The Architecture of Entertainment with Jeff Tomrell

A great live show is no accident. In this episode, Jeff Tomrell shares how he turned local band GoGo Gadget into a high-end entertainment act and built Three Hive Studios, an 8,000 sq. ft. creative hub in Reading, PA.

We dive into the craft of live performance—discussing medleys, theatrical lighting, and building Broadway-level tribute shows like Magical Mystery Doors. Then, we explore the business side: navigating BMI and ASCAP licensing, managing a team of 20 employees, and protecting your margins.

Whether you're into the music business, cover band strategy, or creative entrepreneurship, this episode is packed with real-world takeaways.

Subscribe, share this with a friend who’s building something, and leave us a review so more people can find the show!

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Welcome to The Brad Weisman Show, where we dive into the world of real people, real life, and everything in between with your host, Brad Weisman! 🎙️ Join us for candid conversations, laughter, and a fresh take on the real world. Get ready to explore the ups and downs of life with a side of humor. From property to personality, we've got it all covered. Tune in, laugh along, and let's get real! 🏡🌟 #TheBradWeismanShow #RealPeopleRealLife 

Credits - The music for my podcast was written and performed by Jeff Miller. 

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:31

This is gonna be a good one, Hugo. The Brad Wiseman Show. Real people, real life, and everything in between. So, what do your kids think of this?

SPEAKER_02 0:39

Oh, they are so embarrassed.

SPEAKER_00 0:41

I'm not here for the money, but I'll still take it off. Unfiltered conversations with the people shaping our world. Because you're judging yourself by your intentions, they're judging you by your actions. Exactly right. You know, my wife said to me, You go to work and you give everyone the Mitchell buffet, and you come home and you give me the scraps. And now your host, Red Wiseman.

Welcome And Jeff Tomrell Intro

SPEAKER_00 1:02

All right, Hugo. Hello, baby. What's up, buddy? I always have to make sure you're here, you know? I'm here. Because sometimes I look around and like, is Hugo in the room? I'm not quite sure if he's here. We got other people in the room today, too. We have a photographer here. If you're looking for a really good photographer, this is gonna be a little plug in. Shout out. There you go. Shout out. That's right. Uh Annabelle is unbelievable. She does amazing photos. If you're here local in Berks County, you want to definitely give her a call. She does a great job with photos on your family in the studio. Wherever you want to take pictures, she can do that for you. But we have somebody else here too. I'm going to tell you a little bit about him. His name is Jeff Tomrell. That's correct. Okay. That's right. It sounds like a game show host, right? That's right. Yes. So he's here. I've known him for a while. I actually knew him longer than I actually thought I did because I saw this guy in a band called Go Go Gadget years ago. One of the most amazing, not just local bands. I mean, they traveled all over the place, and we're going to talk about that. He'll get into that. But, you know, he's been in the in the entertainment world for a very long time, much longer than I have. He's got this new space at Three Hive Studios. Is that right? That's correct. Okay. That's right. 8,000 square foot. He does, he has cover bands, he manages. He books them all over the country. And I just found out this. I was reading this. I'm going to do this right now. This is a little spoiler alert, but there's somewhere in my notes here. The band, he has a there's a band called Magical Mystery Doors. Correct me if I'm wrong, that the band was awarded USA Today's number one casino show in America, beating out Keith Urban, Shania Twain, and multiple Cirque du Soleil shows and more. Is that correct? For the third time I'm going to answer, that's correct. That's correct. And you won an RV. Did I win something now? Is there any prizes?

SPEAKER_01 2:38

Jeff, welcome to the show. Brad, as a person who likes to maybe overdo things at time, which has been which has been part of my success story thus far, the intro is great. Thank you. The setup in here is great. Thank you. 10 out of 10. That means a lot. This is fantastic. It means a lot.

SPEAKER_00 2:57

It really does. Congrats. Thanks for having me on, man. You're well, I know we've talked about this for a very long time. I came over to see your studio, your massive sound stage is what I call it. I mean, it's it's incredible what you're doing. But let's go back a little bit just so people have an idea, an idea of who you are, where you come from. And I mean, for me, I remember Go Go Gadget, but you have, I'm sure you were doing other things before that. So let's start around that time period and maybe introduce yourself and what you're doing now, too.

SPEAKER_01 3:24

Sure. I mean, GoGo Gadget started in 2005. Awesome. So that was 21 years ago. And and and before that, I mean, I was in in high school bands and things, and even junior high. And driving over here, I haven't been in this plaza in a long time. And I passed Cloud Nine Cafe. When I was like, my my my parents still drove me there. I was 14 or 15. They used to have like an open mic night. So it'd be like that's crazy. Like I would play acoustic. My buddy Rob played a saxophone, and then we had a drummer. We wanted to be Dave Matthews band with three people. So I was just like, I had to

From Open Mics To DJ Lessons

SPEAKER_01 3:54

stop for a moment and like take that in. And it's good to remember where you came from because sometimes sometimes you forget and you get you get tied down and stuff. But yeah, we started Goku Gadget in 2005. I was a singer of that group. Up honestly, was the was the main front person up through 2020, and I just glossed over which is amazing. Over over 15 years, because there was a lot that happened in that.

