Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger: Growing Success, Red Light Management’s New York Office Talks Subtronics & New Clientele

Before Eric Silver brought his management company, GRAVEDANCER, over to Red Light Management, he worked out of his kitchen in North Brooklyn. His small team consisted of Elyse Young, who came on as his first management hire in 2017 and co-manages Subtronics and LEVEL UP alongside Silver, and Meghan Huffman, who first worked as an intern starting in 2019 before becoming a manager herself, now overseeing clients Dirt Monkey, Boogie T/BOOGIE T.RIO, Ghastly/GHENGAR, HE$H and Zen Selekta.

In 2020, the opportunity to join Red Light presented itself, and Silver opted to make the transition as he felt it would fulfill his desire to continue growing his artists and ensuring longevity in their careers. He knew he could collaborate with other managers at the company, taking their knowledge and applying it to his own clients. He admired Red Light’s ecosystem and says he frequently turns to the other managers for advice on vendors, production companies, buses, ticket scaling, promoters and more.

“When I realized I wanted to be able to provide more for artists and the staff by joining a larger management company, I looked around and I talked to a number of the usual suspects in our section,” Silver says. “There was interest from all the folks we met with, and I really liked Red Light because of Coran Capshaw and his entrepreneurial spirit. And the team they’ve built there with Steve Satterthwaite (Duke Dumont, Bonobo), Adam Foley (ODESZA), Keith LeWinter (GRiZ) and Brandon Ginsberg (CloZee, LSDREAM) — it was a team of experienced, seasoned managers whose artists’ bread-and-butter was touring and merch; all the real, tangible things. They weren’t developing Top 40 artists where you take a shot at a major label and then move on when the next big thing fails. These were career artists who over decades were touring and selling. And those were our artists. They’re not flash-in-the-pan Top 40 artists; they’re in the trenches.”

Silver describes his primary role on the team as being the one to look at the big picture. He’ll plot their career arc and figure out which moves should be made so that they can one day step into arenas and headline major festivals. The other members of the team work at executing those ideas and making them tangible. He describes the difference as knowledge versus wisdom, saying it’s what allows the team to be so effective.

As Subtronics, whose real name is Jesse Kardon, continues to grow — the DJ and music producer seeing recent grosses of $890,460 at Cow Palace in Daly City, California, on Nov. 22 and $420,782 during his July 20 show at The Brooklyn Mirage in Brooklyn, New York — Silver and Young collaborate to continue elevating his touring. He recently headlined Barclays Center on March 1 with an after party at Webster Hall that lasted until 3 a.m. Shortly after he left the stage, he and his crew piled into their bus and drove up to Boston for two nights at MGM Music Hall at Fenway.

With seven years working together, Young says she and Silver have mastered their collaborative flow.

“Eric and I are the perfect example of checks and balances,” she says. “It works out so well because we’re on the same page with a lot of the same things. But in areas where

I’m weak or not knowledgeable, and in areas where he’s weak or not knowledgeable, we keep the scale balanced perfectly. I’ve learned so much from him on the business side and he’s learned from me as well. That’s rounded out our skills in areas that I probably never would’ve had any experience. And in certain genres, I’ve lifted him up and put things on his radar, so now he has a broader understanding, which has allowed us to guide Jesse in certain directions safely.”

Over the last year, the team’s artists have grown tremendously. LEVEL UP’s “Seance Tour” has sold out clubs across the country, as has Boogie T’s recent dates. And Subtronics, the team’s biggest client, is headlining arenas including Tacoma Dome in Seattle and Kia Forum in Inglewood near Los Angeles. With their recent success, Silver felt it was time for some more changes. He brought in Taylor “Tank” Reed, Tynan Conroy and Araya Jackson as new hires, as well as Reed’s clients Mersiv, A Hundred Drums, Smoakland, Zen Selekta and Tripp St. Joshua Bardsley also joined the team as their in-house designer and assistant to Creative Director Veronica Mitrano, who has been with the team since 2018.

The new hires round out the team, which consists of day-to-day manager Brandon Garber, who works with Subtronics under Silver and Young, Kristina “Redd” Neofotistos, who oversees all of the artists’ merch, and Rico Colley, who oversees Boogie T, Dirt Monkey, Ghastly/GHENGAR and HE$H under Huffman.

“Obviously I’m very hands-on with the artists that we work with,” Silver says. “But I also wanted to expand and be a mentor to some younger managers and day-to-day managers, help them to grow their business within ours. That was the impetus. I felt I needed to make

a decision on where this was going to go. Do I turn inwards or outwards? I decided, let’s go outwards, help expand and develop the next generation of headliners. I came into this with all the artists we manage, maybe except for one. We were with them from the beginning when they were $200 artists and now we’re headlin- ing arenas. On the way, you learn things.”

Reed and Conroy joined the company in late February, the two previously working at Reed’s Mind Warp management company. Silver had long been trying to entice them to Red Light, promising he could help their artists reach that next level. Mersiv has already landed on Pollstar’s charts, popping up on LIVE75 throughout the last year. On Dec. 30, he sold out Jannus Live in Saint Petersburg, Florida, grossing $67,700, according to Pollstar Boxoffice reports.

“For so long, I’ve been doing things on my own with my network in Colorado with the Mind Warp team,” Reed says. “I was pretty young when Eric first came to me. But the timing wasn’t right. I reached a point now where I wanted to learn more and grow with my artists. That’s the main reason why I made this move, I have a lot of respect and admira- tion for Eric and how long he’s been doing this. He has a ton of experience and great intuition

when it comes to the electronic space and mu- sic. He’s also great with the way he works with his artists and the way his artists view him.”

The team members who have been with Silver since the beginning are thrilled about the new growth. Huffman now has two day-to-day managers working with her on her clients, and Silver says he hopes to offload some of her responsibilities “so that she can go out and find her own Subtronics.”

“It’s exciting to see what’s being built, especially because most of us started in Eric’s kitchen,” Young says. “Now, there’s a legitimate office with a really strong foundation for young managers and established managers to come in and succeed. It’s great that Eric, who is such an entrepreneur who loves to build out businesses and brands, can really scratch that itch.”

Along with the new hires, the team recently moved to a larger office space in Bushwick Their new loft has an open-concept floor plan, enabling better communication and collaboration. Their office is filled with a constant buzz of ideas being thrown around, the space reflecting the team’s energetic attitude. They remain incredibly close-knit, with new members quickly being brought into the fold.

“It’s been beautiful to watch our team grow throughout the years because everyone who’s joined us has become fast friends and is appreciated on all levels,” Huffman says. “There’s this shared sense of humor that you can’t replicate or fake. Just sitting with my coworkers in the office day in and day out, laughing at each other’s jokes and working towards the same goals, has been incredibly rewarding. I never take it for granted.”