Kat Basolo On Boldly Adding The Final Character to TV Shows & Films: The Music
It all started with Hank Williams’ 40 Greatest Hits album and long car rides to and from her grandparents’ house. Now, Basolo moves the masses by placing music in some of the most memorable advertisements and scenes in TV & Film. Call it fate, but you might be quickly corrected — it’s pure determination compounded by an innate love.
The soundtrack to Kat Basolo’s career begins with genetics — her passion for and diverse taste in music are hereditary — transitions through a few interludes comprised of uncertainty and flexibility, but ultimately is one where ingenuity, persistence, perseverance, and spunk are the bones of each track. With pause nowhere in sight, the mix is destined to get even richer. Whether a prerequisite for those aspiring to work in Creative Synch, or artists eager to hear their music in an eBay commercial or popular series like The Bold Type, it’s almost impossible not to hit repeat immediately after play.
Hailing from the small beach town of Ventura, California, Basolo loved where she grew up but always knew she wanted to build a life elsewhere. More importantly, she knew she wanted to work in music. The only question was where? Some of her fondest childhood memories are based around music. She remembers her dad always playing records in the house — especially Hank Williams Sr.’s Greatest Hits which quickly became her favorite — similar to how her husband Naaman (a music supervisor) starts their mornings today. But, it was frequent weekend trips to her grandparents’ house that morphed her appreciation for music into an obsession. Pulling from his multiple racks of cassette tape holders, and tapping into however he was feeling that day, her dad would curate their car rides with music. It only took a few trips before Basolo began to select songs herself.
Her love for music is palpable, and her selection of songs to make a moment pristine. It only takes 5 minutes with her and a brief view of one of her placements to realize. Luckily, we had a bit more than that. Read on for how Basolo manifested her dreams — even when unsure of the specifics — into a reality.
On Breaking Into the Music Business
So after knowing you wanted to work in music, and several internships throughout high school, what officially kicked off your career?
I got really lucky. A friend of a friend of a friend put me in touch with this woman who worked for Epic Records in the college radio department. And she met with me — it was kind of funny. Basically, she needed an intern, but back then the only way to get an internship was to prove you were getting course credit, because no one paid their interns. I had already graduated but I told her I was enrolled and that I could earn credits, because I wanted an in that bad. She offered me the job, but I had to doctor all the paperwork to say I was still a student. I even took my school’s letterhead and I totally falsified all the documents.
Did they ever know?
No [laughter].
That’s so badass. That’s drive. To me, it’s you want something so bad, you’re going to find a way to get there, and you did.
Yeah, exactly. I was at Sony for almost ten years after that, so when I left, I think I told a couple people jokingly. But at that point, what are they going to do?
What was it like getting started that way?
It was great…a good experience, and I liked my boss a lot. Unfortunately, I only got to work with her for about four or five months because they did away with her position. “College radio is kind of becoming null and void,” they said. “We don’t need a full-time position for it.” So they let her go, and I was really lucky that the head of HR at the time was so good to me. Her name is Liz Ramirez. She is literally probably the reason I have a career because she said, “Everyone likes you. You seem really hungry and determined and I want to keep you in the system.” She figured out a way to keep me around. “I’m just going to have you temp for every department that needs help, people are on vacation, maternity leave, whatever,” she said. “I’m just going to have you temp.” So I did. I spent a couple months in the temp cycle just filling in for whatever department needed me — radio, A&R, whatever.
After a few months of that, a number of assistant positions all opened up at once in different departments. I interviewed for several, but synch licensing interested me the most. I ended up staying there for nearly 10 years and worked my way up.
I was a synch coordinator at first, but eventually got to take on my own clients — initially the shows that use a ton of music and are very volume heavy and highly intense. But I slowly started getting more clients by earning the trust of my bosses and colleagues. They started bringing me into things, saying “We think you’d be good on this show or that shows.” Film & TV is a niche synch market, and just like any one piece of the music industry, it’s a very small world. The longer you’re in it, the more you get to know people and earn their trust. You can climb the ladder and do well. I’ve been fortunate to have great mentors, and I’m very lucky. I’ve always worked for women.
Do you feel like that was very empowering throughout your career?
