Meet the Aussie music veteran giving young people a foot in the door

Tony Mantz, affectionately known throughout the Australian music industry as Jack the Bear, is the definition of an industry veteran.

With a career that spans almost four decades, he’s been involved with releases from some of Australia’s most well-known and respected artists, including Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, Jet, The Drones, John Butler Trio, Xavier Rudd, Jebediah, Eskimo Joe, and none other than Guy Sebastian.

An expert in the field of mastering engineering, Tony got his start in music in 1981, in defiance of his father who had aspirations for his son that involved a law career and making a “f***load of money”.

For Tony, the size of his bank account meant little if he wasn’t doing what he was most passionate about and most enjoyed – music.

By 1990, Tony was working as a freelance mastering engineer before bunkering down at Melbourne’s iconic Sing Sing Studios in 1999 and finally opening his dream studio in 2006, Jack the Bear’s Deluxe Mastering, in Brunswick.

For Tony, the studio was the actualisation of a vision he’d been nursing for years and it wasn’t long before he decided to help others achieve their dreams in the music industry.

Tony’s new vision can be summed up in four words: Mastering Music. Mastering Life. It’s this vision that’s driven him to create his own mentorship program, helping young people looking to get their foot in the door of an industry with an often uncompromisingly high barrier for entry, and launch his own podcast of the same name.

The weekly live-streamed show features special guests providing insight and advice to musicians and other creatives both young and old, including You Am I frontman Tim Rogers, producer Mark Opitz, and manager Michael Parisi, and upcoming guests include producer/mixer Bob St Bob (Extreme, Duran Duran, Collective Soul), and producer/mixer Mike Fraser (Aerosmith, Metallica, AC/DC, Plant / Page), each of whom have faced their own highs and lows in the Aussie music industry, just as Tony has.

“During the 1990s we had a recession and that was really tough,” he recently told Promote This. “By the time I was 28 I was completely homeless with no job and not even a pot to piss in. But I hung onto my dream because I knew I could do it.”

Tony’s dream now is to spread the word as far and wide as possible. With several years of mentorship and podcasting under his belt, and a life story that’s equal parts incredible and educational, he’s re-introducing himself to the Australian music industry as a keynote speaker and industry mentor with his first solo talk this Saturday, 16th March at The Cave in Melbourne’s Abbotsford.

As well as an opportunity to network with people from the world of Aussie music, those attending will hear Tony’s raw and passionate take on a life spent in music, including battles with anxiety, drug addiction, massive weight loss, divorce, and the ups and downs of the local music industry.

For those looking to pursue their own dream of music industry success, it’s an experience you’ll one day look back on as the moment it just ‘clicked’.