SPEAKER_00 4:16

Well, and I remember there'd be there'd be people that would you know change in the band and things like that. But the band, I mean, I just want to say that you know, being a musician, it was by far one of the best bands that I've ever seen in the area as far as the quality of the sound, as far as the the songs you did. It was a great mix of songs. And it just was awesome. And I remember I remember seeing them with uh my wife, and we would be at the works or building 24, whatever you want to call it. And I'd be up top and I'd be like, this guy, these guys are like amazing because you'd see bands come and go. And sometimes, you know, it was like, okay, they're good, but you guys were just amazing. It was one of my favorite bands when I used to go out to see to see live music, one of my favorites. So obviously, you guys were very successful at it because you were you were all over the place. You weren't just in Berks County, you were everywhere.

SPEAKER_01 5:02

Yeah, you know, when I was in college, I was I started DJing there. I thought that would be fun. So I mean, this was like, you know, I went out and and bought a bunch of vinyl. We were still like that's that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to be a scratch DJ, and then I learned how to, you know, I was I was doing parties in people's apartments for nothing. And I learned the value of man, my friend had like a sorority party, and I I brought all these records and I'm playing all these cool things and no one's reacting. Oh god. And finally I put on staying alive because I was limited to also what I had on vinyl, and like that broke the party, and I understood the value of oh, play the right song for the room. And once the party broke, like it was great after that. Yeah. And then there was another lesson in that time period as well. And this this travels with me to today. I don't know how oh, I I found this there's guys that live below me. Brad, I did a I did like an all-black fraternity party. Oh, cool. So it's like it's like 200 black people and Jeff in the corner. How did you feel? Well, I I was I was honestly stoked. I was like, this is gonna be dope. So, what music did you think was gonna work and what music works? So, so I'm supposed to have an hour. Okay, and I get I don't, maybe, maybe 20 minutes in. Yeah. And they go, and they like grab my stuff and move it. Oh gosh. And they put their own stuff down, and the party erupts right away, right? And so this- So you got fired? Yes.

SPEAKER_00 6:31

It sounds like you got fired.

SPEAKER_01 6:34

You got fired at your own gig? I it I got the best lesson I ever got. This man, this very tall man came up to me and he goes, I got three things to tell you. Okay. One, that Jurassic 5 stuff you played, which is like a like an artsy hip-hop group. He goes, That's for you. Play party music. Number two, never play a full song ever. Never. Interesting. Number three, go home and practice right now. Oh, that's great advice. And to this day, to this day, I still think about like that. That guy came up to me and gave me valuable advice. Yeah. And he was absolutely correct. Play music people want to hear, never play a full song, because nobody cares about the third verse. They just don't. So true. And go home and practice. Yeah. And so when I formed Go Go Gadget in 2005, I was up at Penn State and we were playing it. It gave us the opportunity to play in front of a lot of people that were drinking and doing it. Wait, so you were going to Penn State? That's where it started? Yeah. I didn't know that. Yeah. You started Penn State. Well, all the other guys lived here in Reading. So I would drive back from Penn State on a Thursday and rehearse and then and then and then go back. Uh Brad, I remember we would play, I'd go to class on Thursday, I'd drive to the Marlin and LBI on Thursday night. I'd drive right back and go to class at 8 a.m. on Friday. Then I'd drive to Sea Isle

Building GoGo Gadget Into A Show

SPEAKER_01 7:50

City, New Jersey and play Friday night. And that semester, I got the best grades I ever got because I had no time to mess around. Yeah, right. It was just go. And it was exciting. We were we were playing music and I'd I'd kind of sent over, you know. We came out in a time in in 2005. There was a lot of like like Lincoln Park was hitting hard and and like these rock bands, and my voice did not sound like that. Yeah. And I was a DJ. So so I realized I could sing. I started singing female pop tunes. Wow. I started doing a lot of hip hop because I was into rap with my DJ background, and we wouldn't stop. Every song would medley just like a DJ. We do like verse course, verse chorus, next song, verse chorus, verse course, next song, and keep it going. And then some bars didn't like that. My voice sounded weird and I looked like a child. Right. And some people were like, we've never seen anything like this. When can we book you again? Oh, that's cool. And we really found our niche that way. Yeah. And so that was kind of phase one of the success of that group was playing music people wanted to hear that was different, differentiating ourselves and keeping it moving. When did you realize you were good? The band? Yeah. When did you guys realize you were good? Like, was there a point where you're like, you know what, we're we're freaking good. Brad, I've I came to this realization very recently that every band thinks they're good. This is true. So we thought we were good right away.

SPEAKER_00 9:10

Right, got it. But as you grow, as you I get it, and as you grow and you listen to what you were before, then you're like, oh God. Correct. Got it. Totally, I totally get that. So we thought we thought we were great right away.

SPEAKER_01 9:21

And we had something special because we had great musicians. It was built off of jazz musicians that I knew from high school. So everybody could really play. And we had a lot of multi-instrumentalists, which also led to it being interesting on stage. This guy can play that. And then where we like jumped up was I saw Nine Inch Nails perform in New Jersey at the ISOD Center in 2007 or 8. And I thought, I need lights right away. Oh, that's funny. Like, like I saw them, and Brad, it was it was as if I was watching pieces of art. Each song was its own modern piece of art that like red was used intentionally for a reason with this movement that really It wasn't just somebody doing this on the board. Yeah, everything had a purpose. Theatrical. And and speaking of, let's take a little sidebar here, quick, about Brad Wiseman. Oh Jesus. Dude, when I when I first saw your podcast- Here's where the interview changes.

SPEAKER_00 10:11

When I first saw your- We've never edited this show before, but now we're gonna have to edit the show. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. That's good.

