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Industry Insider #6
Lance Marwood
October 08, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 7 minutes
This is Industry Insider: a weekly 5-minute brief with key news, interviews, advice, smart picks & follows, built for artists and industry folks alike.
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Table of Contents
☝️ ONE BIG THING
Everyone says they want to be “authentic”. “Genuine.” “Yourself.” It’s not long before they realize authenticity is a bit you play, too.
You’re already three people:
the one onstage,
the one off it,
and the one who doesn’t say a word.
Now I don’t think it’s terribly insightful if I said you should stop pretending they’re the same thing. But I do think I’m giving you something more powerful when I say they should stay separate.
Your public face is the brand. It’s curated, it’s legible, and it’s just removed enough that nobody can hurt you if they go after this.
Your private face is what your people see when you’re wrecked, eating cereal for dinner.
The hidden one? That’s where the work actually comes from. Nobody gets to touch it. Not your fans, not your friends, not your family. Nobody.
Balancing those, keeping the boundaries up, that’s the juice.
Too much public and you turn into product.
Too much hidden and you disappear.
The aim isn’t to get rid of your masks, folks, it’s to keep the masks in their lanes.
If you want insight on how this works, hit the Advice section below. I’ve linked the full piece on building a persona that serves the work instead of eating it alive.
🗞 INDUSTRY NEWS
 | Zedge has announced the launch of Tapedeck, a new music app designed to give musicians more control and fairer compensation for their work. |
 | Mascot Records marks its 35th anniversary with a rebrand and fresh visual identity that’s redefining rock and metal for a new generation. |
💬 INDUSTRY INSIDER INTERVIEW
 | James Rhodes, President of FiXT Music, joins us to discuss his career, the record label, artist development, and his insights into the music industry. |
💯 INDUSTRY ADVICE
 | Ever wondered how to balance your public persona, private self, and hidden core as a musician? Learn how to master multiple identities and unlock the true potential of your artistic expression. |
🎧 INDUSTRY PODCASTS
Lee Jennings is the powerful and sizeable frontman of the band The Funeral Portrait, and he opens up to chr1stoph3r g0nda, host of the heartdea13r Podcast, about his youth, being bullied, the music industry, failure and fighting forward.
Brandon O’Neill on surviving DIY music and staying true to your art
Brandon O’Neill is the founder, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and vocalist behind Wine & Warpaint, the Richmond-based indie rock project whose debut album Disassociate (2024) earned recognition as one of the year’s standout independent releases.
💘 SUGGESTED FOLLOW
Andrew Southworth
 | Andrew Southworth used to be a mechanical engineer, which explains why his approach to music marketing feels like watching someone build a jet engine out of ad data and caffeine. He runs a YouTube channel with 7+ million views, teaches thousands of artists how to actually make money from their music, and has personally helped rack up more than 300 million Spotify streams for clients—because apparently sleep is for people without funnels. He’s also one of the four co-hosts of My .4 Cents, the podcast where the unholy alliance of Southworth, Matt Bacon, Jesse Cannon, and Dustin Boyer argue about how the industry works (and why it doesn’t). |
Discover exactly what’s missing in your promo strategy and which lever will move the needle the most…
🎵 ADD YOUR MUSIC TO OUR PLAYLIST
New single? We’re happy to consider adding your track to one of our obsessively curated Spotify playlists → Just reply to this email with the link…
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