Artist POV: mike. Talks Selling Out Two Nights At Red Rocks

Headlining Red Rocks Amphitheater is a milestone for any artist – and independent platinum recording artist mike. has not only booked two sold-out shows at the iconic venue, but the rapper has gotten to this point in his career without the support of a label or manager. 

The 37-year-old, born Michael Seander, initially started making music in 2010 while recovering from an elbow injury as a relief pitcher at Duke University, under the name Mike Stud. As he puts it, it all began with “GarageBand and a $40 mic in my dorm room … a perfect storm and … probably a little bit of fate.” 

The rapper has a new song out today, “per diem,” the latest in a series of singles released since his latest album, 2024’s the lows. The album is the second in a trilogy, following 2021’s the highs. 

WME’s Randall Uritsky has been working with mike. since 2012 when he was an assistant at The Agency Group and notes that he and the rapper have both grown in their careers alongside one another. Uritsky praised mike. for his loyalty and putting his trust in him, as well as making sure to shout out some of his colleagues at WME who are on mike.’s team including Aaron Tannenbaum, Justin Edwards and Stefanie Billue.

Recalling the early days of mike.’s career, Uritsky told Pollstar, “He was willing to go everywhere. I mean we were playing shows [of] 200, 300-cappers in Iowa City on the same tour we’d play Boston. He wanted to work and he wanted to build and he found that success came from being out there.  We had some shows at the beginning he played to [roughly] 100 people and then we had shows where [we were thinking] ‘Wow, we were blowing this out’ and not knowing where it was coming from. But the common denominator with him was he would just pour into his fans – meet and greets after the show, signing stuff and he just built this crazy community.”

The rapper’s connection with his community led to mike.’s direct-to-fan model OnlySteves, which he uses to release music and communicate with fans. His other ventures include Grouped, which he launched so other independent artists could access a similar platform, and the eight figure apparel company Stevenson Ranch. 

As part of mike.’s touring strategy, the rapper initially did a lot of door deals, with Uritsky explaining “during his ascension we wouldn’t take guarantees. He would just bet on himself similar to his career. We would say don’t pay us anything up front. We want a higher cut of the door.”

And now mike. is gearing up to play the biggest headline shows of his career. Though the shows at the 9,525-capacity Red Rock, booked Nov. 14-15, are the only performances currently on the books, Uritsky says European and Australia dates will be announced in the coming months and planned for fall/winter 2026. After that, the goal “is to just go do something really big in ’27.” 

Pollstar caught up with mike. to learn more. 

Pollstar: Congrats on your upcoming Red Rocks shows! Can you share about your career journey, including foregoing a record label?
mike.: Got grays in the beard at this point (laughs). Been doing it going on 15 years. … I mean, the definition of brick by brick; there’s been a bunch of ebbs and flows. Many times I considered a record deal. A few times organic things were happening where I was maybe going to make an adjustment to my path and maybe go a little bit more mainstream, do some type of deals. I had some friends who were mainstream artists, big artists that were interested in bringing me on tour. …

Now it’s almost sexy to be independent but for many, many years it wasn’t … It wasn’t romanticized or at least the truth about it wasn’t really out in the internet sphere. … I went to Duke and I was interested in the business aspects and I found it very interesting when I got into the weeds on record deals and how they were structured. I did not think they were favorable [to artists] and it felt like a gamble with my livelihood. I knew I had something going here and it felt risky from a financial standpoint and just like putting your eggs in that basket and kind of giving up some of my sovereignty and the freedom that I was enjoying. I really enjoy the freedom of kind of creating and innovating the business side of things. So over time it became very apparent to me that this was my path, just to find a way. …

I focused on the community for a long time. I knew that could almost be like the security blanket – having a community of people, even if it’s not huge, you know? I wasn’t super interested in scaling huge. … realizing if you got a thousand people that care that’s really powerful, you know. And you could cast a huge wide net and go after everybody. But if you’re really serving people and actually being accountable … and being consistent to people and putting your best foot forward across multiple ways, I think this is kind of a testament to that approach.

And you’re self-managed. 
It wasn’t even rigid like “I got to do this myself. I don’t trust anyone.” …  I shared a manager with Post Malone when he was taking off. I was almost in the weeds doing a deal with them … I totally was open and willing. … I also was a younger version of myself that maybe wanted more attention and more fame and money. Now, I don’t. This is mainly rooted in peace for me. As much as I manage my career, I manage my life first, and I’ve tried to honor that. And I think honoring what makes this fulfilling has generated a longevity for me where I’m not constantly drained by other people needing things from me and I’m working on my own peace … I am approaching an early retirement, but it’s not because I’m not enjoying it.
 
I have other ventures and other things personally in my life that I want to go after next. If I was in a big record deal and had a whole team of 20, 30 people built around me, I don’t know if I would even be at this decision-making point. I would probably feel pressure and be going in a different direction. So, I prioritized my peace a lot as I kind of awakened out of my first version of myself, who was a little more ramped up and wild and wanted to be at this party or that event or do this and have all the attention. Interestingly enough, when I stopped needing more attention, I actually got more.

That’s what they say about manifesting – once you don’t need it or want it, then it just happens for you.
 I totally agree. And it’s actually been a big part of my forward-facing brand. At first it was Mike Stud. I was just kind of like an idiot college kid when I started. … My forward- facing brand is really organic … whatever’s working and moving me in my life … A big part of the shift in the brand has been what you just mentioned –self-actualization and prioritizing peace and harmony. … It’s not just about the music, I would say it’s a lot about the lifestyle and trying to be better people … the community aspect.
 
