Today we’d like to introduce you to David Rosica
Hi David, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I have known I wanted to be in the music industry since I was 12 or so – as soon as I figured out I wasn’t good enough at guitar to make it as a musician! I got started at a young age booking shows with my childhood best friend around 15 or 16, lying about our age to the “cool college kids” in the South Jersey/Philadelphia scene, and booking honestly some pretty awesome shows in VFW halls, church basements, and weirdly, a children’s dance studio?
I moved to Nashville in 2016 to go to Belmont University, fully expecting to go into the world of live music. By the 3rd month in town,I began booking/working at local shows and working with a local promoter in town run by a few of my friends at Belmont. Alongside that, I started a weird little prog rock band with my friends at school, and always ended up being the “business guy” for the band. After 2 years or so of trying to book shows in Nashville, I learned how much harder that is to do with a bunch of competition, and just began to focus on the band. For quite a while, I was just that guy in that weird band (who smoked too much weed). Eventually, the band ended up being simply too challenging for me to play in with my skillset as a bassist at the time, and I fired myself from the band – I went to them and said something along the lines of “hey guys, I’m not good enough to be in this band. Im going to kick myself out, but you should let me be your manager and stay involved.” They agreed, and we did that for about a year and a half until personal situations forced multiple band members to move out of state, and the band kind of just died there.
Around the time I kicked myself out of the band (2019-2020 or so), I began an internship at Eclipse Music Group in their management division, under Clay Bradley who ran that division of the company at that time. As part of a very small team there, I was thrown into very real industry work right away and got to soak up a lot of massively impactful information from sitting in on Clay’s meetings and learning how a veteran of the game talks, thinks, and approaches tough situations. I ended up getting hired on for a second semester (my final semester of college) in the spring of 2020, and they offered to pay me too, which was absolutely massive at the time. That also came with a (verbal) promise that when I graduated, I would be offered a full time gig in management at Eclipse with a competitive salary. Then just 2 months after getting promised that, COVID happened and Clay left the company all within a month.
In light of that, the scope of my employment changed there – there was no way they could afford a new full time employee in the middle of lockdown and the pandemic when no one was touring. They did keep me on as a part-time paid intern after graduation, and changed the role to something in digital marketing (although my job was basically as a management assistant). I stayed there from my graduation in May of 2020 to February of 2021.
Around this time, I picked up my first two proper management clients – Luke Fiadino, and Joey Burcham. Luke was the main writer for my old band, and Joey was the producer for out second release. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing, and was definitely just guessing and googling my way through it, but they knew even less so I think they saw me as much of a help as I saw them as a foot in the door to the industry at the time. I still work with both of them today, and credit them with a lot of what has gotten me where I am now.
Eventually, it seemed like I was never going to get that full time gig I had expected, and I decided I needed to make a change and bet on myself. I left in February of 2021, with no plan, no new job, to jump into, just a whole lot of drive to make it work. That then began a 6ish month span of me doing essentially odd jobs in the industry, from digital marketing for an (unknown) 60+ year old power-pop artist, to buying a camera and learning how to make money doing photoshoots, to maintaining websites for my artist friends, and a whole lot more. I think I probably said this phrase everyday: “If you will pay me to work in the music industry I will do it, if I don’t know how to I’ll stay up all night the night before and figure it out”
A few months after I left Eclipse, one of their then-clients, Katie Pruitt, decided to make a change as well. She left Eclipse and was a free-agent in the management space for a few months, during which she asked me to help with some basic admin work that she didn’t have time for, which I was happy to help. I don’t quite remember how, but she eventually ended up asking if I wanted to try out tour management on a short festival run she was doing (May 2022). I ecstatically said yes, that run led to a whole summer of weekenders, which then led to a full US headliner tour in the fall of 2021. This experience was incredible, it allowed me to quit all of the other side gigs I had been doing (aside from my management clients), and finally I felt like I had a real leg to stand on in the industry.
A few months after that tour, sporadically placed with shows and festivals over the holidays and into early 2022, Katie and I parted ways and I began to work with British alt-rockers Tigercub on their first US tour. That tour was a great experience, and I’m glad I did it, but I definitely was done with touring after that. Luckily, Sometime along the way on that Katie Pruitt Headliner tour, I had made friends with Tim Borror through a strange turn of events. Tim and I kept up sporadically, and he let me know that him and his partners at Sound Talent Group (Dave Shapiro & Matt Andersen) were about to become partners in a producer management company as well, and that company may have an opening.
In the middle of the Tigercub tour, Tim introduced me to James MacMillan, the CEO and Founder of Stateside, and James and I hit it off immediately. We are just the same “type” of person if that makes any sense? Just a few months after meeting James he offered me a job as his assistant.
I accepted, and started working at Stateside the day after I got home from the Tigercub tour (April 19, 2022). James made it very clear that he had never had an employee before, and I would have to figure out my own job description. I said “word, I’m going to be a day-to-day manager then” and just dove into a sort of hybrid position between being a day-to-day for his clients as well as his assistant. That lasted about 8 months, and by the time Christmas rolled around, I had proven myself enough to him, Dave, Matt, and Tim that they gave me the go-ahead to start signing clients of my own.
I spent 2023 building my roster at Stateside from those 2 initial clients back in 2020 to a roster of 8 today, as well as continuing to be a day-to-day for James’ existing clients. Since then, things have changed a bit and now its a lot easier to just say James and I co-manage just about every producer on Stateside’s roster to varying degrees.
At the end of 2023, I gave my friend Dave Rath a call. He is the person who I have known in the industry the longest, as I have been friends with his daughter since I was in middle school. He ended up taking a chance on me and allowing me to join his team at Blue Grape Music as an A&R scout, which is something that I (and most everyone my age in the industry) have always wanted to do. So far it has been an absolute blast, and I actually just signed my first band there!
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Hell no.
– A lot of promises have been made that never came to fruition.
– Lots of inter-personal struggles to work through, from having to insert myself between an artist and their manager, to having to (literally) talk someone off the ledge, to having no boundaries between my work and social life
– A general lack of education from Belmont – I frequently say I learned more in the first 2 weeks of my internship than I did in 4 years at Belmont as a Music Business major.
– Not being taken seriously because of my age
– Not making any money for a long time and having to work 2nd and 3rd, sometimes not the most legal, jobs
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I manage producers and songwriters at Stateside Management, as well as A&R Scout at Blue Grape Music.
I specialize in connecting people, and I think I really excel at the human-to-human connection portion of this job. oftentimes, it really just feels like I make friends for a living!
I would say I’m probably most known around Nashville for just being a good hang, and someone that (hopefully) not many people have a bad word to say about in town. I do damn good work, but at the end of the day, I don’t want people to see me as a hard worker as much as I want them to see me as a good friend that gets shit done.
I’m very proud of my career trajectory since joining Stateside, and how quickly I have been able to move up and cement myself as an integral piece of the company, while still absolutely loving what I do for work and having a fiery passion for it.
The thing that most sets me apart is that I will not lie to you. I will never make a promise I cant keep (and if that holds me back from opportunities or makes me look like a dick, so be it). I am extremely honest and I think I have a whole lot of integrity, and I will die for the people I believe in. One of the people in town who have most shown me the importance of those traits is my good friend Rachel Guttmann, an entertainment attorney (and so much more) in town.
What quality or characteristic do you feel is most important to your success?
My ability to make friends in a genuine, human-to-human way. I try my absolute hardest to never go into a conversation with the thought of “what can I get from this person?” and instead approach any new relationships in the industry with “how can this person and I win together?”.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://statesidemgmt.com
- Instagram: @daverosica
