How It All Started
I used to be the young guy.
I was often the guy with new ideas and the one music industry veterans looked to when they wanted to “shake things up” a little.
I entered the industry in February 1994 with Gotee Records. We were brand new. We were unknown. We were a punchline.
We were a certain failure that was only a matter of time, and a credit line, away from going belly up.
But a strange thing happened. Or, better yet, it didn’t happen.
Gotee started working. Then, in only a couple of years, it became quite successful.
TobyMac, who was still just “Toby” at the time, was steering our ship with co-owners Joey Elwood and Todd Collins.
The three of them had a feel for music like I had never seen before. Brilliant ideas filled the air at Gotee each day like flies on a hot summer afternoon. There were simply too many to count.
People in the industry noticed, and they wanted it.
When the Young Team Became the Experts
For a long time, Gotee and the core of our team remained intact. Somewhere along the way, however, life happened.
First came wives and husbands as we all gradually got married. Then came children.
The next thing we knew, we had been doing this for 10 years, and people suddenly called us “experts” in our field.
I was the first to break up the band when I accepted a job offer outside the Gotee family.
Joey always urged us to listen whenever people approached us with an offer. We usually did, only to return to what we knew and loved most: Gotee Records.
This time, however, I decided my moment had come to leap from the nest.
Through the years, this industry has provided for all my family’s needs and plenty of our wants.
Still, part of me will always remain an original member of the Gotee family.
The Memories That Came With the Music
I met my wife on a Gotee promotional trip with Out of Eden.
I surfed, and crashed, at Laguna Beach, California, with Johnny Q. Public.
I watched Jennifer Knapp perform at GMA before we even signed her. She walked onstage with a guitar, black trousers, a white collared shirt and black suspenders.
She killed it up there.
I saw Grits tour with De La Soul.
I watched a $15,000 marketing budget turn into a multiplatinum seller with Sonicflood.
I drove a Ryder truck 26,000 miles in four months with Eddy. Together, we reached all four corners of the continental United States while promoting Gotee to retailers across the country.
During my years at Gotee, I traveled to London, Belgium, France, Spain, Amsterdam, most major cities in the United States, and even Peru and Canada. I visited many of those places numerous times.
Gotee’s health plan also helped me bring my two precious daughters into the world.
Looking Back Without Regret
All in all, you do not often see what I was part of anymore.
We were a group of people united around one cause and a clear vision: to make great music with great artists for a perfect Lord and Savior.
I cannot say I regret leaving. That would focus on the wrong thing.
I walked into Gotee in good standing, and I walked out in even better standing 12 years later.
I absolutely loved my days there. I am fortunate to still call those guys and gals dear friends.
I still love this industry we are in.
I am just not that young man anymore.
I really do miss him, but I do not regret that he is not here today.
Twenty years in the music industry taught me that much.
About the contributor: Troy Collins is a music industry executive with more than 30 years of experience spanning artist development, marketing, record labels and ministry. A former executive at Gotee Records and ForeFront Records, he later co-founded Beatmart Recordings with his brother, Todd Collins. His career has also included serving with relief organizations around the world.