: So we have a little bit of both.
BRIAN: Well, what have you guys learned through this partnership? Anything like? It's one thing if you're co-workers and you're working together, but when you run a business, I feel like there's good things that can be learned through it. There's some challenges you might have to go through and grow through. Like what are some things that you might be able to share?
REBECCA: You know, one thing that I realized that I love the most about our partnership is we're both very creative. We're both very much a Type A and Type B person. There are many times in the past where say someone wanted a phone call like a bride will call to spitball ideas, we realized having both of us on the call is so important because even though we're both creative, we have totally different perspectives and then we play on each other on getting more creative which I really enjoyed. We also are like very inspired by being in the space. Like most people don't pull the entertainment company into the space, but we've had a few planners who've realized that like, we can walk a space and help them get more creative based on the space and the flow of the night. Not necessarily even adding more music, but like say for instance, like a string quartet, you know? You have a ceremony in one room but the guests are walking in through this long beautiful hallway, we'll pull out a couple of musicians and put them in the hallway, put two in the ceremony room. You're not spending any more money; you're just getting creative with how you use your musicians.
BRIAN: Totally.
REBECCA: You know? So just stuff like that. We really enjoy that.
LAUREN: Yeah, we feel really inspired when we can physically see things. We're very visual also.
BRIAN: Well, one of the things I kind of wanted to hit on this interview too was just something that I've always appreciated about you ladies doing so well and I don't think you get enough credit for it honestly because it's so rare to see in our industry, where it's like a dog-eat-dog kind of mentality, but this whole idea of collaboration. I feel like you guys have really championed this unabashedly honestly like you just are like hey, why can't this be the norm? And it's not just with different pieces that you might not be able to have in-house per se, but just with like competitors, you know, even from the DJ side and the DJ where I can tell you the whole band vs DJ thing is always this big thing. I've never understood it because I just think there's so much we can gain. I mean you're dealing with people who have, by its very nature. I mean bands have more people typically so the budgets are always going to be bigger, to add in a DJ or whatever, I always feel like why wouldn't you want to go with the bands and play nice because that's just going to get you more work and better environment anyway. And your job's probably going to be easier. You don't have to carry the lion's share of the work, you know? So I never understood why DJs are hating on bands so much. So what kind of started this for you in the collaboration phase? Like where did you guys kind of start to make a dedicated focus towards that?
REBECCA: I actually had a specific moment in life where I realized that like, I had been in the entertainment world for a while. This is actually really funny. I'm not sure I ever told Lauren this story of why I think this way. I was actually at my first Engage, funny enough, and there's not a lot of entertainment people there. I believe that's when I - I had not met you yet, Brian.
BRIAN: I don't think we met in person yet.
REBECCA: No, I think I introduced myself to you after that Engage. But this is part of why was because I started realizing the entertainment world my mindset was nobody likes to play nice. They will work together, but usually very competitive and you're not going to see that collaboration or partnership or even just, you know, that kind of thing. It's just not how people really do things. So at that first Engage, I ended up sitting next to Jordan Kahn at the round table dinner. What was it called?
BRIAN: Oh, the dine-a-rounds, right? And for those that don't know, Jordan Kahn's another band who's in the industry.
REBECCA: Another band.
LAUREN: Ah-maz-ing.
REBECCA: But that actually, he and I just hit it off and I was like, oh my gosh, there's actually people in the entertainment world that aren't total jerks. Like you actually want to talk to me about like how I do things and like, can basically like just talk. You know what I mean? It was not like, oh I all do all these things. It was not anything about that. And what's funny is. At the time I had no idea what Jordan did. I had also run into Clay from...
BRIAN: Oh yeah, the orchestra.
REBECCA: ... Equinox and same thing. I had no had this moment where at one conference I had met two people from the entertainment world that were wonderful people who were actually open to talking about music. So after that experience, I actually went back and really started brainstorming this idea of how we, as entertainment partners, could create a luxury network. And I actually spoke to these guys about this. I think I spoke to you a while ago about this too about how we can pull in each other as resources versus always seeing each other as competition. And through that, when we started Lucy Black, you don't always get those opportunities to do that, but I mean now we've pitched Jordan. We've pitched Equinox. We've worked with you many times now.
BRIAN: Yeah.
