Meet CCO Tony Cardenas "Montana" of VNUE, Inc.
Tony was featured recently in an interview with rock interviewer Mitch Lafon
LOS ANGELES, Jan. 22, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- New York-based entertainment and music technology company VNUE, Inc. (OTC: VNUE) announced today that the company was starting a series to better acquaint the public with its executive team, beginning with Tony Cardenas (Montana), the company's Chief Creative Officer and a member of the Board of Directors. VNUE consists of an extremely talented and dedicated team of technologists, musicians and successful entrepreneurs, who have come together to create solutions for the music industry's most nagging problems: revenue and rights management for music performed in public spaces.
Tony was a member of the platinum-selling Capitol Records band Great White from 1987-1992 (during all of their big hits), and more recently has been playing with Jack Russell's Great White. He also has a new project, Shadow and the Thrill, which has been collecting accolades for the band's incredible remake of Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy."
In the interview, conducted by Mitch Lafon, a well-known rock interviewer, Tony is featured alongside legendary music manager and mentor Alan Niven (Great White, Motley Crüe, Guns n' Roses). Tony discusses his role at VNUE guiding the development team for the Soundstr technology that the company is rolling out, and the impact this technology will have on the industry, as well as his time as a musician and songwriter with Jack Russell, and Shadow and the Thrill.
"Shadow and the Thrill – that 'Shadow' guy is me, the blues guitar persona; the 'Thrill' is whoever is going to be playing with me in the band (live). I have great friends who are performers, and we are going to go out and play, because it is worth the effort, and it is worth hearing. We have a full-frontal assault on radio. Whether radio is a factor any more to anyone else, it is to me."
About Alan, his longtime mentor, Tony had this to say in the interview (edited for context): "Alan has a presence…he walks in the room, and we are playing (Great White, back in the day), and I am doing my thing, and he is sitting there, and he asks me "do you have any drug convictions," and I'm thinking this is the last thing that would ever happen to me! I said, 'I'm really not into all that.' At this point I realize he is being pragmatic, like if we were to travel out of the country, but I thought he was wondering what I was into (laughs)."
Tony has been working with CEO Zach Bair for over 10 years. The two met when Tony was subbing bass for Slash, on a tour in Australia. At the time, Bair was helming Abbey Road Live, which was DiscLive when it was aligned with EMI Music Group.
"When Tony and I first met," says Bair, "we were introduced by Tony's good friend and colleague in the industry, Pete Merluzzi, who was working on the Slash team at the time. I found out that Tony had this massive background not only as a true rock star, but also as a successful tech startup entrepreneur. He had founded and was previously president of Diskfaktory, one of the first on-demand CD burning and fulfillment companies. Both of us realized at that time that we really had a lot in common, since DiscLive was in the same space. Somehow, I managed to recruit him, and he and I have become great friends and have been working together ever since – even burning CDs on dusty Australian tours for DEVO and Simple Minds! He was the first guy I brought into VNUE, when I took over as CEO in 2016. He is one of the most driven, kind and humble people I have the pleasure of knowing, and I've even been lucky enough to share the stage with him."
The full interview with Tony, Alan, and Mitch Lafon may be found here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eU2qcgCeqt0
For more information about Tony's band Shadow and the Thrill, visit their website:
https://www.shadowandthethrillonline.com/
About VNUE, Inc. (www.vnue.com)
VNUE, Inc., (OTC: VNUE) is a leading music technology and artist services company dedicated to further monetizing the live music experience for artists, labels, writers, and publishers, with products such as its set.fm instant content distribution platform (www.set.fm), exclusive license partner and "instant live" pioneer DiscLive (www.disclive.net), and protecting the rights of artists and writers with the company's groundbreaking Soundstr music recognition technology (MRT) platform (www.soundstr.com). The veteran entrepreneurs, artists and songwriters behind VNUE, led by music and tech entrepreneur and recording artist Zach Bair (www.zachbairmusic.com) are passionate about the future of their industry and ensuring that rights holders' value is not lost amid always-changing technology. For more information, please visit www.vnue.com.
SOURCE VNUE, Inc.
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