Welcome to The Manager’s Playbook, my personal newsletter where I share insights from Music Executives and Artists for aspiring and emerging music managers, executives and artists on how to navigate the music industry. This newsletter is brought to you by Mauricio Ruiz.

Charlie Rocket has a way of making the music business feel less complicated than people make it.

A lot of artists and managers start solving problems they don’t actually have yet. Rollout calendars before there’s demand. Label conversations before there’s leverage. Deal points before there’s money. Strategy decks before anyone has proven they care.

Charlie doesn’t really move like that.

He keeps bringing it back to one thing.

Build the fanbase first.

That’s the job.

And when I say fanbase, I don’t mean followers. I don’t mean people who saw a clip once and kept scrolling. I don’t mean someone who might save the song if the algorithm serves it to them at the perfect time.

I mean fans.

People who care enough to come back. People who feel like they found the artist early. People who hear the music and feel like something in them is being said out loud. They buy the merch. They send the record to a friend. They pull up. They comment because they actually have something to say. They defend the artist before the rest of the world catches on.

That’s what most artists are trying to build.

Some of them just confuse it with visibility.

What made the Charlie conversation stick with me is that he wasn’t talking like someone who learned this from a marketing thread. He was talking like someone who knows what it takes to create belief before there’s proof. Before the press. Before the label. Before the clean little success story everybody repeats after the win.

That part gets overlooked.

Fanbases don’t last just because people like the artist.

They last because people feel like they belong somewhere.

That’s where Charlie’s thinking is useful.

Not as a gimmick. Not as a hack.

More like a reminder that the basic stuff still works when you actually respect it.

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One of the simplest things Charlie said was probably the most important.

Artist development is the relationship between the artist and the fan.

That can sound obvious, but a lot of the music industry still doesn’t act like it’s true.

For years, artist development usually meant a label spending money. Studio time. Media training. A&R. Styling. Branding. A bunch of people in rooms trying to shape raw talent into something easier to sell.

Some of that still matters.

But none of it means much if the fan relationship isn’t real.

A label can amplify demand. It can’t always create devotion. A manager can open doors. They can’t force strangers to care. Marketing can put the song in front of people, but it can’t make them feel seen.

That has to come from the artist.

From the music. From the story. From the way the message keeps showing up. From the feeling that there’s a real person and a real world behind the records.

It becomes personal.

And once it’s personal, the fan does more than stream. They bring the artist into their life. Car rides. Workouts. Hard seasons. Prayer. Healing. Ambition. Identity.

That’s a different level of relationship.

A lot of artists want that kind of loyalty.

Not enough of them think about what it asks of them.

Strong fanbases usually have their own language.

Sometimes it’s obvious. A name. A phrase. A logo. A colour. A symbol.

Sometimes it’s quieter. An inside joke. A way fans talk to each other. A shared belief that doesn’t need to be explained every time. A feeling of, “you get it or you don’t.”

Charlie brought up Mike., formerly known as Mike Stud, and his Only Steves community. That example is worth paying attention to because the point isn’t just that fans pay every month.

The point is that they know where they belong.

They’re Steves.

Simple. Almost too simple. But it works.

The community has a name. It has a home. It has a reason to exist beyond “please support my music.” Fans get music first. Merch first. Access first. They’re not standing outside the career hoping to be noticed.

They’re inside the house.

That’s different from a follow.

When a fan says, “I’m part of this,” they’re saying something about themselves. That’s why the details matter. The merch. The show. The album world. The language. The repeatable things fans can carry with them.

That’s what a real fanbase can do. It gives people language for something they already felt, but maybe hadn’t seen reflected back with that much clarity.

Charlie’s Law of 62 sounds a little ridiculous the first time you hear it.

Then he explains it, and you get what he’s really saying.

It’s not only about the number. It’s about momentum. Getting enough work into the world for the market to talk back.

Most artists are moving too slow and calling it consistency.

One song every few months. One content push or campaign. A little movement. Then silence. Then panic. Then another song. Then disappointment. Then the cycle starts all over again.

That can wear people down fast.

Artists know that feeling. Managers know it too.

The song comes out. It doesn’t move the way the team hoped. The artist starts spiralling. The manager starts replaying every decision. The team gets quiet. Everybody starts looking around like somebody must have failed.

Charlie’s answer is pace.

More attempts. More testing. More chances to learn what is actually connecting.

That doesn’t mean dumping bad music into the world just to look active. Nobody needs that. It means stop making every release carry the weight of the entire career.

That pressure is dangerous.

When artists create more, test more, and bring fans into the process earlier, they find signal faster. They also take some of the emotional weight off each individual release. Not every song has to feel like judgment day.

Pace is not just how often music comes out.

It’s the rhythm of the relationship.