Absolutely. Yeah. I think it would be interesting to go back to having a male boss at this stage. I know we’re totally getting off topic but —
No, no. That’s major. I don’t know how many people can say that.
Right. I’m probably a very unique case because I got into the music industry when many of the major players were still men. While it was still mostly men in power, I happened to have female bosses.
Would you ever have candid conversations when they would kind of, I guess, talk to you in a way where it’s just like a good way to carry yourself, or things to look out for, or mentor you in that sense?
Yeah. Absolutely. I do think there was always an aspect [in that female mentorship] of how to appropriately carry yourself as a professional woman, and what to do and not to do in the industry to maintain your reputation. They may not have given me blatant instructions, but I was taught how to carry myself so that people viewed me as a professional. And I actually think it takes a long time to get there as a woman. Well, maybe not so much now, but back then.
Was there anything in particular that they said that always stuck out at you, just maybe like a line, or?
I’ve heard this from a number of people, including my current boss, Jeannette [Perez]: “Always take the meeting. Always take a meeting.” Never say no to a meeting because you never know what can come from it. It can be a job, creative collaborations, new clients, or you can meet someone new who introduces you to someone else, etc.
Just always take the meeting. That’s probably the most relevant piece of advice and I still find it rings true today, to be honest. There are so many times I’ve been exhausted or busy and really don’t want to go the meeting, show, or dinner, and I end up meeting someone and they became a client, or we end doing a great deal or something.
Do you feel like — let’s say, even before you started working in the industry and started working for women primarily — like you’ve always had the same level of confidence? Like when you walk into a room and you’re sitting around a table, you feel confident to speak up or has that grown as well?
Absolutely. I wouldn’t say I was first one to raise my hand in class or that I always felt confident going up to the front of the room, but my mom was a great female mentor. She was a teacher and I learned a lot from her. I’ve had strong females in my life the whole way. So yeah, I definitely feel like I was mentored by females in a way that got me to where I am today and gave me a certain level of confidence. I don’t know if every woman can say that…So then I was going back to the original question about my career timeline, sorry I totally got off topic.
No, no. It’s okay.
So then I was [at Sony] and I just kept working hard. They trusted me and kept giving me more clients and more creative opportunities. I made it to associate director from an assistant, which is a pretty good lineage in my nine and a half years there. And then I just felt like I needed to leave.
I started looking for jobs in publishing because I had been at a major label so long and wanted to gain publishing experience. I knew Jeannette because we had been on the same team at Sony, but she was based in New York. I was based in LA doing music for TV, she was in New York working on music for ads. So even though we were on the same team, we didn’t really cross paths much, but we did get to know each other over the years. And when I heard she came to Kobalt, I called her and said, “I really like Kobalt’s roster and I like what I’ve read about it as a company. So if and when the time comes where you need to expand your team if someone leaves, think of me.” Eventually, she called.
Synch, The Real Deal
So, what exactly does it take to place a song in a TV show or film?
It totally depends on the project, it depends on the creative, and how much budget the music supervisor actually has. Sometimes the supervisor is the person that chooses the music. They just have to get their showrunner or their producer to sign off, and that’s it. But other times, especially in trailers and ads, there are a lot more people who are touching the creative. On big TV shows especially, they’ll be multiple producers, a showrunner, and maybe even they an actor weighing in. The opinions can add up quickly, and it can be hard to get something over the finish line. It seems like it’s just so easy because people hear a song in the background of a scene for 30 seconds and just assume “Oh, that was easy. They just dropped that in.” But it doesn’t work that way.
It’s not a simple as it seems.
No. So many people have to sign off on our [the artist and songwriter] side too. A song can have what seems like unlimited writers, and that really changes the equation. If you’re pitching a song with eight writers, the music supervisor/clearance team will have to track down every rep for each of the eight writers. The master [artist’s] side is usually easier because it’s owned by a single record label or by the artists themselves, unless there’s a sample or a side artist. But either way they’re going to have to track down the people involved to use the music.
And all along the way, there are a many different music reps for those people. Some are with major publishers, some are indies, or maybe they rep themselves, whatever. All of these people are negotiating on behalf of their own writers, which can either complicate the process, completely block it, or help it get to the finish line. A lot of it’s about trust —
Determining factors.