SPEAKER_01 10:16

When I first saw your podcast, I was like, this looks great. I want to go back to where Brad started and see like where the production started and how it got to this point. So I hit the like YouTube like filter by oldest first. Yeah. And lo and behold, what do I see? Yeah. I see Brad Weissman on Star Search. Oh, yeah. That was my twin brother. I go That was Brad Lee, not Brad. What is this? And I put it on and I see this you can't. So you didn't know that before? No, I had no idea, Brad.

SPEAKER_00 10:43

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01 10:44

And I see like you're singing great. Yeah. You've got this, like, these gorgeous locks of hair. Definitely had that. And I'm like, oh, like, and then so now I'm looking around your page and I see. Now I'm not sure if it was at the silo or another like similar venue. Silo was a lot of it. Now connecting this to my Nine Inch Nails experience in the in that early 90s, wherever you would, maybe it was mid-90s.

SPEAKER_00 11:04

You had a lot of lights in Simon Apple.

SPEAKER_01 11:06

And you had like a long intro with just the backlight going and pumping and the keyboard is going, and then you come out, and there was intention behind that. Yeah, absolutely. And I feel like after those early 90s, a lot of that died away and disappeared, and nobody was doing it. They just said, let's reduce our overhead, let's make as much money as possible, and let's play these crappy songs, and like whatever.

SPEAKER_00 11:26

And it was just like one light on the whole time. That was it. Yeah. And the lights definitely make a difference. Dude. Absolutely makes a difference. It makes it theatrical.

SPEAKER_01 11:33

I I had that one of the best compliments I ever got was you ever seen the movie Mr. Holland's Opus? Yes, a long time ago. So there's a scene where like his son's deaf. So they program lighting so that the son can understand what the music is. Oh wow. And someone came out to see one of our shows and they were like, I feel like that scene in Mr. Holland's Opus. If I was deaf, I knew exactly what you were playing. And I was like, that's what I wanted. That's cool. So that was 2008. I did, I saw that nine-inch nail show and I bought a light the next day. Didn't know how to use it, didn't know what to do with it. Started working, buying more, buying more, buying more. And this is how we get to eventually have three high studios with all this stuff because I because I wanted a show.

SPEAKER_00 12:11

And you do have, I mean, you you have 8,000 square feet of studio space. But it's not just like when I was there, this is where I think like this is like reminds me of like an LA or uh a Belly Hills or like a California type setup where I don't think people realize what you have here locally available. They just don't. Because when I went in there, that's the way I felt. I felt like I was on like a movie set or like a place where you can pretty much produce anything you want, whether it be a commercial or I mean, I saw you did the Globetrotters where you did something for them there. We did. And

Three Hive Studios And Creative Sets

SPEAKER_00 12:42

I saw a lot of stuff that you're filming now. You have that white like wall that looks like that looks like it doesn't even it looks like it has no beginning and no end.

SPEAKER_01 12:49

Sure. So a cyclorama or is that what it's called? Yeah. See, stupid people like myself don't know what it's called. Well, why would you know? Honestly, I've never even seen one before. It's really cool. So I so we had half of that space. So we're we're jumping all over here. That's all right. I had a I had a I had a not nice space out in Temple from 2017 to 2020. And I say not nice because it used to be like a truck wash, so it was filthy. Whoa. And when it would rain, it would flood in there. I would be in there at 3 30 in the morning vacuuming up water. I can see why he said not nice space. Yeah, no, but but we made it work. We made some nice stuff in there. And then, you know, pandemic happens, and I'm at home at three, and I knew I I wanted a new space. And at 3 30 in the morning on LoopNet, I found that this space where I'm at was available. I get out of bed with two flashlights and go over to where it is, and I'm looking in the window, and I go home, it's now four in the morning, and I write a six-page letter to whoever the listing and said, This is why I need this space to save my business. And a day later, the landlord called me and said, Well, we we had 10 people inquire, but you're the only one that wrote a letter, so I'm gonna give it to you. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 13:53

And that's it's a great space. Now tell everybody what you do in there.

SPEAKER_01 13:56

I mean, there's you could do a lot of things in that space. So, Brad, I do a lot of things in general, which is That's good. Good or bad. I'm not sure. Time will tell. So we we started with 4,000 square feet, and then eventually the adjoining tenants moved out, and I thought it was more fun to build out more. So we acquired that as well. Really, initially, it was for my own bands.

SPEAKER_00 14:15

I have GoGo Gadget, I have another group called Magical Mystery Doors, which is the one we talked about in the beginning, and which is the one that that you said the band is awarded USA Today's number one casino show. That's amazing. It was a very big moment when that happened for us.

SPEAKER_01 14:29

And that's a that band is a is a really different mix. So again, try to be different, try to be unique. We we had this grouping of guys that look like a part of being in the band industry the way I do it is to be profitable, right? And there's not much more profitability than the Beatles and Led Zeppelin. That's pretty profitable. And at the time when we when we had those two, we had another like male rock baritone vocalist that had this dark Jim Morrison vibe. So that's why the doors are also included. You know, uh, you know, we have two British bands and then and then an LA rock, so it didn't really make sense, but it works for us. And I spent 14 months building that show from okay, I want to do this. How can we put this together in a way that's interesting? So, you know, I I I'm I'm working on on Ableton Live, it's a computer program for for audio software, and and going through their songs, and I have the first mashup that came together was Led Zeppelin's Misty Mountain Hop. Right. And I I have all these songs grouped by beats per minute and and keys, and I'm looking through, and I'm like, I think hello, I love you. If I just take Jim Morrison's vocals gonna line up on top of this, and it was perfect.

