Given the multitude of distribution, streaming, promotion and marketing options and expectations, the business of becoming an established artist has turned into a seriously heavy lift for music acts and their managers. It’s one reason that Mick Management partner Jonathan Eshak says, “We don’t like to refer to ourselves as a management company anymore. We’re a music company.
What we do more than anything else is brand development, artist development — world-building ...
We’re not just trying to keep the train on the tracks.” Eshak and his partner, Michael McDonald , the company’s founder, got into management after immersing themselves in other sectors of the business. McDonald served as Dave Matthews Band ’s tour manager before co-founding ATO Records in 2000 with Matthews; his manager, Red Light founder Coran Capshaw ; and Chris Tetzeli , who went on to start 7S Management.
He opened Mick the following year with John Mayer as one of his first clients and, in 2004, brought on data savant Eshak, who worked at Universal Music Publishing Group (and is the twin brother of Island Records co-CEO Justin Eshak ). Jonathan became a partner in 2015. With a staff of approximately 20 in New York, Los Angeles and Nashville, the duo has built a boutique firm — with its own record label, Mick Music, distributed by Believe — that represents Maggie Rogers , who released the critically praised Don’t Forget Me in April; Leon Bridges and Ray LaMontagne , who will both rel.