There are a lot of determining factors and a lot of trust that have to be in place for a synch to work. And at the end of the day, it’s a really small industry. We all know our counterparts at other labels, publishers, indie reps, etc, and we all have to kind of play in the sandbox together.
So there has to be a lot of communication for it to work. Sometimes when I’m pitching a song for a specific project, I will pre-vet the other people involved with the music. If I’ve pitched something and I know the production team is into it, I’ll call the other labels and publishers to see where we stand. “Do you think we could do it for $10,000? Do you think we’re going to have issues with the others? Blah, blah, blah.” So that’s not —
To cover the bases.
Right. Technically that’s not in my job description, but it’s a part of my job. And if I want to help these things get over the finish line, I find that vetting in that way helps opportunities comes to fruition. There are so many factors that can kill a synch along the way — if you can get involved and help move the pieces along, sometimes that’s what it takes to get it done.
What’s your favorite part of your job would you say?
Well, that’s twofold. One is that I get to work with every kind of music. I love that I’m not siloed off in to one genre, like, “I do country radio,” or, “I sign hip-hop artists.” In synch, every creative brief that comes across our desk is looking for something different. I might be working on a metal, hard-core, 90s pitch at 9:00 AM and, by 10:30, an ask comes in for quirky, female, electronic music. So that’s really fun because I’m never bored when it comes to what I’m working on music-wise. I’m getting to work across all of it.
It’s really fun when a project comes along that you’re personally drawn to; when your flavor comes through the door and you get to work on it. So that’s even more fun, when it’s a TV show or film I myself am a fan of. I love Wes Anderson and if I get to work on a Wes Anderson project and pitch music to that? It’s great. That’s really special.
And then — I said twofold and I’ve already forgotten what the other [laughter] one was. Getting to work with all different kinds of music — oh. I think emotion. I love how music is a character in scenes and how it draws out emotion in people. Watch a scene without any music — It does nothing. There’s no emotion there. There’s nothing that the viewer can connect to. So music really, in my mind, is the fifth character, or the unseen character. Because without it, you’re losing all that tangible, emotive feeling. Whether it’s scary or sad or whatever, you [as the viewer] want to feel that way. As human beings we want to feel when we’re watching something. That’s why we’re watching it.
Is there anything that you haven’t worked on that you’ve watched, and you’re like, “Man — “
I want to work on that.
Yeah. Or where it’s been like, “God, that worked really well,” or that just kind of stood out to you.
Yes. I didn’t pitch this, so I can’t take credit for it, but there was music I worked with in Breaking Bad. It was a Duke Ellington song, the Overture to the Nutcracker Suite, and it was used in a scene where the lawyer goes the bank, and he’s filling the money deposit boxes. There’s no dialogue. It’s literally just this gorgeous montage. It’s a cute and quirky scene of him filling all the money boxes at the bank. I didn’t pitch the song, but I negotiated on behalf of the master. I got to see the scene ahead of time, and it was just like, “Oh, that works so perfectly,” [laughter] and now, I just can’t imagine anything else having been used. And it just gave an extra breath — there was no dialogue. But that scene just — it popped, and I remember it. And it was Duke Ellington! It doesn’t have to be some contemporary forefront artist. It can be a more obscure track.
When you’re out do you feel like work is always in the back of your head? Like you’re out and hear a song and you’re like, “Oh, who is this?” What could this be good in?
Yeah. Always. Like who could I pair them with?
Right.
Or who’s show would I hear this music in? Or are they signed? And can we sign them at Kobalt?
Yeah.
When I’m watching anything, I’m always thinking and analyzing. It’s hard not to. But that’s like most people in the music industry, right? It’s hard to go to just a show and listen to it as just a show. Something will always pop in my head. “Do I feel like that would be great for Jeep?” [laughter] Can’t turn it off really.
And I think that’s just how it is for creatives in any industry. Sometimes I hear people say “Music business. You’re just the business people.” But we almost all got into it for creative reasons. Deep down, we’re all artists in our own right. We’re creatives as well, so it’s hard to detach. If you work in any sort of creative field, you can’t really detach yourself, ever. It doesn’t matter what it is, it’s probably the same being a chef, a painter or even a being a landscaper, really. Do you know what I mean? If you love what you do and you see the creative structures all around you, how can you turn it off?
As told to Cortney Rae.
