Back in 2020, Emily White recorded the first episode of her music industry podcast surrounded by plants and yoga mats from the living room couch of her sunny Brooklyn, New York, apartment. Over the next year, that space doubled as her studio as she produced the first 24-episode season of “How to Build a Sustainable Music Career and Collect All Revenue Streams,” with just a mic and her laptop.
Since then, White has recorded more seasons in new locations to highlight how the industry works in different parts of the world. She has worked in Oscar-winning filmmaker Jonathan Ridley’s state-of-the-art Nō Studios in Milwaukee, and in Liverpool, England — home of The Beatles — at the famed School of Audio Engineering. Over the years, the podcast has charted on Spotify Music in the music business category.
Season five will bring White to her roots at Northeastern University. The 2005 graduate of the music industry program began recording the latest season of her show in Shilman Studios earlier this month and will continue through March 28. In front of an intimate audience of 15, White has been interviewing guests from the New England music scene about different aspects of the business, offering students in the audience a chance to ask questions and build the same connections that helped her find success.
“We really are covering the entire music industry,” White told Northeastern Global News (NGN). “We don’t miss a beat.”
Named after her 2020 book, White’s podcast breaks down how to build a successful music industry career in 12 steps. It starts, White said, with finding art “that’s true to your heart” and goes from there. White counsels readers on how they can turn that passion into an emotionally and financially fulfilling career, with marketing advice, connecting with fans, business affairs and music publishing.
White covers the same topics in each season of the podcast, but what changes are the guests who are offering personalized insight on each of those topics from wherever the season is being recorded.
The Northeastern season will delve into creating a revenue stream checklist with Boston-based indie band “The Girl,” and discuss when to find a manager or attorney with Fenway Recordings founder Mark Kates. University students will also help run the show’s production, White said.
One of the other guests was Dana Chard, a Northeastern graduate who met White through White’s nonprofit, #iVoted, which hosts an election night concert to inspire people to go vote. Together, the two discussed how White worked her way up from managing the Capitol Theater in Port Chester, New York, to financing and managing artists for larger music festivals.
Chard offered insight on how to plan a tour and answered questions about landing these kinds of roles. Her advice? “My biggest takeaway would be to really put yourself out there,” Chard told NGN, adding that students ought to make their interests known to their professional connections and ask around about positions within the industry, including volunteer ones.
What White, who came to Northeastern from a middle-class upbringing in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, hopes for is for students to learn from her guests’ experience, as well as her own.
The daughter of two educators, she had no experience or connections in the music industry. She recalls showing up to orientation and feeling like “the least qualified person in the room.”
David Herlihy, a full teaching professor of music at Northeastern, recalls White as a “standout student” when he had her in his music copyright class in 2008 for how she was willing to journey out of the classroom and into the field.
“The network is a thriving, living thing … and you just do what you can to connect to it,” Herlihy said. “Emily is a great example of that.”
Venturing into the “real world” and building connections are really what helped launch her career, White said. She started while at Northeastern, ripping tickets at Boston music venues like the House of Blues and Paradise Rock Club where she met friends, like fellow Northeastern student Drew Simmons, who now manages musicians such as Chappell Roan and Noah Kahan.
This job also paved the way to meeting new musical acts, including then-unknown rock band The Strokes.
White is now a founding partner at Collective Entertainment, a women-owned and run management company that specializes in music, sports and content creation. She’s also the CEO of Impact Data and Events, which works with nonprofits to design data-based digital campaigns.
In bringing industry contacts to campus, White hopes to give current students the same opportunities to connect.
“That’s how you integrate yourself into the industry,” White said. “It’s showing up and putting yourself out there. … I learned how to do that in a massive way when I was here at Northeastern.”
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