Dave Shapiro, groundbreaking music govt, dies in San Diego airplane crash-OxBig News Network

Dave Shapiro, a groundbreaking music govt within the heavy steel and laborious rock scene, has died in a San Diego airplane crash. He was 42.

Shapiro had a pilot’s license and was listed because the proprietor of the airplane that crashed, in line with the Federal Aviation Administration. The music company Sound Talent Group confirmed Shapiro died within the Thursday morning crash together with two staff.

“We are devastated by the lack of our co-founder, colleagues and buddies,” the company mentioned in an announcement.

Shapiro co-founded Sound Talent Group in 2018 with Tim Borror and Matt Andersen. The company’s roster focuses on various bands throughout pop-punk, metalcore, post-hardcore and different well-liked laborious rock subgenres. Clients have included Hanson, Pierce The Veil, Parkway Drive, Sum 41 and Vanessa Carlton.

Shapiro was a robust advocate for impartial musicians and a co-founder of the National Independent Talent Organization. He was included in Billboard’s 2012 “30 Under 30” record recognizing rising stars in leisure. Industry veterans say Shapiro paved the best way for the formation of different impartial companies and helped many various bands discover audiences within the mainstream.

“Finding something you love to do is only going to make you do a better job because you actually care. You’re not just showing up for the paycheck, it’s not a 9-to-5,” he mentioned in a music trade podcast in 2021. “This is part of living your life if you really love it.”

Shapiro grew up in upstate New York within the “straightedge hard-core” scene, a subculture that promotes not utilizing medication and alcohol in response to mainstream punk.

In highschool, he began a band along with his buddies and received signed with Victory Records proper after they graduated. They toured for just a few years, throughout which he made connections within the music trade that may assist his foray into the enterprise facet.

Shapiro mentioned he turned immediately hooked on aviation after taking his first intro flight at age 22. He appeared to like music and flying with equal ardour, at one level opening an workplace of his expertise company at a hangar in San Diego.

Flying “helps me focus and helps me not be distracted by all the nonsense in the world, and whatever’s going on outside the plane kind of doesn’t matter in those moments,” Shapiro mentioned in a 2020 podcast interview.

Shapiro owned a flight college referred to as Velocity Aviation and a file label, Velocity Records.

He supplied flights in each San Diego and Homer, Alaska, the place he and his spouse, Julia Pawlik Shapiro, owned a house, in line with his on-line posts.

Shapiro married his spouse in 2016 within the small city of Talkeetna, Alaska. They picked up their wedding ceremony licenses, received on a airplane and flew to a glacier inside Denali National Park, touchdown with skis strapped to the airplane’s wheels.

“When I met Dave, we became instantly bonded over the unconventional lifestyles we lead and our constant need for adventure,” she wrote in a weblog submit.

In 2019, he posted on Instagram that he had obtained his airline transport pilot ranking, the best stage of certification issued by the U.S.

“Although I have a career and don’t plan to change that I always want to learn more and be a better pilot,’ he wrote. He was also an adrenaline junkie who enjoyed base-jumping.

Tributes poured in Thursday from musicians and others in the industry who called him warm, genuine and someone who helped little-known bands put their names on the map.

“He would listen to any band you put in front of him to give them a chance,” mentioned Dayna Ghiraldi-Travers, founding father of public relations company Big Picture Media, who labored with Shapiro for over 15 years.

Nate Blasdell, former lead guitarist for the band I Set My Friends on Fire, mentioned he was “absolutely heartbroken.”

“Dave was the first booking agent I ever worked with and he was a major part of my music career in my late teen years,” he mentioned in a submit on the social platform X. “He was truly the best in the game and one of the most respected people in the industry.”

Sum 41 singer Deryck Whibley credit Shapiro to serving to construct the rock band again up throughout a “low point” of their profession.

“His opinion mattered so much to me,” Whibley mentioned. “He was that guy I would go to for advice on things.”