From Janet to Gaga: Jae Deal on Music Industry Relationships (Episode 82)

Everything you do is an audition.

Jae Deal has spent his career earning and keeping the trust of artists like Janet Jackson, Snoop Dogg, Queen Latifah, Elton John, Lady Gaga, Joe Jonas, Omarion and Jessica Simpson, as a producer, keyboardist and bassist. He is also a father, a public speaker and a mathematician. In Episode 82 of The Career Musician, he and Nomad dig into what really moves a music career forward: relationships, integrity and the willingness to rebuild.

Nomad called him a kindred spirit right away. Jae calls himself a "wisdom artist," and by the end of this conversation you'll see why.

Show up for three people like it's three thousand

Jae teaches music production and technology at USC, from intro Logic and Pro Tools courses to an advanced desktop production class on hybrid live and computer production. How he got there is the first lesson of the episode.

He was slated to speak at a local film festival, and because of scheduling problems, three people showed up for his slot. They asked if he still wanted to speak. He did it anyway. A USC professor heard part of it from the hallway, invited him to lunch, and that conversation led to the teaching job.

"If I hadn't been open-minded enough, or just understood how these things work, to talk to three people, I wouldn't have been able to reach thousands of people."

Jae Deal, 8:43

That is the TCM core maxim in one story. Everything you do is an audition, including the half-empty room.

Relationships are the whole résumé

Jae taught himself MIDI programming and DAW editing when he got his first laptop in 2004, after years of watching engineers from afar. That skill grew into building playback and programming for live shows. But the big gigs came through people.

He grew up with Adam Blackstone. When Adam was younger, he would call Jae for advice. Not long after, Adam was hiring him. When Janet Jackson saw Adam as a music director on a big tour and wanted him, Adam called the people he trusted, and Jae was one of them. Other friends brought him onto more gigs, including Lady Gaga's first TV show, a performance on Jay Leno when she was just breaking. The next morning, she was number one.

Nomad calls it the R word: relationships. You can't walk in expecting everything to happen at once. You cultivate them. Work begets work, and as Jae put it, if everybody performed well and trusted each other on one gig, you just call the same people for the next one.

Integrity means having the hard conversation

Even when he meets someone with extraordinary skill, Jae watches for a while before he brings them in. How do they handle things going wrong? How do they handle things going great? Do they disappear, or do they call and say, "I'm out for two weeks"?

He has lived it from the other side. When a big new act was starting up, he was offered the gig but had a planned trip to see his daughter, who was living in Tokyo. He could have wiggled through half the rehearsals. Instead he told the MD straight, so he wouldn't hurt the energy of the group, and recommended someone else. They loved him for it. That is Low maintenance / no drama, and Nomad tied it to the ghosting problem: if you are not interested, just say so.

"It might seem counterintuitive to not have those hard conversations sometimes, but those are the conversations that make people trust you more."

Jae Deal, 21:42

Separate the truth from the delivery

Jae only ever did one real LA audition, and he says he was horrible. His bass was out of tune, he was playing all over the place, and he wasn't playing the album parts or understanding his role in a pop production. He got the raw truth from the person running it, and he's grateful for it now.

The lesson he took: separate the delivery from the truth, and just look at the truth. In big production shows, the choreography, lights and effects are built off the recording. If you come out of the pocket, dancers who have heard a cymbal nuance 20 times that day will miss it. Soon after, he earned his first bass endorsement, because he had become more serious about the instrument and its upkeep. Feedback, taken right, raised his market value.

In the studio, he learned to read the room. When the person in charge goes quiet and takes a breath, that's not an opening to show your expertise. They are establishing who's leading. Ask yourself why you're there, what the goal is, and remember you are replaceable. You don't know if you were the second call or the sixth. Count your blessings that you are in the chair. Objectivity, from the ETHOS code, is exactly this.

Accept what you accepted, or level up

Jae borrowed a legal idea: offer and acceptance. When you take a gig on its terms, you accept everything that comes with it, the money, the hours and the way the music reaches you. Don't complain about what you agreed to. Do your best, or decline and take the consequences.

He has done both. He turned down gigs where the rate didn't match the time, then went home and worked hard on his Pro Tools skills while he waited. He wasn't getting paid in currency, he says, he was paying himself in skills. That raised his market value for the next call.

Rebuilding doesn't diminish you

The most powerful moment in the episode is Jae's honesty about 2015. After big gigs, and while still playing at church, he was cleaning toilets in a nursing home because his family needed money.

"It was a total redesign of my career at that point, and not being ashamed to be someone who handles my responsibilities by any means necessary, and not feel like it diminished me as a creator."

Jae Deal, 48:14

He got his mental health together, reset his relationship with time and money, and that redesign is how he worked his way into USC. He also learned to diversify so his income isn't tied only to an artist's tour schedule, and to let his money work for him. That's Make Music Your Business with real stakes.

Jae also spoke about family. Relatives may not understand your path. Accept the love the way they know how to give it and let the rest roll off. His dad, one of his best friends, steered him to engineering school after Jae didn't get into his local arts high school. Today, math is one of his biggest assets as a musician. And the band that changed his life, the Yellowjackets? Three of its members teach at USC, and his name sits next to Russell Ferrante's on the faculty roster.

The takeaway

Jae's career is built on showing up fully for small rooms, being honest when it's hard, taking the truth without taking it personally, and rebuilding without shame. If you want help preparing for the moment someone hands you the raw truth, start with the free Audition Secrets guide. You can find more from Jae at jaedeal.net.

Get the gig. Keep the gig. Build the career.

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