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Lee Anderson Named President Of Wasserman Music (Pollstar Exclusive)
Lee Anderson was today named the first-ever President of Wasserman Music, the global sports, music and entertainment company. Anderson, whose roster is primarily electronic artists including Skrillex, Swedish House Mafia and Zedd, is also a founding member of the agency’s executive leadership team, playing a pivotal role in establishing the agency when it launched in 2021 after acquiring Paradigm Talent Agency.
Anderson started his career in the early 2000s with his own concert production and marketing firm, Mixed Bag Production, while still a student at Champlain College in Vermont. Previously, he served as vice president at AM Only, which was acquired by Paradigm in 2017. While at Paradigm, he became a member of the Music Executive Group.
At Wasserman, Anderson played a pivotal role in establishing the agency while he continued to work his roster, which also includes ISOxo, Knock2, Charlotte de Witte, Disclosure and more.
Anderson is on the cover of the latest Pollstar‘s 2024 Agency Directory (read below).
While Anderson assumes new responsibilities at the agency, he remains a member of Wasserman Music’s executive team which includes Executive Vice Presidents Marty Diamond, Alex Hardee, Sam Hunt, Jonathan Levine, Corrie Martin, Jacki Nalpant, Matt Rodriguez, Tom Schroeder, Brent Smith, James Whitting and Tom Windish.
“I think being in a leadership role is not about being in charge or being a boss of people,” Anderson tells Pollstar. “I don’t view it that way. You have to want to be selfless and willing to put a company before you and value and prioritize those things. That can be a lot of work. Jumping in and having to put a lot of other things or people in front of you first is a lot. You have to enjoy it. I feel a great sense of responsibility in making Wasserman the company that I and others told people it was going to be.”
Anderson was named to Pollstar’s Impact 50 list in 2023, and he’s also been nominated for Pollstar’s Bobby Brooks Award for Agent of the Year and the Life of the Party award. In February, Wasserman Music cemented its status as a top agency in the music industry when it won Pollstar’s Agency of the Year award.
“I care tremendously about this company and building a foundation for a business that is sustainable, and that is done in a different and better manner than large agencies have historically operated,” Anderson says. “We have had two north stars at this company, right from day one. Number one is to be the absolute best place to work in the agency business and representation space. That means transparency, that means honesty and feedback. A company that really cares about people and understands that they’re people first. The second one is being the best agency to be represented by. The tenacity in which we do the work, the pride we take, turning over the extra three stones when you think you’ve uncovered them all.”
Buy Pollstar’s 2024 Agency Directory
While Lee Anderson is something of a dynamo and one of the most well-respected executives in the business, the agent at Wasserman Music is also humble. He doesn’t enjoy making a big deal out of his achievements and as he speaks with Pollstar after being named Wasserman Music’s first President, he emphasizes that his love for the agency comes from the entire team working there.
Anderson is a founding member of Wasserman Music’s 12-person executive leadership team and the new role does not change the company’s reporting structure. However, Anderson will carry on new leadership responsibilities, including serving as a spokesperson for the agency.
Anderson got his start in the industry in the early 2000s with his own concert production and marketing firm, Mixed Bag Production, while he was studying marketing at Champlain College in Vermont. Anderson previously served as vice president at boutique agency AM Only, which was acquired by Paradigm Talent Agency in 2017. While at Paradigm, he became a member of the Music Executive Group. In 2021, Paradigm’s North American live music representation was acquired by Wasserman in order to create Wasserman Music. Just three years later, Wasserman Music has tripled its staff worldwide.
Prior to his promotion, Anderson served as EVP and oversaw the agency’s dance music department, which is made up of 40 agents worldwide. He’s previously spoken about the “unbelievable pride and fulfillment” he’s had from watching many of the agency’s professionals grow and flourish in their careers, including Callender, who started as his intern, and Max Braun, who Anderson first hired as an assistant.
Throughout 2023 and 2024, Anderson’s clients have had massive success. Skrillex made history with his New York City takeover in 2023 alongside Fred again.. and Four Tet, which included a sold-out show at Madison Square Garden announced just days before. The three then closed out weekend two of Coachella in 2023. As this story went to print, Skrillex again made history with Fred again.. with a co-headline pop-up in front of San Francisco’s City Hall. His client Zedd continued his “Zedd in the Park” series this year, and up-and-coming artists ISOxo and Knock 2 completed their sold-out tours, with their ISOKnock4 collaboration taking the stage at Coachella. His roster also includes Charlotte de Witte, Disclosure, Swedish House Mafia and more.
Anderson was named to Pollstar’s Impact 50 list in 2023, and he’s also been nominated for Pollstar’s Bobby Brooks Award for Agent of the Year and the Life of the Party award. In February, Wasserman Music cemented its status as a top agency in the music industry when it won Pollstar’s Agency of the Year award.