SPEAKER_02 15:36

Unbelievable.

SPEAKER_00 15:36

And I was like, we have a show. So so when you do these bands, this is what's different than anybody else saying, Oh, I started a band and we're here's our set list. And you literally, it is a full show for you. Like you're sitting there from beginning to end, you you have it planned out and the set list, and you know what's gonna be. It's a show, it's not just like haphazard.

SPEAKER_01 15:56

I it's more akin to a Broadway show than a bar band. Gotcha. Yeah. That that project specifically. And now it it is one band and two shows. So we have our Beetle Zeppelin Door show, and then we were kind of encouraged to develop a Zeppelin-specific show. So we call that Zeppelin Reimagined. So we have mashups and medleys and different arrangements in there as well. So anyway, so at Three Hive Studios, we were developing these things, and then the adjoining neighbor moved out, and we had this other space, and I thought rather than someone else coming in and taking this space, it just seems more fun to develop out something unique and special. So we built out this Cyclorama wall, we built out some other sets, and I still am not really sure what like I want people to have, I use this reference to people, but like Willy Wonka's chocolate factory, right? I want people to come in and go, where am I? I feel like a kid, and my creativity can run wild because I've now tapped into like before all these, like I feel young again. Yeah. And so when people come in and I have a thousand retro toys in there, and I have arcade games, and I have like like it feels weird and unique.

SPEAKER_00 17:07

The toys were awesome. I was there and I I couldn't stop looking at all the different toys. It was, I was like, oh my god, I had that as a kid, I had that as a kid. That was so cool.

SPEAKER_01 17:33

So, and so you feel instantly more comfortable. Because even people that aren't used to being on camera that come in there, yeah, maybe even people that come in here, some of them aren't used to being on camera and they're a little like stressed, or like, if you can have those, you know, you have this decorated certain way, if they can feel at ease, you're gonna get a better interview, you're gonna get a better product. So true. So I really feel strongly about that. So yeah, we've got this space.

SPEAKER_00 17:54

And then also, aren't you didn't you just start a new a new band yourself? So, Brad.

SPEAKER_01 18:02

So, Brad, over the since I developed this studio, right? Yeah, I have a I'm like a fish. Like if there's like a shiny out of water or in water. No, when there's a shiny lure in front of me, I'm like, I I think I can do that. That sounds fun. And I bite it, and sometimes I get to keep it and sometimes it pulls me out. So when I we developed three hive studios, it made sense. Like we were producing our own content in-house. Yeah. And so then we started, well, let's go out of the studio and we can develop some content for other people. Then they'll know about us, they'll know about the studio, it'll work together. And it it it kind of ramped up to a point where through a mutual friend, I got a contract, and there's I I I could talk about this, but the the US Open Pickleball Championships, right? Big event. There's 60,000 people that attend this event in Naples. Wow. And I connected with the CEO, and we had a Zoom meeting, and it did not go well.

SPEAKER_02 18:51

Oh right.

SPEAKER_01 18:52

They needed they needed someone to come down and capture the event and stuff, and I didn't like the way it went. So, so doing what I do, I said to my partner, let's make a video. We're gonna send it within 24 hours. It's gonna be goofy, it's gonna be super high quality, and we're just gonna send it and say, you can see how quickly and creatively we can work. Uh do what you will with this. So we make this video of me training for pickleball. Oh, jeez. And it's good. I send it to him, and he writes back, damn impressive, you're hired immediately.

SPEAKER_00 19:21

Oh, get out of here. So the zoom didn't go well. No, but you did like something goofy and just kind of like, you know what, screw it. It's like a Hail Mary, basically. And and they

The Pickleball Contract Cautionary Tale

SPEAKER_00 19:29

liked it.

SPEAKER_01 19:29

But that's where I thrive. I'm not a salesman. Yeah, but I can I can so we we we dive into this project and he wants me to be in all the videos, like me training. So now you're the pickleball, you're the pickle boy. So we make these series of videos. I don't know. No, we make these series of videos, like like movie inspired. So we did a John Wick scene instead of choosing guns, it was choosing pickleball pedals, and they're incredible. That's great. Where can we see this? Well, I'll put them up somewhere. Yeah, yeah. I'd like to see this. I I send them over, and and I'm just dealing with the CEO at this point, and he goes, these are incredible, but I should have told you we don't work with certain brands, so we gotta reshoot all these. Oh no. He's like, it's my fault. But the money's the money. So I was like, all right, I'm gonna, we did three videos. We'll reshoot them all. I need all the information exactly. So to the T, everything we do exactly. I get props, we get these things, we build all these sites. Oh my gosh. And we send them over. So we do the John Wick one, we do one that's uh like Wes Anderson inspired with my son, like all these like perfect symmetry, and they they love my son. We named him Pickle, and he runs a pickleball shop, and then and then another one of me training, and we send them over. He's like, I love these, let me share them with my marketing team. Guess what happened? Shares them with the marketing team. I know this isn't gonna go away. And they say, This brand isn't represented enough, we have to do this, we have to reshoot all of these, but we don't have any more money. And so I'm already upside down on this project. And and and and through this, so they end up, they don't use any of them. And also through this, it's like a resume builder, it's a qualified Be careful who your marketing team is, that's all I can say. So, so I got pretty down about it, but what I learned was I'm good at building bands, I'm good at coming up with an idea for entertainment, I'm good at being in that product, launching it for a few years, and then finding someone to replace me. That has been tried and true and profitable, and I've won awards and I've made many people happy. What am I doing making videos? Even though I thought they were great, and dude thought they were great. Like there was so so after that, I'm a little down, but but this band 21 Pilots that I love and I've been playing their music for a long time. During COVID, I did a tribute to them from my attic in 21 days. I built a 21 Pilot show. I streamed it, I raised money and donated it to Four Diamonds, which is the Thon organization. So I've been following them for a long time. They released a movie on IMAX back in February, and I take my youngest son, Carson, and I put a you know, snapshot on Instagram watching the 21 Pilots movie with my son. And the next morning I get an Instagram message from from a drummer that I've known from the scene and followed a very similar path as my own. And we've kind of been friendly competition over the years. And he's like, Oh, I saw that last night too. Had me wanting to start a 21 Pilots tribute. Oh wow. And I'm like, this guy's crazy. With or without me. And my voice fits it. I love this band, and I've just decided that I need to do something with music again. And the overhead, there's only two guys in it, and the minus one of us. And it's they have a massive live show with production that I love. So so we had a meeting, we had a three-hour meeting, it went great. We had a rehearsal,

