How Yamaha Music Can Help Change The Music Industry

Between them, Yamaha Corporation of America President Tom Sumner and Vice President Chris Gero, who handles Artist Relations for the company, have more than 60 years at Yamaha, so they are the perfect people to speak about the state of the largest musical instrument manufacturer in the world.

With gear companies taking on a much larger role in general in creating content and artist development in 2024 in the music industry, Yamaha is a huge force in music these days and can be a much bigger one going forward.

In separate Zoom chats I spoke with them both about a huge range of topics, from their expansive artist relations and development programs to their latest instruments.

Steve Baltin: How long have you been with Yamaha?

Chris Gero: I have been with Yamaha as a consultant or as an employee for 32 years as well.

Baltin: One of the reasons I got very interested in the gear stories is because the music industry has shifted so dramatically in a way that I think is very positive. But gear companies have become so important because of the artist development and the relationship. Every company has an artist relation program because they all understand the fact that, look, the only way the industry is going to continue to move forward is to have new players.

Gero: Absolutely and that’s something that we have cultivated from the beginning and even before I came along in the various positions in artist relations that I’ve been in. The principal trajectory was investing in what’s next. We had a very ambitious and very successful artist program, especially in the late ’70s, and then in the ’80s the entire decade really driven by technology. And Yamaha was in the very front of that technology, especially with FM synthesis. That drove an entire era of sound. As a result of that, our artist program was very robust and I came on in the very early part of the ’90s where a lot of that was kind of falling away and the artist program, there was a little mini recession in the late ’80s and a lot of people changed and left the company. So, it was very important to follow through with really investing in new talent and a result of that we just brought on a whole pile of new wave of talent and we continue to really do so where we are constantly looking at who’s coming up and what’s next, and how we best fit into their creative efforts.

Baltin: I was the third interview Fiona Apple ever did in her career. I was the first national interview Counting Crows ever did. I love artist development. And it seems to me that the gear companies are now starting to pick up that slack.

Gero: Artist relations has never really been about how do we marry a product to an artist and visibly make that happen. It’s way more complex than that. Obviously, the artist development process doesn’t exist anymore. Everything is instant gratification and if you if you don’t have an instant single or a series of instant singles, you’re passed over. A lot of it has been put on the shoulders of the talent themselves. What we have done over a period of many years is invest in artists that we believe are going to have a career. Obviously, there’s all these different levels of what that really means. There’s the Elton John and Paul McCartney level, and then there’s really the artists that are out there working every day earning a living. Then there’s the emerging talent and many of that, for us, is people nobody knows. But it’s critical that we invest in it and the manner in which we do that is first of all, there’s no money that ever changes hands. It’s very different than a lot of other industries where we do not pay our talent to play our instruments. We provide them with the instruments that they need in order to earn a living and be creative and what have you. More so we partner with them, especially now as a team to help them get to where they need to be or to be seen or and many times, especially in my group, we are very much part of a lot of their creative investment in so much as my gang particularly is really invested in trying to help artists move forward. We are very interested in the storytelling of what they’re doing. As you know it’s well onto them to figure it out themselves. In this era of influencers and what have you it’s a sea of people just trying to be seen and heard and we very much try to get it in and help as much as we can.

Baltin: Can you talk to me about an artist you worked with recently and take me through a little bit of what that process is and how you work with them on the creative and all that?

