********If you've ever owned an Eminem album—and with more than 32 million sold in the U.S., chances are good—you're familiar with his manager Paul Rosenberg. He's the one yelling into Eminem's answering machine in the album skits, telling Em to tone it down, telling Em he quits, telling Em to LEAVE THE FUCKING GUN AT HOME. A Detroit native with a law degree from the University of Detroit, Rosenberg began managing Marshall Mathers in 1997. That means that, for 13 years and change, he's been the man who gets to put up with the headaches, riots, international controversies, drug-related disasters, and piles upon piles upon piles of money that come with steering the career of the single highest-selling musical act of the 2000s. Here, we caught up with Rosenberg about all things Eminem in 2010—including booking Marshall and a guy named Shawn Carter into co-headlining shows at Comerica Park and Yankee Stadium this September.
Recently I assume the vast majority of your time has been dedicated to Eminem's new project.
Certainly a lot of it. That and I just had a baby three months ago. So it's been pretty rough.
Congratulations—sounds hectic. What're the other projects on your docket right now?
We co-manage Blink 182 and they're about to go on a European run. We're also putting together the finishing touches on Travis Barker's new album. Then we manage a group called The Knux that's putting out their second album.
Plus me and Eminem are focusing on rebuilding Shady Records. We're trying to sign a couple acts and move that forward.
Any artists in mind?
Yeah there's a group called Slaughterhouse we've talked a lot about. There are four guys in the group and each has his own contractual history but we're trying to get the deal done.
How do you split your time between New York, Detroit, and L.A.?
Me personally? I have homes in the New York area and the Detroit area. I spend about half my time in New York, a quarter in Detroit, and a quarter in L.A. or wherever travel needs to take me.
Eminem has been very forthright in the press about his years of addiction. What has that been like for you as both a friend and a business partner?
For the period where things were really bad, I'd lost both. I didn't have much of a business partner and my friend certainly wasn't acting like my friend. So it was a really tough time.
**Addicts famously push away those who are trying to help them get clean. How did you balance wanting to help him with not wanting to mother him? **
Yeah, well, that's what the addiction does. The addiction causes the person affected by it to protect it. And part of protecting that addiction is pushing away the people who are telling you that it's wrong and telling you that you need help. Because the addict doesn't want to hear that. So it's a balancing act, really—to figure out how far you can push somebody.
It's really tricky with someone who's in a position like Marshall's. Because it's not like it's easy for you to have him reach bottom, which is typically what has to happen before an addict decides to get help. It's a really tough balancing act because nobody wanted to leave him in the lurch, which is what recovery specialists tell you. They'll tell you, you know, Give him an ultimatum—you're either enabling him or you're not. But with a guy like Marshall, it's not like he's going to run out of money, and it's not like he's going to run out of people who will do what he wants them to do. It was really tough and through it all I just had to be really honest with myself and with him and the relationship. And that's what got us through it.
Had everything basically ground to a halt business-wise, from his career as an artist to the radio station to the record label? How did that work in the really dark period?
Again, it was a lot of balancing. I think the greatest thing we had going for us is how talented he is. We always believed in that talent and hoped that things would turn around. And that belief in him and that hope are what got us through it.
Obviously Eminem has a hardcore fan base to rival anyone's—he's bound to sell records. But with Relapse, there was a lukewarm side to the reception as well. What was the atmosphere inside the team when it wasn't an immediate critical smash?
Well, first of all, we were just happy to have him back as a person. So we wanted to make sure that, when he did decide that he wanted to record again—if that's what he wanted to do, because nobody knew at the time—it would have to be at his own pace and on his own terms. So we gave him space and let him focus on staying sober and doing what he wanted to do. And it turns out that what he wanted to do was be an artist, because that's what he cares about. So it's just a matter of being supportive.
He's said before that he felt like he had to learn how to create again. He was coming through many years of creating under the influence of whatever substance. Now all that's gone, and he's just been through an overdose, so suddenly he's under all these totally new conditions. And you have to figure out your balance. How do you get back in the booth? The lighting looks different, the room looks different, things sound different. You know. But once he got his footing we were just so happy that his ability to create was intact.
To us, the public, "Forever" felt like a line in the sand. Not only a return to form, but the achievement of a whole new form for him artistically. How did that play out from your perspective, from inside the team?
I'd definitely say that was a turning point. That song coincidentally happened around the time he started recording more stuff for this Recovery album and that was the first thing people heard. So in that sense it represented a milestone. It was less deliberate, really, and more just timing.