Music. Live moments. Community touch points. Behind-the-scenes context. Commentary. Collaboration. The fanbase needs to feel like the world is still alive.

Silence can be powerful when it’s intentional.

Other times, it’s just absence.

And people move on quicker than any of us like to admit.

Artists should not become influencers.

That will annoy some people, but I think he’s right.

It doesn’t mean artists should ignore social media. This is part of the job now, whether people like it or not.

But there’s a difference between using social media to build connection and letting social media shrink the artist.

Not every trend needs your artist on it. Not every song needs to be begged into relevance. Not every behind-the-scenes moment needs to be posted. Access can be useful, but too much access can make the whole thing feel cheaper.

You can build awareness without killing the mystique.

Charlie talked about “unfolding” as a content idea. Start with intrigue. Let something reveal itself. Give people a reason to keep watching. Make the content feel like it belongs to the artist, not like the artist is borrowing someone else’s trick.

That distinction matters.

Artists can make short-form content without turning themselves into a joke. They can go viral without making the whole thing feel desperate. They can participate in the internet without handing their identity over to it.

Fans want access.

But they still want magic.

They want the artist to feel human, but not ordinary. Close, but not available to everybody in the exact same way. Honest, but not overexposed.

Still, there’s a line.

Honesty is not overexposure. Vulnerability does not mean telling the internet everything. Community does not mean being available to everyone all the time.

The job is to let people in without letting the algorithm cheapen the room.

Hard to do.

Necessary though.

If you have fans, you have leverage.

If you have leverage, you have options.

And options change how people treat you.

A lot of artists and managers study the business before they’ve built anything the business needs. They’re deep in contracts, splits, label politics, backend language, deal terms, all of it. And yes, that stuff matters.

But if there’s no demand, there isn’t much to negotiate.

Build the demand first.

Then the lawyer has something to protect. The manager has something to scale. The label has something to amplify. The distributor has something to service. A partner has a real business to plug into.

That’s why the Only Steves example matters. It’s not just a fan club.

It’s a direct-to-fan system.

Social media creates awareness. The community catches the core fans. Those fans get access. The artist gets recurring revenue. Merch moves with more certainty. Tickets sell with more confidence. The artist is no longer relying only on streams to prove there’s value.

That’s leverage.

Build the world. Serve the people. Own the mission. Let the business grow around something that already means something.

That’s how things last.

A lot of artists think the fanbase comes after the breakthrough.

It usually doesn’t.

The fanbase creates the breakthrough.

They think the industry gives you fans. Most of the time, the industry shows up after the fans are already there.

They think social media is the fanbase.

It isn’t.

Social media is the hallway. The fanbase is the house.

A viral moment is not community either. It’s attention. Sometimes useful attention, sure. But community is what remains when the spike is over.

And the relationship is not one-way.

Fans want to support, but they also want to feel seen. They want to feel named. Included. Respected. They want to feel like they got there early enough to matter.

That takes actual work.

Sometimes it’s answering comments. Sometimes it’s remembering the day ones. Sometimes it’s giving fans the song first. Sometimes it’s building the group chat, the newsletter, the Discord, the fan club, the live experience, the whole world around the music.

Sometimes it’s just making the fan feel like they’re not late.

They’re early.

That feeling goes a long way.

Charlie Rocket’s playbook is not anti-label.

It’s anti-powerlessness.

A great label can help. So can a great manager, distributor, executive, or strategic partner. The right people absolutely matter.

But they should not be the reason an artist starts building.

They are accelerants. The fanbase is the oxygen.

So for the artist, the better question is not, “How do I get the industry to care?”

It’s, “Who are the first 50 people I can serve so well that they bring 50 more?”

For the manager, it’s not, “Who can validate this artist?”

It’s, “How do I help this artist build something fans actually want to belong to?”

And for the executive, maybe the question is not, “What’s trending right now?”

Maybe it’s, “Where is real devotion forming before the market fully understands it?”

That’s usually where the future is.

In the community that keeps showing up.

Charlie Rocket knows that. A lot of artists should study it.

Watch Episode 76 with Charlie Rocket LIVE NOW

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Bio

I’m Mauricio Ruiz, the host and creator of The Manager’s Playbook podcast, dedicated to demystifying the world of music management, and Founder/CEO of 8 Til Faint, an Artist Management company with over 5 billion audio streams worldwide. Our past and current clients include Grammy nominated, Juno Award winning multi-instrumentalist and singer/songwriter Jessie Reyez, Skratch Bastid and more.

I am also the Co-Founder of Mad Ruk Entertainment, a content agency with over 3 billion long form video streams worldwide. Our client list includes The Weeknd, Eminem, and Celine Dion, along with renowned brands like Nike, Pernod Ricard and the NBA.

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