It was once a night in past due 1984 when Jonathan Shank, a tender child from a suburb of Philadelphia, walked right into a stadium together with his circle of relatives in tow, sat down in his assigned seat and skilled his first actual are living live performance, an tournament that might dramatically affect the process his existence. On level that night time was once The Jackson 5, acting one prevent on their 55-city Victory Excursion.
Shank was once instantly in awe.
“There was once this one second throughout the display the place Michael Jackson got here and sat through the threshold of the level,” Shank says. “The gang went actually, actually loopy.”
Despite the fact that he couldn’t articulate it as a child, Shank was once deeply impacted through the enjoy of being in the similar room with hundreds of folks, all playing are living tune. The power was once electrical and infectious.
That have propelled Shank, CEO of artist control and manufacturing corporate Terrapin Station Leisure, to a occupation all in favour of growing stories identical to this for audiences world wide.
Shank’s folks spotted their son’s pastime, and for a few years after The Jackson 5 live performance, the circle of relatives would spend summers on the Jersey Shore, taking Shank to peer teams like Chicago and Corridor & Oates in close by Atlantic Town. By the point he hit his teenagers, Shank was once venturing out to displays on his personal, favoring bands of the time like Milli Vanilli, INXS and U2.
Shank attended Tulane College in New Orleans, the place he majored in sociology however all the time appeared for attention-grabbing tune categories. (The college didn’t have business-related tune categories.) When he discovered a direction known as “The Historical past of Jazz,” he signed up instantly and began going to the professor’s workplace hours, telling the trainer he sought after to do one thing within the tune enterprise. An internship for credit score was once advised, and inside of weeks, Shank was once knocking at the doorways of the Area of Blues New Orleans.
“It was once February 1994, and the Area of Blues had actually simply opened,” he recalls. “I grew to become up and requested for an internship, they usually didn’t also have an internship program but. I was an assistant to the assistant.”
It was once a formative enjoy. Shank spent his time organizing artist pictures and bios and taping display flyers to phone poles everywhere the town. The enjoy offered him to all kinds of trade luminaries, from Bob Monroe and Bob Dylan to Dr. John and Allen Toussaint. From there, he interned for a file manufacturer who inspired him to transport to Los Angeles to pursue a occupation within the tune enterprise.
Not up to 4 months after strolling throughout Tulane’s commencement level, Shank was once headed West.
Chopping his tooth within the Town of Angels
It was once the mid ’90s when Shank landed in LA. He was once hungry to land a task in tune, generating or helping. He would take no matter he may get, however jobs had been onerous to return through. On the time, are living tune wasn’t an enormous marketplace. As a substitute, cash was once in promoting information.
“I got here out pondering I used to be going to get a task at a file label, however what I discovered was once that the traces had been very, very lengthy for the ones jobs,” Shank recalls.
Undiscouraged, he labored ordinary jobs and evolved friendships with somebody he may to find within the enterprise. Then, in past due 1997, he landed an assistant position at a boutique tune company. Shank was once promoted to agent through the top of his first yr, and his occupation took off. The enterprise was once serving to acts like The Marshall Tucker Band and Jefferson Starship excursion across the nation. He labored with the dwelling contributors of The Doorways and a gaggle that performed jazz interpretations of Thankful Lifeless songs. And whilst many of those teams had been liked through fanatics older than Shank, he had grown up with any such numerous pastime in tune genres that he have compatibility proper in.
“I used to be an overly younger one that was once ready to shape relationships with some older legacy artists, and I feel they simply were given a kick out of the truth that I knew their tune, knew what I used to be speaking about,” he says. “It confirmed them that perhaps there was once a glimmer of sunshine, that their tune was once going to closing for a long time… that there can be generations of people who got here even after me that might be playing their tune, eating their movies, observing their displays.”
Actually, Shank’s standpoint was once innovative for the time as a result of, within the mid-to-late ’90s, the tune trade was once all in favour of pop acts like ’N Sync and Backstreet Boys—no longer legacy artists like Bob Dylan and the Thankful Lifeless.
“There was once not anything glamorous about what I used to be doing on the time,” Shank recalls. “It was once simply grinding. However I cherished it such a lot as a result of I actually hooked up with those artists. And it taught me all about traveling and how you can strategically put artists out at the street.
“It actually was a theme in my occupation of running in underappreciated and underserved areas. If there’s a core target audience there, despite the fact that it’s an target audience that was once there up to now, you’ll be able to all the time have the opportunity to reignite that target audience, to have interaction that target audience, to seek out them once more.”
Embracing recent concepts
Shank’s occupation blossomed from there. By way of the early 2000s he was once transferring into day by day control for artists throughout genres—from LFO to Isaac Hayes to the band Struggle. He was once discovering himself in rooms with one of the crucial maximum robust folks within the enterprise, organizing excursions with megastars and lining up acts for main tune fairs across the nation.
Quickly, he was once running with Mickey Hart, a former drummer for the Thankful Lifeless. Shank helped attach Hart with performers to begin a band and the relationships blossomed. The 2 are with reference to at the present time. (“He texted me this morning, in reality,” Shank quips.)
Over time, Shank expanded his achieve to stars like Victoria Justice who had been showing on Nickelodeon. Round that point, there was once a display at the identical community known as “The Recent Beat Band,” and Shank proposed the speculation of manufacturing in-person occasions for the band. He got here on as an government manufacturer, and the display—a nod to his unorthodox concepts—was once an enormous good fortune. From there, he labored to deliver Peppa Pig to are living audiences—once more, a huge win.
Shank has accomplished those displays together with his corporate Terrapin Station Leisure, which as of late is wildly a hit. For the previous few years, he’s labored to deliver the Disney Jr. franchise survive excursion, and this yr, audiences around the Center East, Southeast Asia and the UK are ready to absorb a bodily display.
“Terrapin was once shaped out of the want to create a nontraditional leisure corporate that would propel all of those manufacturers and all of this content material,” he says. “What I to find is that, you probably have one undertaking that is going neatly, folks can say, ‘Neatly, perhaps you were given fortunate.’ However you probably have two, you begin to display a type, and also you begin to display the way you’re development good fortune on most sensible of what you’ve up to now accomplished.”
Photograph through Em Walis. This text initially gave the impression within the Would possibly/June 2025 factor of SUCCESS mag.