Gero: So, there’s artist relations, which is all the typical services that you would expect, and that’s loaning gear and moving pianos around and the day-to-day relational things that happen. Then the subgroup in my group is what’s called Yamaha Entertainment Group, and that is the actual film and record component of what we create with artists that is forward facing, public facing. So, at any point in time we will be making content, film or record, that ultimately is used in either marketing materials, and/or used in conjunction with the artist, but it’s all artist driven. So, a good example of that is I’ve done several multiple projects with Sarah McLachlan over the years. She’s a dear friend and a long time Yamaha artist. She’s a dear friend and at some point in time her manager introduced me to this kid named Tanner Olson and they all live in Vancouver and I was up at a fundraiser last September and they introduced me to him and they said he’s a country artist and he’s moving to Nashville and really needs help. Typically, if you’re not at a certain space, we don’t really get too involved, other than how can we help you? I met him, but I didn’t really pay much attention cause obviously I was at this fundraiser. There’s a lot going on and a lot of people there, and a lot of stars there, and so he had subsequently moved to town and was interested in being part of our program. I saw him perform with his band and he was fantastic. We sat down, we started talking about where does he want to go and what does this look like for him? I started listening to his material and really started to develop him and his band in the very same way that a traditional label A&R guy would do, and try to extract from them the best material that they have and the best optics that they have in order for them to get to the next space. So, it’s not uncommon that a guy like him or his band or artists that are coming up like that and/or very established, very well-known artists are in our studio working out their material recording, building content what have you. We took him completely raw and have been working on his live act and have been working on his EPK and trying to get him to the next level so that he has the ability to get above the waterline with everyone. In the meantime, we are telling that story from behind the scenes. So, he may make it, he may not make it. That’s if we knew that we’d [laughter] it would be in a different line of this business but at the same time, we are essentially helping each other. Yamaha is by giving him the tools that are necessary and in turn he’s allowing us access to his story.

Baltin: The way I look at it, is if you’re a fan of something, and you have the opportunity to do so, it’s your job to champion it.

Gero: Yeah, that’s exactly correct. The interesting relationship with me over this 32 years with Yamaha has been, they trust me to make these types of decisions. I have a motto, if you remind an artist that you’re a corporation, they are reminded you’re a corporation. So, my group doesn’t operate like that. We don’t overthink a lot of stuff. A lot of it is done on a feeling and it is all relational.

Baltin: What do you look for in the artists that you work with at this point, when you’re bringing in new artists?

Gero: I look for talent now. What I look for is passion and honesty and that’s it. We look for a reciprocal responsibility between two parties that is honest, and we’re in it with you, and you’re in it with us. There are no contracts, we do have an agreement that says you understand what that responsibility is and that you’re going to do your best to be a good ambassador, and we are going to do our best to do the same. But the difference is that we are looking for the real thing and that’s not just in the talent, but that’s also in who that person is and how that person represents themselves. As you can imagine, especially in all genres of music, that’s nearly impossible because people are people and humans are humans. But I typically look for the spirit of somebody. I don’t look at, “Okay what is this going to look like a year from now?” I typically look at what it is going to look like 15 years from now? Because you simply don’t know what somebody’s going to evolve into. Our relationships are very much driven on really for lack of better terminology, friendships, and believing in the fact that you might be wrong in making the decision and you might be right, but it’s really not about that it has to be about the long-term investment and the journey. I have a high a super high standard musically, and I have to always push that aside and just kind of go on really kind of that instinct of, is this person going to be a or is this band or whatever, are they going to be good stewards of this relationship.

Baltin: Talk about the relationship between Yamaha and artists.

Tom Sumner: As you point out, we’re the largest music and sound company in the world, and we do all sorts of different things. We’re definitely focused on musicians and when looking at what we try to do across all of our products we try to help musicians and even somebody who might not claim themselves as a musician to really be able to express themselves one way or another through music. It’s interesting because with us artists are an integral part of that. I think about sports stars, like Nike or something like that. But with musical instruments, you’re playing it day in, day out, and that’s your living if you’re an artist. So, we work with artists very closely on developing products and on improving products, pretty much on a day in, day out basis. We have a facility here in Buena Park that’s an atelier for winds. Winds artists will come through here and, we’ll do special things to their horns, or they’ll have special things they’re looking for. We also have an atelier in New York City as well. We do all sorts of work with various artists to try to improve product. Drummers or guitarists or bassists. So, we’re working with artists all the time and, and really those folks, obviously, they know what they want but a lot of that will also translate into making a more expressive instrument.