Blurryface Tribute And Music Licensing

SPEAKER_01 22:29

it went great. So you're doing it. So here we are. Absolutely. Now, when are you touring? Are you touring now or when are you doing it? So we are actively shopping. Uh, this is the first time I've like reverse engineered this. Normally, I build a band, we we book a show, and then we try to grow it. Got it. But this time, based on kind of my resume and what I've done, I've built the promotional. Materials and I'm going directly to like the dream list of agencies first. And I want somebody to say, I believe in you. I understand the need and market for this product. Nobody's doing it. 21 Pilots has been playing 17 years. They have seven albums out. They're about to take in hiatus that's unannounced how long. Might be six months, might be six years. Uh so the timing's right for it. Yeah. They sold out Ohio Stadium in a day. It's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 23:12

A whole stadium. Yeah, it's incredible.

SPEAKER_01 23:14

They thought it was going to take five hours.

SPEAKER_00 23:15

I have a question for that kind of stuff. You know, I've always wondered, as a musician, you want to go do something like that, like a tribute band. What are the logistics as far as going to 21 Pilots and saying, do you have to go to them? Do you just go to the publisher? Do you go to the you know who do you have to talk to about that? I mean you gotta pay, you gotta pay rights, obviously.

SPEAKER_01 23:32

You don't the same way a restaurant that has music playing in their establishment has to pay. BMI ASCAP. That's correct. Okay. It falls under the venue to pay those fees where you perform. But it has to be more than a normal band, or no?

SPEAKER_00 23:49

It's not. No, it's just so as long as they have a BMI or ASCAP sticker on the front door and they're paying those licensing fees, you can go in there and play that stuff. That's correct.

SPEAKER_01 23:56

Now there are a few. I mean, that's there's there's tribute bands, the tribute band market has exploded. So Well Queen has a a couple people that do it.

SPEAKER_00 24:05

I mean every band. Pink Floyd, big ones. There's some massive Pink.

SPEAKER_01 24:09

So so all of those fall under that. There have been some stories where the manager of the Eagles, Irving Isoff, and his team has kind of come after uh some people to say, hey, send us which is honestly, I'm going to try to go directly to 21 pilots. I shared this with some high up people I know, and they said you should go directly to them. And and I'm gonna pitch like, hey, if you guys endorse this, maybe this percentage just goes directly to a charity of your choosing. Or maybe when you're on hiatus, some of your crew can be. I don't know. I mean, I'm dreaming big. It's it's likely they say why not?

SPEAKER_00 24:42

Yeah, it's likely they don't even answer the email. Yeah, right. That's pretty good. So you so this is happening, and you're just working on how you're kind of looking for the places to go or the venues to go and the people to support the whole project.

SPEAKER_01 24:53

Yeah, I have a have a whole plan. It's a full production tribute. We have video screens, we have lighting. Like we're gonna work on a set that's kind of a bit different from what they do because I don't want to do the exact same thing. And you know, I'm looking at it. Well, I saw some of the demo stuff. It's pretty awesome. It's I'm so proud of it.

SPEAKER_00 25:06

It's very cool. I I I saw some of the, and it doesn't even look like you actually. Like it it's the whole thing is this crazy. It looks good. So where do we just go on? Where do we go on the website to find that? How do we get we can just go to the the three the threehive studios website?

SPEAKER_01 25:19

So there's there's many websites in Jeff Tomrell's world. We have gogogadget.com. Okay. We have magicalmisterydoors.com. Got it. We have threehive.com. Got it. The studio now uh blurryface.

SPEAKER_00 25:32

That's the uh yeah, that's the new LiveTribute.com. Gotcha. And that's the one for the 21 pilots. Yeah, awesome. Very cool. So let's get into some of the business part of this stuff. It's pretty pretty interesting. Because, you know, obviously you're running a studio there, and one of the things that you had on here was how difficult it is to grow a business with employees. You had you know, you have bands, obviously, and and bandmates are are tough enough because typically it's the egos that get involved. I remember from being in bands that is a thing. Musicians tend to have egos and tend to do their eyebrows like this sometimes, depending depending on what goes on. Pands to the shot of the water. Yeah, right, exactly. But you know, you now you're dealing, you have employees. I have 20 full-time employees. Which is incredible. So how how did you go from, you know, the band thing of, hey, everybody's kind of a guy, dude, in the band, and and now you have employees? It's a totally different thing.

