An Inspired Chat with Steve Stewart of Los Angeles

We recently had the chance to connect with Steve Stewart and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Steve, thank you so much for joining us today. We’re thrilled to learn more about your journey, values and what you are currently working on. Let’s start with an ice breaker: What do you think is misunderstood about your business? 
That all musicians are multi-millionaires. Despite all the music videos featuring Maybachs and G6s, the truth is very few musicians make the kind of money that’s depicted on social media. Record deals aren’t what they used to be, and when you consider that royalties from the sale of a CD years ago might be $1 per unit, now an artist might receive $0.0005 per stream – which is many thousands of times less. There’s been a global de-valuing of music, where many consumers have access to hundreds of millions of songs for free.

Music has value – it’s the soundtrack to our lives, and gets billions of people through their days all over the world. The artists behind the writing and performing of these songs deserve to be fairly compensated for their work, and that motivates me to fight for this to this day.

Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I’m Steve Stewart, the CEO & Co-Founder of SongHub (www.songhub.co) – which is a music tech company at the intersection of AI and music rights, streamlining the music registration process, and using blockchain technology to create an accurate, accessible and immutable record of song splits and rights holder information.

Music royalties are frequently inaccurate and often unpaid, due to inaccurate (or non-existent) registrations with differing data over hundreds of different databases all over the world. Our goal is to simplify this process, and allow artists and songwriters to receive the royalties they are due in a timely manner.

I just released a book called, “How To Get Paid When Your Songs Get Played: The Simple Guide To Royalties & Registering Your Music,” which explains the royalty system and the importance of registering music. Hopefully, this answers some of the questions artists and songwriters may have about how to make sure they’re getting all the royalties they deserve.

Appreciate your sharing that. Let’s talk about your life, growing up and some of topics and learnings around that. What breaks the bonds between people—and what restores them?
I live in a fast-paced urban environment in Southern California. The music/tech space can be very competitive – to the point where some tech extremists are “bio-hacking” their own performance with various substances and practices they believe will give them an edge over their competition. This environment can breed arrogance and self-centeredness – qualities that are not well-suited to bringing people together. Many devs spend most of their days in dimly-lit rooms, in front of computer monitors, coding away – without any human interaction. This drive for dollars and corporate dominance can isolate and separate people from one another.

While I’m certainly one to appreciate the hustle, I know it comes at a cost. Many times that’s less time with family and friends, and more time in airports than at baseball games or birthday parties.

I’ve always thought the most effective person in the room wasn’t the one constantly hoping from call to call in the corner, but the one who could silence their phone long enough to be present with the people in front of them in real life.

If you could say one kind thing to your younger self, what would it be?
Never be afraid to take action. Whether it’s a major business decision or saying something nice to a stranger, taking action moves you ahead 90% of the time.

Even the wrong action can stimulate progress, as it gets everyone moving, and motion creates energy and elicits engagement. I’ve always told my teammates that I’d rather have them make a wrong decision than no decision. Too much analysis can put you behind. People lose interest and opportunities.

Often, wrong decisions can be corrected, but the opportunity to act may only come once. Keep the momentum going and be decisive!

Sure, so let’s go deeper into your values and how you think. What would your closest friends say really matters to you?
I think they would say I value people over things. I’m really fortunate to have many long-term friendships (some reaching back to grade school), and the older I get, the more I realize that those relationships and the stories that go along with them are what life is about.

People have ideas, culture, stories and can provide reflections in ways that your house, car or watch cannot. I’ve never heard of anyone on their deathbed asking to see all their money – they always ask to see their family and friends. That’s what really matters at the end of the day.

Before we go, we’d love to hear your thoughts on some longer-run, legacy type questions. Could you give everything your best, even if no one ever praised you for it?
Yes – because usually the only person it matters to is me, I remember one of my first jobs was fueling planes at the airport. There were plenty of 6AM mornings, where I was the only one there. I love aviation and enjoyed being in that environment, and even though much of the work was menial, I did it to the best of my ability, as I took pride in doing a good job. It made me feel good. Could anyone tell how well an aircraft was positioned on the ramp? Probably not, but I knew I had done a good job and it helped make things run smoothly for the crews that came on after me.

Praise is definitely an ego stroke, and I know it feels good to be on the receiving end of it, but there are many thankless jobs, that no one will ever know about. There’s a certain internal satisfaction that comes from a job well done that beats praise any day…

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.songhub.co
• Instagram: songhub_ig
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/songhub
• Other: https://www.stevestewart.com