Producer, Engineer & Local Hay Records Co-Founder Scott Cooke

Joining Mike for a wide-ranging chat on this week’s episode is chart-topping producer and engineer Scott Cooke, who is also the head of a fairly new Canadian record label, Local Hay. Together with his friend and country star Dallas Smith, Cooke launched the label in 2019 as a joint venture with American label Big Loud Records. In this interview, Scott discusses his transition from the artistic and technical side of music to the business side, and the various skills he’s had to learn on the fly. As well, he chats about finding and cultivating new artists, artist marketing, streaming analytics, and the benefits of working with an American label on this joint venture. As well, Scott reflects on how the music industry has changed over his 20+ years in the business, and what it was like to record one of the biggest bands in the world, Nickelback, in an era where major labels threw ridiculous amounts of money at albums (hint, it was awesome!).