SPEAKER_01 26:23

It's been hard. It's been it's been really hard, Brad, because I I never like I never set out to be a business owner or have employees or a staff, right? I just happened to have the ability to have an idea and bring it to fruition.

Owning Bands Plus Managing Employees

SPEAKER_01 26:36

And other people wanted to join me on that journey. Yeah, right. And so transitioning from a peer being on stage with people to then being kind of a a leader or or I hate the word boss in my butt but that's kind of what it is, it's been more of a challenge than I thought at times. Uh again, I didn't train for it. I I don't know that I'm particularly good at it. I I care, you know. I have a business coach that I'm I'm trying to do better, but yeah, you know, it has its ups and downs. I do know that it's great when I hear when we have guys that used to be in other bands and they come into this organization and we have a rehearsal. This has happened three times specifically. Yeah. This exact thing. We'd have a rehearsal and they go, Oh, you you guys actually have fun here. And I went, What do you mean?

SPEAKER_00 27:21

Being in a band supposed to suck, or like it wasn't fun where we were. Oh, that's interesting.

SPEAKER_01 27:26

Uh and that happened three times. So, like, I and I've only ever been in my own band, so I didn't know that was like I always thought bands were fun.

SPEAKER_00 27:32

I mean, I never had thought that it sucked. I always thought it was fun. Well, when you're I mean, egos definitely get involved. There would be times where that were, you know.

SPEAKER_01 27:39

Brad, in this cover band world where I operate, some of these bands are similar to mine now, owned by people who were in them a long time ago. So it's it's they came into established groups with somebody else running them that's out of touch, and like you get this amount and you do this and you don't do this. And so that that happens often in this kind of cover band world with bands that have been around a long time. So let's go back to that. So this is what's weird, this is what's different for me to think of with the bands.

SPEAKER_00 28:05

So Go Go Gadget is still going. Still going, 21 years. And you you own the band. I do. And you you have to find people to play in the band. That's correct. That is so like, see, this is what's funny. That's what's different because every band I was in, it was us, and that was it. That's right. There was no manager, it was somebody in the band that basically said they're gonna be the leader and they would piss everybody off. You know, and then and then that was it, you know? And and that was the person that negotiated with the clubs or with Media Five. You remember Media Five? I don't know if it's still around or not. Are they still around? Are you allowed to talk about them or not? I please. I can talk, I can talk about them because this was years ago, Simon I.

SPEAKER_01 28:47

I spent a decade with Media Five. Oh, you did? It's a booking agency, by the way. And it was it it was time to move on. Yeah. And uh, and we did, and that was fine. Uh at the time we were there, they're Dave Sestakes. Dave booked us a lot. Dave was the guy.

SPEAKER_00 29:00

Dave's still doing it. Dave's still doing it. Holy man. He's the one that kind of found live, the band live. He's the one that kind of kind of helped find them or bring them about. He was on the team.

SPEAKER_01 29:10

Greg Epler was the guy who found Live, and Dave was a part of that team as well as Fuel. And again, when we were look, when we were there, we we grew together. You know, it it I ended up going elsewhere at some point. But yes, the correct.

SPEAKER_00 29:23

That's all right, yeah. But it's it's funny. But that's what's so weird to me. Like, I I it's it's interesting to hear, like when you say, Oh, I own the band, and I and and you're not in it. Right.

SPEAKER_01 29:32

So it is a business entity. Yeah, it's awesome. It does, it sounds weird when people are like, What do you mean you own a band? I'm like, well, it's it's a business, it's a thing. Yeah. And some people move on, and then we have to find someone to replace that.

SPEAKER_00 29:45

And so you do like auditions and stuff, like like if somebody left, let's just say the drummer has an affair with the guitar player's wife or something.

SPEAKER_01 29:52

We've that's happened in other bands. I'm talking bands here. We've never had something that happen internally, but that has happened in other bands. Oh, that happened a lot when I was in bands.

SPEAKER_00 30:01

I mean, actually, there's probably no wives involved, actually. It was just girlfriends and things like that. The stories I've heard. No, but seriously, so you so you go out and you're you're auditioning for another drummer at that point.

SPEAKER_01 30:11

Yeah, yeah, yes. And and at this point, you know, in in the digital you know, social media world, we'll put a hey, we're like, for example, two years ago, we had one of our vocalists, Alex B, decided he wanted to be a pilot. He's he's been performing since he was like 11, and it was time for him to move on. So we put out a hey, we're looking for a vocalist, and man, is that tough. Oh, yeah. Doesn't everybody think they can sing? Everybody does.

SPEAKER_00 30:37

I mean, you're a good singer, right? You could try you could audition.

SPEAKER_01 30:41

This this band plays, they still play clubs, we do high-end corporate events. We've played for Google, we've played for Paramount, we've we've been flown to Abu Dhabi and played for Formula One races. We are a a high-end entertainment band playing, and and and the band's youngish, and even the guys that maybe are not youngest look youngest. Yeah. And so, like, I had a 65-year-old woman trying to convince me she was the perfect piece to stand on stage, and I'm like, what like the amount of- For real?

SPEAKER_00 31:13

Like, she really believed it. She believed it was in her blood that she was just gonna do this.