REBECCA: And we know that going into those, being able to present these teams to clients, it's not like I'm just pulling in a bunch of bands. Because like, we do that. Everyone does that, right? Find bands that fit? But we're able to pull in people and be like look, this is a partner, and this is why they're the best fit for you and right before Covid we actually had one booking that we thought were going to go with Jordan and one that we thought were going to go with Equinox and I was devastated. That's, in a nutshell, like this moment that kind of sparked my BRIAN of like, there are people out there that want to be resources and even when Jeremy and Clay were starting. They kind of expanded their business. We all sat and talked about what they were doing and just the great concepts that they've got happening, you know? Because we can talk like partners and collaborators versus competitors, not just when I need something we talk to each other, you know?
BRIAN: Yeah, and do you feel like it's been reciprocal on their end as well? Like, have they reached out to you? Do you feel like you making the first step all of the sudden has kind of opened more doors on the other side for you guys?
REBECCA: Oh totally, I think that like Jordan for instance, he's in a different position because he doesn't really book outside teams, but at the same time I think there's this mutual respect and partnership. I do know Jeremy and Clay have reached out to us. I guess they were doing something in DC and they reached out. Oh, it was sound. They needed an audio team. Stuff like that. So we try to be as accommodating. I mean we all like each other.
LAUREN: We really stand behind that kind of community over competition motto, you know? It's just, everybody wins.
BRIAN: When did just being a decent human become like this novel concept? Like I don't understand that. Just be nice, you know? You don't have to be... oh my gosh.
REBECCA: You know, I think that's a funny thing for you to say in the wedding world in general, we have met this split of people who are generally kind and nice, but on top of their stuff and really do a great job. And then people who do a great job, but they have to be nasty to you every step of the way and I...
LAUREN: They're so horrible. I don't get it.
BRIAN: Yeah. Well, if anybody is changing that, I feel like you guys are really making a mark in that because I talked to Jordan pretty often and Clay and those guys as well, and you know you guys are constantly being brought up as people that are kind of on the forefront of really pushing this collaborative movement which just needed someone to start it to be honest with you. I think we all had it within us. There were certain folks that are innately just nice people, but there wasn't any catalyst for it to like actually happen. I thought we'd kind of do this just crazy like quick question-answer kind of thing to ends things. Rebecca, who would be like your favorite artist of all time?
REBECCA: I was thinking about this a lot this morning and I was like, I would have to say two - because, as a classical musician, I will go to Beethoven any day or night, because I love Beethoven. I will. I love him. There's everything is there, right? But I also love The Beatles. Like, they're just a great band. If I were to pick two solid things, of course there's so much else I want to say.
LAUREN: They're good.
BRIAN: But you can't go wrong with those two. Like, I don't think anybody could like, knock those two at all. Those are like legendary. Alright Lauren, what about for you? Is there a song that is just like classic or maybe it's a new one that you are just looking at the moment or one you just couldn't live without?
LAUREN: Yes. This is so hard because anyone who knows me knows I listen to a huge variety of music. Also, anything from Classical, to Rock to EDM to random whatever. But funny enough, my husband and I have actually been listening to a lot of Tycho. It's just like, it's so nice to work too. It's kind of therapeutic. It's very chill but then if you but then it has beats sometimes if you really want to like, zone out. so...
BRIAN: Yeah, no totally.
LAUREN: So, it's kind of a recent thing that we love.
BRIAN: Yeah. Favorite event to date?
REBECCA: We actually have a favorite client I think now.
LAUREN: We do.
REBECCA: You know last year we did silent disco, actually with you guys, Charles.
BRIAN: That's right, yeah. Charles, yeah.
REBECCA: I was like it wasn't you but yes it was.
BRIAN: Yeah yeah yeah yeah.
REBECCA: So we had the silent disco. What was so fun and I think what we got so excited about was we BRIANstormed with her basically all of the entertainment. We did solo guitarist for cocktails and dinner. We had Charles for silent disco. Lauren created the playlist for the other two DJ stations.
BRIAN: Yeah. I remember that conversation.
LAUREN: So 80's and 90's. Oh yeah!
REBECCA: But we were researching because there was this like glow element of the night. We had neon - what's it called? LED dancers. Yeah, no we had these dancers but that is what we were trying to figure out is this other element. This immersive element we could figure out with the client and we found these LED bracelets that we could DJ the color of the bracelet. So like we had an iPad where we could physically change the colors with the music. So Lauren was in charge of that and we had...
LAUREN: It was really fun.
REBECCA: It was. So we had orchestrated it where nobody knew why they were wearing these bracelets. Basically, they were at Union Station in DC and we told them they had to wear them so they could be admitted to the party and so they didn't know why they had them on and at the end of dinner, we orchestrated it with a playlist, because the DJ was in the other room and it didn't reach music-wise, that all of the bracelets went off at once with music that we chose and kind of made this moment. And it was just so much fun. It was one of those moments where we realized there was so much more we could do than we thought.