Your agent mentioned that the OnlySteves community helped sell out tickets for your Red Rock shows.
We sold it out directly to the community twice. … My pride and joy is creating a direct to consumer music model, which we’ve been doing six years now. So, you’re starting to see a bunch of companies doing it … but we started six years ago doing direct consumer and I’ve been building this community since then. It’s $9 a month. The financial freedom and creative freedom it’s allowed me, I don’t know where I’d be without it. It really set me free from needing to play the industry game. 

And not only that, I then scaled it and I made a company called Grouped. It’s a tech company that just basically took our proof of concept for the OnlySteves and made it accessible for all independent artists. So now we have thousands of artists doing the same thing on Grouped and I’m really proud of that … giving the opportunity to other artists to make a living doing what they love and not necessarily needing to go the traditional route. We have a couple hundred thousand daily users on Grouped right now.  I do think it’s kind of the future direction. … 

And I’m not saying it’s easy. Definitely a ton of my bandwidth goes to these things. A lot of artists just want to focus on being in the studio and stuff, but for me, it was part of survival. …  I used the music to create the community and then you serve them other things, and that’s how Stevenson Ranch started. That’s almost an eight figure clothing company now. And we’re running it very lean. I’m very hands-on. Kind of a creative director on that side and I’m serving my fan base. … And to not glance over the Red Rocks thing – we legit sold 19,000 tickets to just the subscribers that I have. We don’t even have that many subscribers. We have about 13,000 subscribers active when we went on sale for Red Rocks … And I think that’s a huge testament to the power of if you can build it [they’ll come].  

Was Red Rocks a bucket list venue for you? 
To a certain degree. I actually have a memory – I was playing in Denver in 2016 and some of the guys on my touring team were like, “Hey, we’re going to go out to Red Rocks” And I was just like, “I’ll go when I play it.” And here we are 10 years later, you know … just looking at my outlook and prioritizing mental health and perspective is key. If you can focus on your perspective, then mental health kind of takes care of itself. At least to my experience. I [had been] feeling like my nervous system and stuff just like nothing was ever enough. I needed more and more. … I definitely have intentions of what direction I’m going, but I’d say for the last six, seven, eight years, I’ve kind of released having like goals. I’m just doing what I’m excited about. …  let the universe or God or however you want to put it … I think the chips will fall where they where they’re supposed to if you’re doing what you’re excited about. … Red Rocks is definitely [a] pinch-me-moment … but at the same time when you do it this slow and this long, it kind of feels like I’m meant to do this now, you know? … It’s definitely not lost on me, how lucky and how special this is just doing it independently and getting to this tier.

What’s next for you?
I’m definitely arching to a finish. I’ve been very candid with the fans about how I am going to retire and kind of totally leave the internet at some point here soon. My whole adult life I’ve been on the internet and I’m all praise to the internet and its existence ‘cause I wouldn’t have done any of this without it. But also I don’t want to be tethered to it my whole life, you know? It is something I have an instinct towards to just disappear and go out with the biggest bang. … It’s sometime in the near future, next couple years, and just like end it at the highest level and then go on to the next part of my life.
 
I’m interested in living a life that is just off the grid. It plays tricks on you a little bit when everything you’re doing, all your business, your livelihood is tied to the internet and you’re kind of always needing people to know what you’re doing and needing people’s validation and that can mess up your mental health. … That’s kind of the business we’re in. We need people to like us. You know, if you’re going to buy a ticket or you’re going to buy a hat, I need you to like me. I want to kind of just blow that up and start a new life with my wife and just kind of go a different direction.
 
So, I’ve been super candid with my fans for the last couple years about that. And I think to be honest, even that has been a big help … it’s creating a scarcity model like my fans know I’m going away soon so like, “Fuck, let’s get those tickets now. He’s not going to be doing this in two years so we might as well go make this trip now to Red Rocks.” … 

Being authentic … it looked crazy to everyone, all my business team were like “Why would you retire, now we’re finally getting lucrative (laughs) and profitable and there’s many years it wasn’t and why would we stop now?” But it’s one of those crazy instincts I follow.  All I’ve ever done is follow my instincts, maybe to a fault sometimes but it seems to be working out. And so I’m going to continue to do that. It’s been a great journey and I’m super grateful. It’s not lost on me at all. I think it’s divine and very, very lucky timing, everything working out in my favor. So I’m just trying to make the most of it and be present for it … not be looking ahead too much.

Anything you can share about what fans can expect at Red Rocks? 
We’re going to cultivate that whole weekend. I’m doing events the whole weekend. I’m actually partnering with the biggest hotel in Denver there. We’re going to make it into a Stevenson Ranch. We’re about to go live with that … I’m going to sell the hotel rooms directly to the OnlySteves … just trying to make the whole event feel amazing like where the fans hope that we do it again … make it really cool and interactive. We’re kind of working on that plan now and looking forward to it. 

I have one more album. I have a trilogy [series]. I did the highs, lows, and then the in-betweens will be the final album. So that’s what I’m working on now. And that will be the last album for me. … I would estimate that that album comes out in the first quarter of 2027. I am looking to do one or two big events on an even bigger scale than the Red Rocks weekend.

In ’27?
‘27 and probably ‘28 and I think that will be it. So, as far as releasing more music, it will be an album in ‘27 and then there could be some singles after until I’m totally off the internet. I foresee the internet kind of evacuation for me probably in ‘28 sometime. … But definitely one more album and that will be it. The inbetweens for me is the final message. I’m basically saying that’s my version of yin and yang. Like the highs and the lows and the goal is to be in the in between and just to have harmony between both, not get too high, not get too low. And that’s kind of the final message. I don’t have anything else more to say, you know?