The California license plate hangs on Mike Fiebach's office wall as a seemingly sentimental token of his time in San Francisco and the six years out west in which he built his digital marketing, music management and strategy company.
But really, the sentimentality living in Fiebach's heart is completely Philly, right down to the cobblestone outside his Society Hill office on Pine Street.
“I grew up on a cobblestone street,” says Fiebach of his upbringing on Delancey Street. It's really nice to walk on one going to work every day.”
That is just part of what pulled Fiebach back to Philadelphia last summer. His family and his fiancee are here and so is what he believes to be a significant factor – the opportunity to be a leader in digital marketing in Philly's always bustling music scene.
Following a fast and successful career as a hip-hop artist himself. touring and licensing songs to TV shows as part of the Philly based Catastrofiks, Fiebach went to California and for five years worked with the legendary DJ Shadow, helping build his digital brand. That relationship laid the foundation for Fame House, which launched a year ago and has been getting lots of attention in recent months for some high-profile and cutting edge projects, including work with director David Lynch and with Belgian brewer Stella Artois. All this comes via a small but strong team, including marketing manager Eric Hahn, a New Jersey native and Drexel grad, at his Philly office, and business developer Hisham Dahud in San Francisco. The company also employs a host of project-based contractors for web design and development and PR.
Most recently, a project with Denver-based electronica act Pretty Lights has been wildly successful. Fiebach and company partnered Pretty Lights with BitTorrent for the release of a customized media bundle in December. Pretty Lights has made it standard practice to give away all his music and make money on merchandise and touring, so this partnership made sense in number of ways – mostly by breaking down barriers to access. The partnership, which included a bundle of 3 popular EPs, a new single and a video from his Bonnaroo Show, led Pretty Lights to more than 6 million downloads and the No. 1 ranking on Pirate Bay's overall downloads section in just over a month. To further put it into perspective: It gained Pretty Lights more downloads in a two-month span than his entire career. These are results many brands pay six figures for, but Fame House churns them out at a fraction of that.
The Pretty Lights project has been recognized by The Music Biz Weekly podcast, The Lefsetz Letter, Hypebot and Digital Music Wire, all trumpeting the newly tapped power of free music. Monetizing fans is the future, and the Fame House is where they live.
Flying Kite (FK): How did working with DJ Shadow help you get to this point?
Mike Fiebach (MF): Shadow got me my true start in the music industry. Prior to working with him, I had small successes, but he gave me the opportunity to get serious experience, and exposure as a professional. I also toured with him off and on for four years, running his digital marketing and merchandising from the road. I got to see all of North America, Europe, and Australia. I never studied abroad for school, but I certainly did with my work in the music business.
My name got out there through this initiative and other artists and labels needed help with digital marketing and with digital music sales. By late 2010 it became so frequent that I had to start my own company and took on Shadow as my first client. I continue to work with him. He's a mentor to me, as is his manager, Jamal Chalabi.
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