SPEAKER_01 31:17

So there's a lot of time that goes into sorting through those. And you find some good, but but Brad, you know, from being in a band, in addition to being talented, you have to find those people, and then you have to find the people that like we can get along with.

SPEAKER_00 31:29

Well, I was gonna say, too, you could audition somebody could be the best drummer in the world, but if but if but if they're a pain in the ass, then nobody's gonna want to work with them.

SPEAKER_01 31:37

And you have to try to just like any other job, you have to try to suss that out like somewhat early on. But it is like any other job, you're right. Yeah, and so we've got we've got a great, I'd said I was with my drummer last night, the drummer of GoGo Gadget. I went to see a concert in Philly and he was there. And you know, I always joke, I was like, so you're not gonna leave for another five years, right? Because like everybody that's there right now is knocking it out of the park, and like their chemistry is great, yeah, the musicianship is top-notch. And I was just like, let's just everybody hang for for a little while.

SPEAKER_00 32:09

You know, we have that in business too, because I I can just tell you, I mean, right now, we always say this now with our leadership in our company right now is amazing. So we have you know five to seven people. We don't have 22 employees, but we have five to seven people. But the leadership we have right now is just incredible in our office here. Make a sense. And it's the same, it it's amazing. And you you do say those things like, all right, guys, nobody's leaving. This is a really good thing. Let's all stay here.

SPEAKER_01 32:32

And I'll I'll tell you, just being aware, I make sure to check in with everyone often enough. Because I value these people. Yeah, sure. Is there something you need? Yeah, are you happy with the arrangement right now? And sometimes they're great, and sometimes they speak up and we figure it out. Because I've heard the stories of of someone like they asked for a raise somewhere, not even you know, band specific, and they could they they say no, no, and then they go leave and take another job, and that company will be like, we will double your salary. And it's like we had this conversation.

SPEAKER_00 33:05

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01 33:05

Like, why didn't you tell me? Like, like I all I was asking for was a 20% raise. Now you're saying I'm so important, you're double it, I'm out.

SPEAKER_02 33:12

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01 33:12

And that's so I don't ever want that to happen. And I don't want to run a place, a business where people feel like they're undervalued. So I I feel so lucky to have been on stage. I feel lucky to have, you know, I've driven our box truck to Florida multiple times so that I know what's the fuck. That is not fun.

SPEAKER_00 33:31

I like it. Oh gosh, dude. I remember driving our box truck. It was hard. I'm doing love it, but I like it once a year. You know what you you know was the one that really was funny. We used to go from we would go from Cape May, yeah, or New Jersey. We'd play in Wildwood, right? At the Play Pen. I've remembered. Dude, I've heard about the Wildwood Heyday. Oh, yeah. It had disappeared by the time. Wildwood in its time. I was told there was a place called uh the playpen that was just a blast to play. It was amazing. Would you set up for like and do a couple days in a row? We would there's bandhouses, man. We'd stay in band houses then. Oh, yeah, it was disgusting. No, I know. You really didn't rock and roll. There was probably, I think COVID started in some of these places. I actually do think COVID was started in a bandhouse. Sure. It was disgruntled, it was disgruntled. So we would we would play up there and then we would come down with this big box truck, like the biggest one you could get because everything was in one truck. 26-foot box truck. And we'd get on the Cape May Ferry. Now, the Cape May. Yeah, but the Cape May Ferry back then was you weren't sure if it was gonna make it to the other side. I see. This thing was really bad. And and the fumes, you all everybody kept their car on, you'd be getting a huge migraine from the fumes. And the truck would be like the thing would be going back and forth like this because the truck. It was crazy. No bar, there was no restaurant, no food on that thing. You basically stayed in the box truck and got to the other side. That's what we did. But then we'd go play in uh Ocean City, Maryland for like another two weeks.

SPEAKER_01 34:46

Where was the Ocean City, Maryland?

SPEAKER_00 34:48

It was called uh graffiti's. There's actually a CVS there right now. It's on 18th Street on Coastal Highway in Ocean City, Maryland.

SPEAKER_01 34:55

HTC strikes by the party block, or what was the paddock that was on 17th Street, so I know that area.

SPEAKER_00 34:58

Yes, yes, exactly. So we played there and we opened up for some really good bands like Robert Hazard and uh the we opened up for uh Tommy Conwell and Young Rumblers. I don't know. Do you know any of those bands? I just spoke with uh Chris who plays guitar for Tommy Conwell. Yeah, Chris Day. I'm not your man. Is that what the song there? I think it was one of the songs. Yeah, whatever. This just shows you that I'm a little older than everybody in this room right now. We need the we need the off uh I did not open for Elvis. I did not open for Elvis, just so you know, just letting it let it out there.

SPEAKER_01 35:24

So I would love to hear some of those stories about the time.

SPEAKER_00 35:27

Dude, we had great times, great times. I can't tell those stories on here because uh you know people will listen. Let's just talk about the be different part. I I like this, and that's how we're gonna wrap this up, actually. You said the biggest piece of advice for anybody, you said, how how can you well you can say how can you make yourself and your product different from other products in the market? Nobody notices normal, and I'm so big into this. Have uh you have to bring something special to the table. So true. Like let's let's do that.