Pollstar recently caught up with Anderson to discuss his new role as President, his philosophy as a leader and how the late Chip Hooper remains a guiding light for Wasserman Music.
Pollstar: What was your first musical love that drew you to work in the music industry?
Lee Anderson: When I was a child in the ’80s, modern technology was the cassette tape. I would go to dinner every Wednesday with my mom, TGIF or some fast food by the mall. We would go to Coconuts afterward, and I would always get one to two cassette singles. I remember getting everything from Guns N’ Roses’ “You Could Be Mine,” to Shanice’s
“I Love Your Smile” and every genre in between. I was part of the MTV generation, so I’d watch music videos before I went to school in fourth grade and fifth. I was super into it. Top 20 Countdown on Saturday Mornings. All of it. I remember when CD technology came out, there were two companies called BMG and Columbia House. The way they worked was you’d get a magazine and there’d be an insert, you would subscribe to the magazine then get 12 CDs for the price of one. So, you got your first 11, then you’d pay for one. I was a minor at the time… I was using different names, I guess it might have been mail fraud. As I’m saying this, hopefully, the statute of limitations has passed. I remember my parents being very upset with me doing this, but I was getting loads and loads of CDs delivered: Leah Anderson, Lee Anderson, Leroy Anderson, all this stuff. At the time I was in middle school, the tail end of when you would have a babysitter. I had 300+ CDs, in alphabetical order, and I remember my high school-aged babysitters telling me how cool my collection was.
Back then, you could read the liner notes and see the thank yous; the engineers, the recording studios, and you’d start to connect the dots with people in the music industry or certain studios or who a producer was. I was really fascinated with that. … It’s funny, because, to this day when I talk to people about the business, I encourage them to read a lot of Pollstar or Billboard and trades, and ask questions about the people mentioned or what they are reading about. You can’t play the game if you don’t understand what the pieces are on the board or who’s who. You’ve got to understand the landscape. Looking back, I think I was unknowingly beginning to learn that for myself.
In my junior year of high school, there was a show in Hartford [Connecticut]. It was Nas, Mobb Deep, Redman and the opening act was Eminem when the Slim Shady EP was coming out. My friend’s mom (India Blue) was a music editor and photographer at the Hartford Advocate. She took us backstage, and I remember Mobb Deep was back there. And I was like, “This is cool.”That was certainly a moment where it clicked that I wanted to be on the other side of the house.
What was your first job in the industry?
I took a marketing internship while I was at Champlain College in Burlington, Vermont. I majored in marketing. My internship was at Nectar’s and Club Metronome. I was interning there for two weeks and I was setting up their street teams on campuses, and they were like, “You’re pretty good at this. Can we just pay you to run marketing?” Working there I was always backstage, around the artists, and I was in the mix. From there, I ended up building my own independent promotion company and producing concerts, it was called Mixed Bag Productions.
I was doing shows at those venues and other venues in town. It began to expand. I was doing stuff in Albany, North Hampton, Boston, New York City and Philadelphia — college markets, major markets in the Northeast. … We loved doing the shows and we had a great brand. We were producing good events that people liked. This was the infancy of digital marketing, in the early 2000s. MySpace was out, Facebook was not really yet. At the time, you would copy HTML codes and post them on people’s walls, and that’s how you would have flyers being posted digitally. We ended up having a large team of people regionally and nationally doing that and helping with marketing. We noticed print was dying and digital was there. The way a festival or label would advertise at that time was to pay $2kish a week for a single-page ad in a thick alt-weekly, and they would do that twice getting them a month of advertising. We said we’d do the marketing in that city for three grand and market it much more effectively for four months. We’ll do dedicated flyering at shows, we’ll make sure flyers are in record stores, college campuses, head shops, and we will do the digital. But you’ve got to give us five, six markets. So, we started getting these larger marketing contracts for festivals, record labels, bands, support tours, all that stuff. And we were also doing shows. But now, because we’re marketing all those other things, our shows are looking bigger. It helped build the brand. So we did that. Ultimately, I got a call from somebody who worked at AM Only, which was a boutique dance music booking agency. I was doing some electronic stuff, but jam electronic stuff. Disco Biscuits after parties, Glitch Mob, things like that. I wasn’t deeply involved in the dance space, but was beginning to see the growth it was having in the more traditional live music space. In 2006 I moved to Brooklyn and went from being a promoter to joining an agency.
What did you learn from that job you’ve carried forth to your current role?
No task is too small. Whatever you’re doing, you should do it to the best of your ability and take great pride in your work because people are assessing and evaluating how you respond to things or handle anything you’re given. If you do a really good job at one thing, they’ll probably give you something more important or challenging and all that stuff. Not only do I still conduct myself that way and behave that way, I encourage others to do the same.