How did he end up on the song?
The folks at Interscope approached us and said, We've got this track that Drake's on right now, it's really great, and we want to see if Em wants to get on it. I said, Well, send it over. And they said, It's a big deal for us—it's for this Lebron James soundtrack and Lebron's a big Eminem fan, and he's really excited about the idea of Em doing it. So I sent it over to Marshall and he really liked it. He had become a fan of Drake and he wanted to try it out.
The Drake juggernaut has been fascinating. What do you think it is about Drake that's made everyone from Em, to Jay, to Kanye—obviously Lil Wayne is another story—want to get behind him?
I think his aesthetic is rooted in the same thing that Wayne, Em, Kanye, and Jay's aesthetic is rooted in. Which is really about the art of rapping. He's primarily concerned with making sure he's great at that craft, and that's what gets guys like Em and Jay excited. It's not just that he's clever metaphorically and with punch lines, but that he's actually got the technical side of the craft. Those guys get off on that more than they let on. They really are into it.
How did Drake get Eminem to go to Toronto a couple weeks ago just to do one verse?
Em was in Detroit and Toronto's not very far. Drake asked him to do it, and Marshall had the weekend free.
So he just got on the plane?
Yeah. He decided to go do it.
As I already mentioned, Eminem has this extraordinary fan base. And then, as he was recording what became Recovery, you watched him turn an incredible creative corner. Given that set of circumstances, what was your approach to the marketing of that album? The sales are almost at two million, right?
Yeah. It's almost at two million domestically. I knew this album had pretty big potential specifically because I thought it had some pretty big radio records. So our approach was to really focus on that area. And, for the most part, that's what's allowed the record to connect the way it has.
So for guys like Em, it still comes down to radio?
For anybody who wants to sell massive amounts of records, yes. I don't think that's a secret to anyone. Radio is still the biggest seller of music that there is.
What were the first inklings of these baseball stadium shows in Detroit and New York? Did it start as a conversation between you and [Jay-Z's manager] John Meneilly?
Yeah, Meneilly and I are friends, and we'd been talking about doing stuff with Jay and Em together for a long time. You know, beyond the small stuff we've done. And the fact that Em had an album coming, and Jay had just come off of the massive success he had with his last album, we figured the time was right to do something big. It's no secret that Em doesn't like touring, but he likes performing. So we wanted to do something that would have maximum impact and allow them to get in front of their fans. We came up with this idea: Boom, something in Detroit and something in New York. The challenge was finding a time when the Tigers were traveling and the Yankees were traveling so that we could build a stage and take the stadiums over.
After you and John Meneilly build on this idea of Comerica and Yankee Stadium, where do you go from there? Who gets the next call?
Well they have their partnership with Live Nation so they went to them and I went to Marshall's agent [at William Morris Endeavor] Cara Lewis. They connected, put the plan together, and went to the stadiums. I also have a relationship with the family that owns the Tigers, so I also contacted them directly and got some inside scoop on when they'd be willing to do a show. We'd already performed at Comerica Park back in 2005.
How would you characterize the relationship between Em and Jay, both creatively and as two guys in a room together?
Well, you know, it's funny. They're such larger than life personalities, so you'd think it'd be this huge storm of ideas and conversation and whatever. But there's so much mutual respect and wanting to be—what's the word to describe it?—just wanting to be around each other in a comfortable way that they both just take it easy.
There's almost a quieting effect instead of there not being enough air in the room?
Yeah. Neither wants to look like they're trying to overshadow the other or anything like that.
Did that carry over into the logistics of how the show would work?
That was easy. It was always 50-50. There was never a question.
Both with money, stage time...
Everything.
Can fans expect special guests?
I can't speak for what Jay's going to do because I honestly don't know. But we do know what Jay's done in the past and he loves to bring out his collaborators, especially in New York. So I'm anticipating a lot of that. And in terms of Marshall, we're certainly going to have a lot of surprises.
Does Eminem go into shows in spaces as crazy as baseball stadiums with full confidence that he can hold everyone from the front row to the nosebleeds?
Yeah. There was a time where he hadn't done shows for a while so he was nervous and unsure. Just as he had to learn to create music again sober, performing sober is a whole 'nother set of circumstances. But he's had plenty of practice now and we just did three massive festivals and I think he definitely connected with everyone there. So I don't think he's too worried about it.