BRIAN: Right.
REBECCA: Because this client pushed us to get creative and just wanted to talk through everything and she's a designer too. And it was just so much fun. And then this year we did like a Cirque Du Soleil. She had us do all of the lighting for the entire space, which was a huge space. All the music. Dj, electric violinist duo we had...
LAUREN: Acrobats.
BRIAN: Oh my gosh.
REBECCA: Actually that was one of those moments where we walked the space with her before we knew what we were going to do.
BRIAN: Yeah.
REBECCA: The Institute of Peace in DC which is like a four-story main space, like an atrium, it's huge. And we walked in, a full glass wall and she had already mentioned like a Cirque vibe, and I was like aerialists. We need aerialists. We need to figure this out. And we did. They said we were the first ones to bring in these aerialists like that and the photos are amazing, but just that kind of thing. I think those events that we did with her because she let us be so involved in the process of figuring out what worked, we just had a blast.
BRIAN: Any business or music book recommendations? Are you guys readers? Do you guys have anything that you've read recently? If not that, maybe a podcast that you guys listen to or anything like that?
LAUREN: So honestly we've been super involved in kind of the Black Lives Matter stuff. I don't know if you've heard our forums Let Us Breathe. So, I've been listening to audiobooks and I'm currently on the new Jim Crow which is super super informative and helpful. Highly recommend it. It's a lot of crazy statistics that you just can't even imagine and just the systemic racism in our country it's just fascinating to learn about and very important so. I know it's not music or business-related, but kind of important and on our minds at the moment.
BRIAN: Yeah. I love it. I guess one other question I had on this list is what do you guys like to do on your off-time? How do you unplug? I don't know, I think if anything this has taught me is the importance of like this rest period that I would have never gotten. I've kind of had to explore that to be honest with you. Like, what do I do with this period of time that I can actually use to recharge and not just like hit the gas pedal the entire time. So, curious for you guys; like what for you have you found? Or maybe you've always had it? Just curious what your off-time is like?
LAUREN: Yeah, well I'm pretty dorky. I really love to sew. My mother is an incredible quilter and when we were kids she would make clothing for us actually. We had matching outfits for Easter. So I started taking on that love for sewing. I also quilt, so I learned just you know, a new type of skill and I've been doing some hand sewing to make you know, a new quilt.
BRIAN: So good. I love it. What about for you Rebecca? Anything that kind of strikes for you?
REBECCA: Well, it's funny because I don't have like a one thing that I just do on my off time, but I would definitely say with this down-time now, incorporating yoga back into my life. I've always loved yoga, but now it's like I do it almost every day if I can, but I've also been trying to take more time to get outside. We have a rooftop deck, so my husband and I take a bottle of wine to the roof and play some games. I don't know if you know the game acey deucey, but that's one of our...
BRIAN: Okay, I'm going to have to check this one out.
REBECCA: ... one of our family games. My grandfather, it's like the whole family does it. My dad has a running track for everybody that loses, which is everybody, but...
BRIAN: Man. So what's it called again? I missed it. What was it?
REBECCA: It's called acey deucey.
BRIAN: Okay, okay.
REBECCA: It's a variation of backgammon.
BRIAN: Okay, I'm going to check it out. Awesome.
REBECCA: I taught Lauren too.
BRIAN: Okay.
LAUREN: It's fun!
BRIAN: So good.
LAUREN: The outdoor time has been really nice actually and every time I go out I realize how much I personally need to be outdoors. It fuels my soul and I feel so much better even 5-10 minutes if I go out on the deck I'm just like, oh my gosh.
BRIAN: Yeah. Well, I can't thank you, ladies, enough for like making time and just like sharing some of this gold. Where can people follow you? Where's the best place people can reach you if they want to reach out?
REBECCA: Yeah, so Instagram is always great. We're @lucyblackent and then our website is lucyblackentertainment.com.
BRIAN: If you're listening to this, follow. Put the follow button on there and just do it. You guys are going to be so grateful that you have that for sure. Well, ladies again thank you so much for taking some time to do this. I can't thank you enough. Can't wait to get back to seeing you people live and in the flesh, not just on Zooms. Everybody thanks for listening. If you like what you're hearing leave a comment. If you want a topic covered, just let us know. Send us a DM and we'll put it out there. Our handle here is @thetraveldjblend. ‘Til next time, have a good one!