What was it like working at AM Only?
I was the 11th employee in 2006. I went in there and I knew a lot about touring and I knew these festivals because I was running marketing campaigns for a lot of them. I understood the live business. At that time, electronic music had big promoters who came out of the rave scene, but most agents were not dealing directly with the more traditional concert promoters. [Disco] Donnie would do tours where he was going in and renting the rooms. The dance stuff hadn’t fully evolved into the actual live touring industry ecosystem in the way it has today. It was a little bit of a right place, right time scenario for me. I worked there for many years. As we began to grow, I got very passionate about and involved with mentorship, creating team systems focused on efficiency, how to grow employees and scale the size of a roster that you can handle.
So, I started my team back then with Callender, who’s an agent with us today [at Wasserman] and he was my intern and my first assistant – my longest-standing coworker to this day. And then we hired Cody Chapman and then Max Braun, who had been working with us as an assistant for Paul Morris. We had an intern, Sara Pullman, who started working with us afterward as my assistant. We grew with that group working side-by-side with me on the same team. All four have flourished in their careers with Callender, Cody and Max building great careers as agents, and Sara is our Vice President of Operations and the backbone of Wasserman as a whole. Joe Rosenberg, who is our EVP of all operations and music strategy for Wasserman Music, started as an assistant at AM Only just six months before I did. Paul Morris gave me the opportunity and the freedom to grow within that company, grow a team, try new things, and take a new approach. As the company grew, Paul wanted some more leadership a level below him. So I became the vice president of the East Coast. Matt Rodriguez was the vice president of the West Coast, and Joe Rosenberg drove a lot of our strategy and operations.
Who was your first client as an agent?
My first client was a band called The Egg, which was a British Jam electro band. My second and third clients were 2020 Soundsystem and a group called Orchard Lounge. Following that, I started to take on a lot of electro-house stuff, specifically people like Felix Cartal, Congorock, and Bird Peterson, which led to Wolfgang Gartner and other large acts in that space.
How did you and Skrillex first get connected?
He was working on records in the studio with Tiësto. The general manager of AM Only at the time was Michael Cohen, [who] was managing Tiësto. Paul Morris, who ran the company, owned it and was the president, was Tiësto’s agent. They were in some sessions. He was like, “This thing’s amazing. You gotta pay attention.” And I was like, “I got a lot on my plate right now.” And he was like, “You might want to listen.” I will forever give Michael Cohen credit for making me pay attention and listening at that time. We had a meeting, I almost botched the first meeting. I think I didn’t say all the things you probably should have said. I learned that because I didn’t, the fact that I was honest and Sonny was a fan of several artists on my roster, actually led him to choose to go with me as opposed to some other stiff competition.
I will say to this day to any potential client, I will not tell you what you want to hear. But, I promise that whatever I’m saying is my truth. I’m always going to be honest with you.
How did the team evolve when you were acquired by Paradigm?
We were about 80 people at AM Only when we fully became Paradigm and joined that company. When I was at Paradigm, I was fortunate to be a part of the leadership team there. Myself, Matt Galle and Sam Hunt were the young folks they included there to join an existing group consisting of Marty Diamond, Tom Windish, Paul Morris, and Dan Weiner. That work, sense of responsibility, and passion to build and lead continued as we moved into Wasserman.
What sets Wasserman Music apart that makes so many artists want to work with the agency?
We have a proven track record with a lot of very experienced agents. I wouldn’t even say our bench is deep, I would say we have 20 starting lineups. When you have that many agents at the top of their game, with that much experience and tenure, whose careers have sustained and flourished, then you’re going to end up with an impressive agency roster.
We put a high premium on A&R. We don’t sign everything, we are thoughtful about what we sign, but we are on it early. Everything with a client is based on a strategy. The strategy drives all of the work. I think we have very good relationships with promoters. Not everyone gets what they want, but I think we’re honest. I think we’re fair. I think we do the right thing. And, the same is true with our clients. We communicate with and work tirelessly on behalf of our clients. An artist doesn’t have a contract with an agency. If you have clients that don’t think you’re prioritizing them, or believe that you are not working hard on their behalf, they will leave [and] you’re going to get a reputation for that behavior. We do the opposite, and I think that speaks to the reputation we have built, beyond all of the success we have helped our clients achieve.
We don’t just book shows. We introduce clients to one another and their teams to one another and help artists and managers build their networks. We have an exceptional tour marketing department that does not get the glory they deserve. They are best in class, connecting the dots between labels and promoters and managers.
How does Wasserman Music approach collaboration between agents?
