IGA'S JANICK GETS HIS LA LAS OUT

With La La Land poised to bring home a bushel full of Oscars at Sunday’s Academy Awards, Interscope/Geffen/A&M CEO John Janick stopped by the public radio show Marketplace Thursday to chat about his involvement with the 14-times-nomintated film and offer a primer of his whirlwind history in the business.

Some highlights:

On starting Fueled By Ramen while still a student at the University of Florida:

When I was just a guy in Florida, starting a record label, I knew nobody. I had no mentors, no nothing, and it was just me just kind of trying to figure it out … It was a time when the barriers of entry were coming down. You didn’t need to have to put CDs in stores. You didn’t have to get on MTV, which was important at the time. But we were able to take advantage of what was happening at the time: MP3.com and Friendster and MySpace and then into You Tube.

On being blown away by director Damien Chazelle:

I watched [Whiplash] at home. It was just one of those movies that makes you think for days after watching it and I was just like, ‘I gotta meet this guy.’ I told him how much I loved the film and asked him what he was doing next and he said he was doing this musical and we were just like, ‘we gotta do it.’ We put our whole team on it … He’s one of those guys, he has such a vision and for us it was just, how do we work with him?

IGA in five years:

Really the sky’s the limit. When you think about it, the way that streaming is taking over, there should be so many more opportunities for people to discover new acts, so I think that’s exciting … I just think between visual content, especially when we’re working with artists like a Selena or a Lady GaGa, who was in American Horror Story and she’s gonna go do A Star Is Born. Finding new ways to connect with audiences I think is going to be really interesting.

Listen to the Marketplace segment here, starting at 20:53.