Baltin: Talk about how getting to work with all these different people influences what you do going forward.

Sumner: The artists really know how to express what they’re looking for out of an instrument, even down to the minute details. One of the things that we try to do, and one of the things that we’re known for is making instruments that are very high quality and very durable and dependable. There are plenty of stories about older musical equipment that didn’t hold up very well from all sorts of early synthesizers, like Mellotrons and things like that, that were notoriously finicky but guitars the same way. So what we’ve tried to do is to not just work with the artists to get their insights as far as making a super playable, super expressive instrument but also maintaining that quality and that durability so that the artist that’s gigging all the time or somebody who’s just playing on a regular basis is really confident that they’re going to have an instrument that’s going to be there for them. Last week I went to London to see Eric Clapton. We have two artists in Eric Clapton’s band, both of whom have worked with us on product development. One is Nathan East, who’s Eric’s bass player and background vocalist musician extraordinaire. He’s got a couple of bass models that we’ve made specifically for him. We’ve worked with him for decades at this point. Then the drummer for the Eric Clapton band is Sonny Emory, who’s also worked with us for a very long time. When we look at artists, we look at artists really across the board. Elton John plays Yamaha pianos and speaks very nicely about us. John Legend, same thing. But we’re focused on artists all the way across the spectrum.

Baltin: Music is such an essential part of healing and mental health now. How is Yamaha able to use its huge name factor to be able to help in ways beyond music?

Sumner: We try to look at music as being healing and powerful just on its own. You don’t have to go back much more than a couple of years and see how many people, during the pandemic, decided that they were going to learn to play an instrument and actually did learn to play an instrument. We really look at music in and of itself, being healing and we’ve seen from many of the things we’ve done how important it is for human beings. If you have a kid that’s learning to play an instrument or learns to play an instrument and is in a marching band or orchestra, it has a profound effect on their life. We do things like we’re a sponsor for marching band competition. We’ve seen firsthand kids that music really changed their lives and they carry music with them forever. But more important than that, it helps them become great citizens and usually great students and great parents and partners and everything else. We know the power of music and you don’t have to grow up to be John Legend or Alicia Keys or anything [laughter]. If you take that music with you and you’ve had that experience, usually you’re a better person overall.

Baltin: Are you seeing at Yamaha Instruments that people do want more organic sounds and more traditional instrumentation?

Sumner: Yeah, how many times has the death of the guitar been written about [laughter]? I think people have been writing about it for like 30 years. I think, over the pandemic, one of the interesting things to me was acoustic pianos. We couldn’t get enough acoustic pianos, which is strange to me in some ways, because the acoustic piano’s been around for hundreds of years, and the peak of the market in the United States was, I think 1928 or 1929 [laughter]. But people really wanted to have that natural experience with a piano that resonates within a room. We’ve definitely seen the same thing with guitars and drums and all those categories.

Baltin: What do you have coming up in the second half of 2024 or the beginning of 2025? Again, we talked a great deal about organics. Is that influencing your next wave of product?

Sumner: We have two courses for new products. One of them is an iteration on something, meaning a better trumpet, a better drum set, etcetera, etcetera. Then the other one is looking at the market and saying, “Hey, what’s new? What can we do to fill a need that’s out there?” Looking at things we’ve done with artists to make something more playable, more responsive. We just launched a line of Pacifica electric guitars, brand new ones that we worked on for years with artists on. We worked with one of our partners, Rupert Neve Designs. We have pickups that were designed by Rupert Neve Designs in the guitars, which really makes them sparkle and shine. We just released a couple of products. One is two products, finger drum pads. You can’t stop playing it because it’s like you’re playing drums and you can play them with one hand or two hands and they sound amazing, and it’s a great way of creating music quickly. Then another product that we just came out with is SEQTRAK, which is a foot long and it’s basically a portable recording studio where you can take samples, you can record drums, you can record baselines, you can record melodies, all sorts of things. But it’s another one of those things that it’s hard to keep your hands off it.