#239: Harrison Remler

This week on A Waste of Time with ItsTheReal, we welcome COO of Visionary Music Group, Harrison Remler to sit down with us at our new apartment on the Upper West Side! Part of Logic's management team for the past seven years and a 2018 recipient of the Forbes 30 Under 30 honor, Harrison discusses his upbringing on the north shore of Long Island, his dedication to high school baseball, his father's dreams of him becoming a big league relief pitcher, meeting Mariano Rivera at a restaurant in Panama, and why the flame of top-tier athletics burned out at his Division III school, Vassar College. Harry, well-aware of the power of social media and the music blogs, used both to start a college career as a concert promoter, getting his artists respectable pay days whether for high school proms or selling out NYC's Canal Room. At the time, he looked up to independent managers like Benji Grinberg and Will Dzombak, and when he garnered the interest of Logic's manager, Chris Zarou, he immediately offered to intern in exchange for the chance to learn the ins and outs of the music business. Harry details moving around the United States at age 19 as Logic's tour manager, the big responsibilities, the ridiculous quandaries and the large amounts of money that fell on his shoulders - none of it going into his own pockets - but knowing that he was an early part of something significant, putting together Logic's first appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! and the life-changing moment where he had to decide between traveling to a Spring Break tourney with his baseball team, or joining Logic on his first European tour. We get into Logic's signing to Def Jam, working on Jon Bellion's career, learning how to push and poke and encourage a major music label while operating out of a basement in Long Island, and the most gratifying moment of his career, Logic's VMA performance which brought together suicide survivors and spread awareness. All that, plus news about Visionary's new situation with Sony Music, stories about Method Man and Redman, Tayyib Ali, AER, DJ Vinny Bags, the Panama Canal, hunting Nazis and much more!