SPEAKER_01 35:53

You're hosting a podcast so that people know you in a different way and you're familiar with you. You wear red shoes for no reason, you stand out. If you're gonna I have young bands uh approach me and and and not young bands for for advice or help or whatever, and it's like step back and look at your product. You're doing the same thing as all those, there's nothing about you that's different. You're playing the same set list. What can you do that is uniquely yours that won't appeal to everyone, but it will really appeal to a group of people, and then you can grow that. Same thing

The Stand-Out Rule And Closing

SPEAKER_01 36:27

with our studio when you walk in. You want it to I'm an entertainer, so when I want when people walk in, I want them to feel like I really liked being here today. Yeah, I you know, so I agree with you 100%.

SPEAKER_00 36:39

If I if there's one thing that I could say, the reason I didn't make it in the music business is because I listened to too many people telling me who I needed to be in that series. Really? Absolutely. I wanted to sing adult contemporary, but at a 17-year-old, nobody sees a 17-year-old. Now today it's different. Look at Michael BeauBlay, look at Harry Connick Jr., look at you know, all these people. I love Harry Connick. Uh so do I. So, you know, you look at these. I I don't doubt he's an amazing musician, period, and also a great singer. But it's you know, it's one of the things I didn't do. I followed the advice of music that was not in my heart.

SPEAKER_01 37:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:14

But the people that I was following were managers and people that were saying, Oh, you got to do this to make it, or you gotta do this to make it, or this is what people want to hear. And so how does it affect you moving forward? That like when did you realize I changed? I started doing different different music. I wasn't doing what I loved. Well, and how does that apply to your the rest of your life now, your business line? Oh, I know now the I'm the I'm the the drummer here, and I'm gonna do what I'm gonna march the way in my own way. I don't, I don't, I mean, if somebody, if somebody said to me, you know, I remember when COVID happened, and my I said to my wife, I I think I got to do a podcast. I really want to do a podcast. And she said, and I said, the only thing is is you know, right now I'm not making any money, and you know, it's probably gonna cost about $1,500 to $2,000. And she said, I don't know if that's a good idea. I said, Yeah, you're right, you're right. Two weeks later, all the podcasts have showed up, and she goes, she goes, I thought we said that wasn't a good idea. I said, I agree, but I didn't say I was gonna do it. It wasn't a good idea, but here it is. But you know what's funny? Started at a desk in my office in my house during COVID. I had to make sure that I got a mixer that I could do on my cell phone, that I could call people my cell phone and do the interviews because we couldn't see each other. And then I went from that to that.

SPEAKER_01 38:24

There's a second part to that as well, as well as be different.

SPEAKER_00 38:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:28

And you have to outwork everyone if you want to succeed. When the reason GoGo Gadget worked, yeah, I was not the best singer. I was far from the best-looking front person out there. I just outworked everyone. I was different, and and and we carried, I drove the truck, we carried in more lights. I remember hanging upside down off of a piece of truss at the bottling cork in Dewey Beach, Delaware. It's a hundred degrees in there, and one of the other bands looked at me and they were very successful. They looked at me and they said, F that, I'm not doing that. Wow. And then years later, they hired me to do stuff for them. Yeah. And I'm not saying that it was just have something different and be Brad, a couple months ago I emailed you about like a property, and at like 9 37 p.m., like you got back to me. Yeah, I did, yeah. Because you you because you will outwork, not that you're or you're willing to put in the effort and be different. That's that's the secret to success. Absolutely be different and and we're willing to put the effort in.

SPEAKER_00 39:25

100%. That's it. I agree. I'm 100%, man. Thanks for being on the show here. So, anything you want to say, let's get some more information about your studio, what you're doing, and how people can reach out to you. Because I think if somebody wants to do a podcast like this, you have the setup there. They they can they can actually rent space for you to do the podcast, right?

SPEAKER_01 39:41

It's it's tricky to learn how to how to do all this stuff, right? The tech and all the equipment. So they can walk in, say hello, sit down and talk, turnkey, and leave. And that night they have a finished podcast delivered to them. That's awesome. That's cool.

SPEAKER_00 39:53

Hugo, don't worry, I'm not gonna leave you.

SPEAKER_01 39:56

I have a question, Jeff. What is three hives? Where did you come up with that? Three hive. Uh-huh. I like my favorite science fiction book, is uh is a book called Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card, and and the the antagonist is like this hive queen, right? So I wanted to do something with that, and then I I really like the way bees work together, this hive, this colony. They create this beautiful thing that's necessary, but they're also a little scary. And at the time I was doing uh I wanted to do music, media, and production, which is three. And then also three rhymes with B, so it's helpful for your brain to remember Beehive, Three Hive. Yep. So that was kind of the impetus of three hive. Thanks for asking. So, yeah, I mean, if you can look up Gogo Gadget still playing, they're still crushing it 21 years later. We just had our our Eagles fights on remix on the 30 for 30 special this year, which was incredible. Um, you can look up gogogadget.com, magical mystery doors, tribute Beatles led Zeppelin Doors, doing very well, growing rapidly. We just hit 65,000 followers on Facebook, which is a great number. That's magical mysterydoors.com. The studio is threehive.com, and you might see me on stage wearing masks and leaping off pianos blurry face live tribute.

SPEAKER_00 41:07

Let me know when I can come see you because I want to see you, man. That's awesome. Thanks so much for being here. Appreciate it. All right, Jeff Tomrell. We're gonna say Three Hive Studios. He's amazing. Go, go gadget, all these different bands, and the new one coming out, Blurry Face. You want to check that out? All right, thanks for being here every Thursday at 7 p.m. Keep coming back. All right. See you.