Zane Lowe on the Launch of Apple Music, Beats 1 and Listening to Dr. Dre
To see more of Zane’s life at Beats 1, check out @zanelowe on Instagram. For more music stories, head to @music.
“I’m just getting used to being in L.A.”
Zane Lowe (@zanelowe), the gregarious lead anchor for Apple Music’s Beats 1, is currently in a car on the way to LAX, where he’ll board a plane bound for London. It’s a homecoming for the 42-year-old radio host, who cut his teeth at BBC’s Radio 1 for more than a decade before moving out to Los Angeles to help launch Apple’s streaming music service and 24-hour radio service.
Beats 1 has been cruising along smoothly since its start in June, with regular programs from Pharrell, Dr. Dre, St. Vincent, Elton John and Zane himself, among others, as well as a heavy dose of exclusive interviews and world premieres. Just this past week, the station debuted new tracks from Ryan Adams’ cover album of Taylor Swift’s 1989 along with the entirety of What a Time to Be Alive, the syrupy hip-hop mixtape from Future and Drake.
It is certainly a great time to be Zane Lowe. He may have relocated halfway around the world, but he’s still getting to do what he loves: discover new bands, interview artists and play great music.
Zane spoke to Instagram about the launch of Beats 1, the transition from BBC to Apple and the lessons he’s learned since moving to the States.
Instagram @music: We’re three months into the launch of Beats 1. How have you found the change overall? Does broadcasting on Apple feel drastically different from the BBC?
Zane Lowe: I would say that it has been different in the sense that I’m doing my show in the morning on a different coast. I mean, first of all, we’re trying to take into account that we’re broadcasting in different time zones all the time. So there’s no such thing as a daytime radio show or a breakfast radio show, a nighttime radio show, or anything like that. You’ve got to just focus on the language of music — which is really good, because that’s all I know.
When you first started planning the station, how did you go about choosing which artists would host their own shows?
In a very kind of rushed, careful way. We had very limited time to putting the building blocks in place to getting it on the air. It was a little over three months from when we started to actually having to launch. And so, when you take a look at a schedule — it’s seven days a week, 24 hours a day — and you’ve got nothing filling it in, it’s kind of nerve-wracking. Then you start thinking about who your DJ friends are that you want to broadcast on the station. And you’re like, I can’t approach them, they’re all tied into contracts and doing really great shows on really great stations, and I’m not going to be that d—. So how are we going to fill this, and what the hell are we going to do? So it was, you know, shoot for the moon. We were just like, OK, let’s open it up to the artists — see if we can get them to lead the conversation as opposed to being a part of the conversation.
I had a few people in mind. I approached Rebel Sound and Disclosure — people I was friends with. And then we just tried to carefully choose people that we thought would actually sound good on the radio. Do these artists actually want to engage in broadcasting? From there it was fast. And we got really, really lucky in a lot of cases. People got it really quick. Pharrell got it immediately, St. Vincent got it immediately. Same with Elton John. You know, these are people who are, like, Oh, I’m into this, I’ve always kind of wanted to do some radio or I could see how it could be really exciting to reach people in this way. Because that’s really all it is, is that it’s a new way for artists to reach their audience.
And you guys have been rolling in exclusives too. You had the Drake and Future mixtape, What a Time to Be Alive on Sunday, the Ryan Adams’ Taylor Swift covers on Monday. How prescriptive is Beats 1 about going after these things?
It’s more that they just found a place. And what was interesting is when we first started out, understandably, people weren’t really ready to get involved in that kind of conversation. And we didn’t want to push people because we were unproven and untested. You’re this new thing, you don’t want to come in there and start knocking over chairs. It’s like the broadcasting has to speak for itself. And we had so many things we had to fix. I was more worried about how were the records going to sound next to each other. It sort of freed us up to really back new artists and, say, OK, you’re on Apple Music, and we’re this new radio broadcast platform. Rather than finding a way to fit them in and around all these big artists, let’s lead with these artists. Let’s talk about them like they are the biggest thing in the world.
So we’re just trying to get those stories [out]. And I guess over time there are exclusives and things that come along because maybe people like the way the station sounds. Maybe they want to hear their record next to a new artist. So it all happened very naturally and organically. And, you know, God bless Drake and Future.
Well, what a time to be alive.
What a time to be alive, man. I mean, that was exciting, getting that mixtape played back to back. I was just sitting there thinking, like, this is so weird, how is Apple letting us get away with this? We’re playing this mixtape, uninterrupted, prime time, on the weekend. And it’s huge. People are freaking out about it. I was like, man, that album is an appropriately titled piece of work.
But, to echo what you said, you’re giving small artists the time of day too. The first song you launched Beats 1 with was from the band Spring King. That’s the perfect example of democratizing the process and just trying to present good music no matter how big the group is.
To me, Spring King sounded as good as anything else I could possibly imagine to kick-start a radio station with. It’s like, man, it sounds purposeful, it’s exciting, I love the lyrics, the sentiment speaks to me. It’s just — it’s f—ing wicked. Run with that, you know? Because, really, at the end of the day, it’s just a song. That’s what’s great about radio or anything of that nature is that you really are kind of in the moment. And you can sit there and think about it all day, but until you actually just start, nothing’s ever going to evolve or get better. We could’ve kept building Beats 1 forever and ever and ever and ever. It could’ve turned into a [Guns N’ Roses] Chinese Democracy scenario. But at the end of the day, it’s like, just get it on the air and see what people think. And they’ll tell you.
It’s funny you mentioned Chinese Democracy. One of the questions I had for you was about hip-hop’s version of that, with Dr. Dre’s Detox, an album that people waited on for 13 years but was never released. When did you find out Dre, who helped launch Apple Music and Beats 1 with you, was scrapping that and releasing Compton instead?
I was lucky, man. I’ll let you in on a secret. Jimmy [Iovine] played me some stuff really early on. I’d heard six or seven tracks in varying states of completion. So I knew, man, I knew. I was sitting on this information. I knew how dope it was. I was like, oh, s—, he is not f—ing around. Like this is real. He’s doing this. So it was exciting. I just remember I got in the car after work one day, when the album finally came out on Apple Music, and I just put it on in the car and drove all the way home. I was driving through Los Angeles, listening to the Compton album. Dr. Dre has a radio show on the station that we just launched. And I was like this is f—ing awesome.
You’re like, I made the right move coming out to California.
I made the right move [laughs]. I was just like, all right, today, this is a good moment. Just remember this moment.
What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned since coming to Apple?
Where do I start? Always go to Jimmy when you need something done. Always keep your mouth shut when he’s getting the job done. I suppose the biggest lesson, honestly, on a Beats 1 level, is it’s exciting to forge your own path. I believe in keeping your eyes open and looking out for things that might inspire you. But at the same time, you know, I just think — I’m just trying to — it’s a really good question. And I’ll tell you why I’m struggling with it. It’s because I haven’t actually had one second to think about that.
It’s been so fast paced and it’s been so frantic, and it still is every day, and I haven’t actually reflected on one frame since we started. And so what are the lessons that I got here? That’s a f—ing great question. And I think I’m learning them, but I don’t think I’m able to truly know what they are yet. So I guess in a way I’m trying to get a balance between holding on really f—ing tight and letting go when I can. I’m literally like — I’m upside down and inside out. There’s your answer.
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