MUSIC FOR THE MASSES

Taking tunes to teenagers is reaping rewards for Rock Camp.

WORDS BY PAIGE BOWERS PHOTOGRAPHY BY ZACK@USEDFILM.COM

This summer, Camp Jam is taking its Atlanta- based rock 'n' roll camps for kids on the road to Houston and Dallas. Atlanta rocker and founder Jeff Carlisi spreads his love of music to the next generation with his rapidly expanding business.

It was probably the first time an entrepreneur believed a successful Jack Black movie would lend credibility to his business plan. But when School of Rock was released two summers ago, Jeff Carlisi remembers hoping the movie would be a big hit.

The film, about a cash-strapped, wannabe rock star who poses as a substitute teacher and tries to turn his class into a band, hit movie screens at a time when Carlisi, a native Atlantan and the former guitarist for .38 Special, was kicking around the idea of starting a rock 'n' roll summer camp for kids with his friend and business partner Dan Lipson.

Carlisi and Lipson spent months developing a business model and a music curriculum for what would soon be known as Camp Jam (www.campjamatlanta.com), a $495 week-long summer rock camp, where kids aged 9-17 could talk Jimmy Page and learn how to act cool onstage at a state-of-the-art campus north of downtown Atlanta.

The vision: campers start rocking at 9am with individualized instruction in guitar, bass, keyboard, drums and vocals. After class, campers head to songwriting clinics, open-mic showcases, performance skills classes, courses on producing a basic demo recording, and talks given by guest speakers from the recording industry, among them Billy Joel's former drummer Liberty DeVitto. Camp ends on Friday with a nighttime rock concert featuring the bands that campers have formed during the week.

Originally launched in June, 2004, the camp became so popular— some 300 kids enrolled—that Carlisi and Lipson added an additional week, opened a practice facility called This House Rocks in the fall, started a Camp Jam for adults and began making plans to grow their rock camp business into 25 markets over the next four years. This summer, the duo starts a Camp Jam for six to 10 year olds and takes their concept on the road to Houston and Dallas.

"The thing that makes it exciting for me is that there have been an assortment of camps and rehearsal studios, but no one has ever taken the concept of the music community and integrated all those things into one business," says Carlisi, whose former band is known for hits like "Hold on Loosely" and "Rockin' into the Night". "We're just taking [expansion] little by little, so we can have complete control over things and make sure the quality and experience is the same as it was in Atlanta."

''We're in this camp because we've seen how we've changed these kids' lives. We've changed their personalities; we've gotten hugs and kisses from the parents thanking us.''

However, Lipson says they're looking into webcasting and other ways of "having Jeff magically appear" in their expansion cities.

Replicating the Atlanta model, Carlisi and Lipson say they'll also open up This House Rocks facilities in each city after the camps are complete. Right now, Atlanta's This House Rocks serves about 200 aspiring musicians a month, from guitar-strumming pre-teens taking $25 half- hour music lessons to groups of professionals renting out rehearsal rooms for $15-$30 an hour so their newly formed bands can practice.

"Our plate's pretty full right now, frankly," Lipson says.

Even so, the opportunities seem endless. Peavey Electronics recently became a long-term sponsor of Camp Jam because, according to Lipson, they feel the concept could help save the music industry. Musical instruments are retailing for less these days, Lipson says, now that much of the equipment is being made in China.

"So the business is in price deflation and margins are down even though retailers are selling more stuff," Lipson says. "Peavey loves our business model and loves that we're taking it on a national basis. They feel it will ultimately help their business because the kids and adults we reach are wanting to get the next level of guitar or instrument."

Carlisi also thinks the camp could spawn a record label at some point because so many of the campers are talented enough to merit radio airtime.

"It would be an interesting project to put a band together, write some songs for them and see what would happen," Carlisi says.

Another possibility Carlisi and Lipson are exploring is that of a reality television show. When the Los Angeles Times published a front- page story on Camp Jam last summer, Lipson says some reality show producers took notice, thinking that a program about a summer rock 'n' roll camp would be a big hit. Though Carlisi and Lipson say they've had several meetings with producers about the idea, at press time nothing had been finalized. The trick, Carlisi says, has been to find a producer who will keep the show's message positive and enhance the camp's brand. So far, he says he and Lipson have narrowed it down to two producers who share their vision.

Carlisi and Lipson say it took a mid-six figure investment to get the business up-and-running, and that revenues for the first year of business were just under $1 million. Over the next year, they say they're expecting 300% growth—not bad for a privately owned startup business.

With seven full-time employees, Carlisi and Lipson will call on local musicians for help as they expand Camp Jam across the nation, bolstering their part-time staff to 90. Armed with a 100- page training manual, Atlanta-based Camp Jam staff will travel to the expansion cities to teach new counselors in the Camp Jam method before each camp is launched. And instead of constructing new Camp Jam buildings, they'll host campers in existing practice facilities in each town.

"The challenging aspect will be for me to be every place at once, because my name is attached to it and that's what sells it," says Carlisi, who was able to be at the Atlanta camp every day last summer.

"The trend in reality TV is toward the positive," Carlisi says. "That's the hot ticket now. And we're in this camp because we've seen how we've changed these kids' lives. We've changed their personalities; we've gotten hugs and kisses from the parents thanking us for what we've done. We have some kids that have come from wealthy families that have had everything offered to them who think this is the neatest thing they've done in their life, just as we've had less fortunate kids who feel the same way."

Once upon a time, Carlisi might have benefited from a Camp Jam. He still remembers being nine years old and his parents deciding it was time for him to take music lessons.

"Back then, the thought was that a nice Italian kid should play piano," recalls Carlisi. "My cousins played it, so I said it was cool. But my teacher told my parents not to invest in a piano, just in case I lost interest. So he advised them to rent an accordion, which is not the most glamorous instrument. I gave it a try anyway, but after a few lessons my back started hurting from lugging it around. So that was kind of short-lived."

A year later, Carlisi flipped on the television, saw the Beatles on the "Ed Sullivan Show" and had a musical epiphany: Electric guitars were pretty cool. Supportive of his new passion, his parents gave him a $10 guitar—"It was a piece of firewood," he recalls—that he still owns.

Firewood or not, that $10 instrument is a symbol of the childlike passion Carlisi and Lipson are fueling in a thriving small business that's on the verge of making it very big.