A small-town Iowa music fan helped launch some of the worlds biggest music legends.
Don Muller (84BA) knew he wasnt cut out to be a plumber. So instead of joining the family business after college, the Riverside, Iowa, native skipped his University of Iowa graduation and set off on an 1,800-mile adventure, with only $900 to his name.
PHOTO COURTESY Don MullerDon Muller
That trek became the journey of a lifetime, launching Mullers career as a powerhouse music agent who would hobnob with the likes of Nirvanas Kurt Cobain and help bring Lollapalooza, one of the worlds most iconic music festivals, to life.
The former head of SCOPE Productions, a student group that hosts live entertainment on Iowas campus, steered westward, through vast plains and sun-bleached expanses, in a beater car. He was headed for a friends couchand the bass-thumping energy of the Los Angeles music scene.
I think I was the only third grader in Riverside, Iowa, jamming to Jimi Hendrix, says Muller, who credits his older brothers and their 8-tracksof everything from Hendrix to the Beatlesfor turning him into a music junkie.
This addiction is what propelled him into the gritty L.A. club scene, where he gained a sixth sense about which singers would become starssuch as Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam and Chris Cornell of Soundgarden, both of whom Muller would go on to represent.
His knack for identifying future rock legends gave Muller a leg up in landing his first gig in Triad Agencys music division, after spending two years as an assistant at another agency. Muller became an agent at Triad in 1986signing Janes Addiction and Soundgarden as his earliest clientsand eventually moved on to other firms, including the William Morris Agency; Artist Direct, a digital music company he co-founded in 1997; and Creative Artists Agency. Today, hes a seasoned partner at William Morris Endeavors, a global music company, and boasts a celebrity roster that includes the Foo Fighters, Pearl Jam, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Beastie Boys.
Throughout my career, Ive never dreaded Sunday nights; Ive loved them, says Muller. Ive always been the first one in the office every day and the last to leave. He has relished the chance to build relationships with a broad range of musiciansand help them with everything from advertising and marketing to finances and contract negotiations.
Such connections came in handy in 1991, when Muller partnered with pal and fellow agent Marc Geiger and Janes Addictions lead singer Perry Farrell to create Lollapalooza, a multicity festival billed as alternative rocks biggest roadshow, with headlining bands such as Nine Inch Nails and the Violent Femmes. During Lollapaloozas early years, music was explodingthat whole world was changing, says Muller. It was a coming of age. Today, the event has morphed into an annual four-day festival in Chicago, featuring dozens of hip-hop, techno, and alternative rock performers.
In the decades since those first Lollapalooza sets, Muller has had an insiders view of some of alternative rocks most mythical moments, going behind the scenes to console a sick Cobain after he canceled one of his last shows in Munichand later attending the Nirvana frontmans funeral. He remembers driving home afterward with a carload of weeping mourners, including singer Chris Cornells wife, listening to Hallelujah by Jeff Buckley, another of Mullers musicians who would end up dying too young.
Although hes had a storied careerwith five of his bands in the Rock & Roll Hall of FameMuller isnt ready to quit the business anytime soon. He still feels like that lucky kid in the back of the club, jamming to his rock idols and keeping an eye out for the next big star.
He attributes this good fortune to having been in the right place at the right time. Music movement doesnt even begin to describe those years, says Muller. It was a whirlwind, and it was swirling all around me, and I was plugged into it. I just got so damned lucky.
ILLUSTRATION: SCOTT BIERSACK
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