One thing that’s different is we do not work in a territorial system. Your responsible agent is involved in all of your shows and dealing with the promoters and I think that’s a big difference to the way other companies are set up.
Obviously, I’m biased, I’m not saying our way is better or worse, but it works well for us and we believe it’s the right system for clients. In terms of collaboration, we don’t end up with seven people on every team. Generally, we have fewer agent names on them than you would see at a lot of other agencies. This yields real accountability. I think we collaborate as RAs when it’s really important and needed to round out an artist team and the best job for them. You’ll have people going like, “Hey, I’m great at X and Y and you’re excellent at Z, let’s collectively round this out to offer the best representation team for this client.” We do of course collaborate with our peers in our booking and service departments, as well as our amazing coworkers across Wasserman as a whole.
As it relates to the way we collaborate in leading the business, we have an excellent experienced executive team that is about 10 people. We meet and we have a dialogue and discuss a lot of major decisions, like whether or not to hire any agent who wants to join our company, who is being promoted, or where we want to invest in the business. We give a lot of updates on different agents, younger agents or newer agents that other people are responsible for mentoring. We’re 430 people now.
We speak a lot about new positions or investments we want to make to help service our clients or the business. Everyone’s bought in on what we’re doing because their opinions and voices are heard and considered. I think we’re very fortunate to have respect for one another and be willing to disagree or share different opinions and understand each other’s perspectives and talk things through.
Chip Hooper was considered the North Star of Paradigm. How does his influence continue to impact all of you?
Chip gets talked about a lot, and is formally celebrated in memory around his birthday every year. There’s a famous saying, “What would Chip do?” that people have. Everybody out of Monterrey was really fortunate to get to work with him and know him for so many years. Dan Weiner, Jackie Nalpant, Lynne Cingari, Duffy McSwiggin, Aaron Pinkus, Joe Atamian, Sara Bollwinkel, Jonathan Levine. Some people for decades, right? And I’m so jealous of that. He was incredible. I had the fortune of getting pretty close to him over the last six years of his life and talked almost on a daily basis. That’s something I will never take for granted. Not only was he sort of my hero, but he became a mentor and a friend.
There are a lot of people who didn’t have the fortune of getting to know him, that maybe joined us after or weren’t in the workforce then. So, we talk a lot about how he did things; what he stood for. He [would] want you to work hard but he also [to] enjoy your life and have hobbies and passions outside of work. Enjoy good food or good wine. But work hard on behalf of the clients, to be tough on behalf of your clients but also fair to promoters you do business with. Not just to do transactions, but to build friendships and get to know people and build real relationships.
Are there any new signings you’re particularly thrilled with in your own roster?
I’m super stoked on Jyoty who just had two amazing shows in New York City this weekend. Just sold out 3,100 tickets at the Knockdown Center as the onsale, then did another show at the Elsewhere rooftop for 700 tickets the next night.
I signed isoXO and Knock2 a couple of years ago. It’s been an incredible journey. Two artists that are super true to themselves, living their dreams and appreciating every moment of it. They are truly best friends in life. Getting to weave in and out of doing that thing together. Those two projects have been super, super fun for me.
But honestly, I just love to work with every one of my clients that I have the fortune to represent.
What are your tips for finding new artists?
Build a great, trusted network of people with good taste and who enjoy discovery. If you are ever fortunate enough to get a tip, do an excellent job with what tip you were given. Surround yourself with people whose fingers are on the pulse …younger people who are really out in the scene. Always be searching and listening. I think it’s really important to know what’s coming next. Stay ahead of those trends before they’re even referred to as a trend. You’ve got to get in early and have the right clients when a scene starts to explode.
What made you want to step into the role of President of Music at Wasserman?
I think being in a leadership role is not about being in charge or being a boss of people. I don’t view it that way. You have to want to be selfless and willing to put a company before you and value and prioritize those things. That can be a lot of work. Jumping in and having to put a lot of other things or people in front of you first is a lot. You have to enjoy it. I feel a great sense of responsibility in making Wasserman the company that I and others told people it was going to be.
I care tremendously about this company and building a foundation for a business that is sustainable, and that is done in a different and better manner than large agencies have historically operated. We have had two north stars at this company, right from day one. Number one is to be the absolute best place to work in the agency business and representation space. That means transparency, that means honesty and feedback. A company that really cares about people and understands that they’re people first. The second one is being the best agency to be represented by. The tenacity in which we do the work, the pride we take, turning over the extra three stones when you think you’ve uncovered them all.
I also spend a lot of time continuing to agent my clients, and I’ve had to reduce my roster size. It’s not the largest it’s been in my career, and you have to create real-time for those clients because it’s a commitment to give them what they need and deserve and that you’ve promised.
I think doing one helps me do an even better job at the other.