A Happy Career in Music

On Friday, the Entertainment, Media & Sports Club and the Entrepreneur and Venture Club presented Happy Walters (BBA '90), founder and CEO of Immortal Records.A very practical person, Happy Walters is the fascinating for the audience, most from the Business school and the Law school, who had many questions about both the music and the sports industry.

But how does a regular Indiana guy become so successful in this type of industry? Happy has had an amazing record of success over the last 14 years in the entertainment industry since leaving Michigan and driving to LA upon graduation. Despite having no entertainment contacts whatsoever, through creativity and a willingness to hustle as an entrepreneur he finally found his first break after 18 months with the discovery of the hip-hop act Cypress Hill.

Listening to this guy talking about the music industry, it seemed like it was easy for him to be successful. Happy dresses in typical LA business style - khakis, t-shirt, laid back - that belies a confident attitude derived from doing things his way effectively for a long time. Creativity is the word that defines him (maybe it all started with such an interesting first name!). Happy is a serial entrepreneur. By the age of 19 in Michigan, he already had the knowledge of outsourcing and by his last year at college he had started 10 businesses. So he sold them, including one he sold to Joe Boxer, and went to LA, one of the only two cities - the other being NY - were he thinks this industry can be developed.

As mentioned, he initially took a year and a half to sign his first artist, but after some years of guesses and some mistakes, he has become a well know player in the music, movie and sports industries. In the last 14 years, he has launched Immortal Records, expanding into movie soundtracks, then into television and movie production, and finally into athlete representation. Happy and Immortal have continuously looked for new areas of business.

Unafraid of failure, willing to take risks which has been the source of his success. Choosing Cypress Hill during the 'just say no' years (Cypress Hill certainly said 'yes') and Korn during the height of softer rock, finding countercurrents to the mainstream has proven to be his niche. However, in true entrepreneur fashion, there have been some missteps as well. A actor talent agency he began under Immortal proved to be too large a headache and money-loser, and has since been dissolved.

Happy likes keeping a low profile. He has been as prolific a producer as Sean 'p-diddy' Combs and Suge Knight, but does not like not to be in the first row of the credits nor give many interviews. When asked about whether he relates to clients as 'friends' or professionally, he says that professionalism is important, but after many years in this industry you get to know many people and some of them become friends of yours.

Happy talked also about the Power of the Michigan network, and through the presentation, he has proven to do whatever it takes to help Michigan students.

Of course he also thinks about future. When asked about the future of the economics of the music industry, Happy is spending a lot of his time looking at online distribution measures.

So these might be quite good ideas to begin with if you have passion for entertainment, media or sports, though have in mind that it will take a while to get immersed in this crazy world, as he says, of rock and roll, movies and sports.