How Darkroom Founder/CEO Justin Lubliner Guided Billie Eilish to Global Stardom
It was the fruits of years of onerous work for Lubliner, who signed Eilish in partnership with Interscope in 2016 and has watched the “spoiled guy” singer turn out to be a subsequent-generation icon: Her triple-platinum 2019 debut, When We All Tumble Asleep, The place Create We Dash?, was the first No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 by an artist born in the 21st century. For a whole bunch musicians, such Grammys success would possibly perchance maybe label time for a damage. Yet since then, Lubliner (at the side of Eilish’s managers, Brandon Goodman and Danny Rukasin, and the rest of her crew) has helped the singer preserve momentum with a sleek world livestream live efficiency in October (in disclose of her postponed 2020 enviornment tour); an Apple documentary (coming to theaters and Apple TV+ in February 2021); and a conventional roam of most up-to-date tune from her and FINNEAS, her brother and most important collaborator.
“What we no doubt desired to focal point on,” says Lubliner, “was being as proactive as that you would possibly perchance perchance maybe mediate of: now now not most effective coming up with ideas and ideas nonetheless chasing them to death except we enact them.”
His force to be critical appealed to Eilish from the soar. “When I met Justin, I felt esteem he was essentially the most easy person out of everyone I met that three hundred and sixty five days — and I met with somewhat a large range of folk — that no doubt observed one thing and believed it,” she says. “There was such an energy in the room in that first assembly with Interscope, and it was radiating off Justin because he had this form of solid map. He didn’t gain some opinion that was to expose me into one thing a quantity of. He no doubt ethical observed me for exactly who I was and desired to give a exhaust to that. I mediate that’s rare.”
Lubliner before everything launched Darkroom as a marketing/ PR agency in 2011 while enrolled in the College of Southern California’s tune alternate program. Then 21, he was furthermore consulting for Republic Files’ A&R crew and starting to amass an enviable contact checklist. He met Interscope chairman/CEO John Janick in 2014, and the two take to each and every other; that three hundred and sixty five days, Darkroom grew to turn out to be a joint project with Interscope and signed its first artist, DJ-producer Gryffin. Lubliner, whose roster furthermore contains quite a variety of producer Oliver Malcolm and pop singer-songwriter Max Leone, credits his success to his early beginning and “child at coronary heart” enthusiasm. “If you happen to’re younger, you’re linked to the culture, unusual marketing ideas, unusual social media platforms,” he says. “When I started our company, I was a faculty child marketing to other college kids. It’s a teenager’s recreation at the close of the day, and on each day foundation I accumulate older, I no doubt feel esteem I’m a little less conscious.”
Excellent now, now now not now now not as a lot as, Lubliner quiet has his finger on the pulse. He’s centered on increasing Darkroom’s world presence and now now not too lengthy up to now employed an analytics expert so the six-person crew can skill “our world strategy with recordsdata [instead of] ethical ideas and instincts,” he says. Organising artists in movie is furthermore a priority: Apart from the documentary, Eilish launched “No Time To Die,” the theme for the next James Bond movie of the the same title, to rave experiences in February. “It was one in every of essentially the most sophisticated things we’ve ever had to head after,” says Lubliner, who credits Jody Gerson (In type Song Publishing Neighborhood chairman/CEO) and Tony Seyler (Interscope’s govt vp movie/TV marketing and licensing and soundtrack A&R) with helping the crew pitch the tune to MGM and Eon Productions.
As for when Eilish will free up her subsequent album, Lubliner says he has no thought — nonetheless that hasn’t stopped him from waking up throughout the evening and texting colleagues his ideas. “We’re already whiteboarding how that album is going to be marketed,” he says. “That said, 90% is from Billie and Finn. They’re the leaders, the vision, and we’re alongside for the chase. But I mediate the 10% we contribute isn’t any doubt influential. In the occasion you would possibly perchance perchance maybe aid an artist gain a sustainable profession, that’s essentially the most easy metric of success in the tune alternate.”
This text in the foundation regarded in the Nov. 7, 2020, project of Billboard.