Meet Asheville's new music tycoon, Adrian Zelski

Self-styled "octopus of the music world" Adrian Zelski has wrapped his arms around a prominent chunk of Asheville nightlife.

Zelski controls 2,700 tickets to downtown concerts now that he's completed a 1,500-person capacity outdoor amphitheater at New Mountain AVL — that's more than Thomas Wolfe Auditorium. After a test run at the amphitheater earlier this month, Zelski says he's confident he'll be ready for a three-day festival, which will feature garage rockers The Black Lips, trip hopper RJD2 and the genre-evading fusion group Snarky Puppy, at the new space in April.

Shaggy-haired and approachable, Zelski doesn't look like the type to build a music empire, but that's what he's done since he arrived in Asheville 15 months ago. First, he opened New Mountain AVL on French Broad Avenue (with four partners) and split it into three event spaces: a large theater, The Sol Bar and, most recently, the Ridge Room. Then in January, he independently purchased Asheville Music Hall and The One Stop and announced the amphitheater and a forthcoming rooftop space at New Mountain.

Zelski sees the recent multiplying of his businesses as "healthy" rather than aggressive growth. "We're at the humble phase where we're kind of feeling everything out and seeing what the Asheville feel is about," he says.

Humility aside, Zelski's ownership stake in the downtown venue industry is unprecedented and affects music lovers and bands. His exact share depends on how you count, but it's not farfetched to say he's involved in half of downtown's music rooms. (Granted, there are plenty of bars, restaurants, event spaces and clubs that sometimes feature live music.)

Can he helm all those venues at the same time? Such a large footprint comes with a lot of risks, but Zelski says every sector of music is about managing risk. He would know; his experience includes stints as a festival organizer, venue owner, band manager for Asheville's Rising Appalachia, and performer with DubConscious.

"It's a high risk, high adventure-style business," Zelski says. "The industry does base itself around partying, addiction, late nights, rock-and-roll, sex, drugs and everything in between. That's an aspect you've got to face, and it's really hard to keep organized."

When he bought Asheville Music Hall, it had been competing with New Mountain for almost a year, booking similar funk, dub and jam acts. "One of us wouldn't have survived much past 2015," says Sam Katz, a former co-owner of Asheville Music Hall who sold his shares to partner in The Altamont Theater in January. "Combining forces is really the only way to keep them both surviving and flourishing."

Katz will remain on staff at AMH as marketing manager (even as he runs The Altamont) along with former owner KP Powell, who sold her AMH shares and now works as talent buyer at large as she travels the country. "Hopefully, people see the sale for what it is," Powell says. "It's not like I sold the club to Live Nation or some really big corporation that was going to come in and change the atmosphere."

Powell says the consolidation should make it easier for her group to book shows. "It takes away an opportunity for the booking agents to pit us up against each other," she says. "Hopefully, we're not going to get priced out of shows as much as when we were competing each other."

But Powell hopes to expand the programs into Americana and indie rock, which will inevitably leave her bidding against unaffiliated venues who already book those kinds of acts. "The intention is to make sure we're not overpaying for bands," she says when asked about the possibility of increased competition.

Zelski's purchasing power was likely boosted by the late 2014 sale of his Athens, Georgia, venue, New Earth Music Hall. He opened that project in 2009 but took a step back from it in 2012 to co-own a San Francisco venue called Inner Mission. He departed that project in 2013.

Will Zelski settle down in Asheville? If his long-term lease is any indication, yes. He's signed seven, three-year leases on the space, meaning New Mountain could still be here in 2036.

But every venue's staying power ultimately depends on the market, according to Jeff Whitworth, who owns the Grey Eagle in the River Arts District, which turns 25 years old in October. "Per capita, we've got more rooms than any city I can think of in the Southeast," he says, agreeing that Asheville probably can't accommodate any more venues. "It does create more competition in town just because there's more places to see shows. That's pretty common sense."

Zelski says he'll eschew competition for bands and audience members by diversifying his businesses. He claims 16 revenue streams at New Mountain alone, including a coffee and yerba mate tea bar, a food truck and event partnerships with yogis, dance teachers, churches and anyone else who needs a large space, plus alcohol and tickets. "I'm definitely not resting my head on just music," he says. "It should be a place where you spend a lot of time hanging out, and when there's a show, that's the cherry on top. Financially, that's the way I want to be, too."

Although Zelski might not bank on bands, Katz says Zelski's multivenue model puts him in a powerful position to corner them by booking fledgling musicians at The One Stop and The Sol Bar and building a relationship with them as they gain popularity. When the bands sell out those spaces, they'll graduate to the larger rooms, working their way up to the 1,500-person amphitheater space. "It's really an all-in-one shop from little bands to big-time bands," Katz says. "It really centralizes everything. It's definitely going to change the game — I'm just not exactly sure how yet."

Whitworth says he takes a similar approach to building relationships at the Grey Eagle, but he does it all in one room. For example, because he started booking The Lumineers when they were unknown, he was able to continue to host them as they became chart toppers. He's not sure he would have been able to support them when they were small if he was trying to promote other shows in the same building. "To sustain that over five rooms, it's a nice option to have, but you're always going to have that internal competition," he says. "Are you going to book a band that's going to draw 50 people and have competition upstairs and around the corner?"

Every band is different, and there's no way to predict how they'll respond to Zelski's empire, says Jessica Tomasin, co-founder of Asheville Music Professionals, which helps bands navigate legal issues and taxes. If they don't like his model, she explains, they have other options. "If you were like, 'I don't want to deal with (Zelski's venues), and I want to book a show in town,' I think you'd still be able to play," she says, pointing out that The Grey Eagle, Isis and The Mothlight, aren't that far from downtown.

AMP also hosts venue meetings to help owners like Zelski and Katz collaborate on marketing efforts that advocate Asheville as a music destination. It's also an open forum for discussion with the goals of sharing knowledge and maintaining friendliness between competitors in the demanding industry.

But getting together is tough for the busy venue owners, and although AMP has hosted lots of educational and social events since it started last summer, the venues have only come together twice under its banner. Plus, collaboration is risky since it requires the competing business owners to share their plans. "You're not showing your whole hand of cards," Tomasin explains. "You're just letting people know the basics ... You take a risk in any sort of partnership or collaboration that you do."

Zelski, for his part, is undeterred by risk in collaboration or business. "I came here to take risks for sure, and the risks are calculated and uncertain at the same time, but I believe in Asheville," he says. "There's a lot of people who don't understand how to make money here. I don't think they've really grasped how important it is to be part of the community."

Size matters

A look at Adrian Zelski's music rooms (listed in bold type) in the context of Asheville venues in general. (This isn't an all-inclusive list; rather, it lists prominent music spaces.)

•Explore Asheville Arena at the US Cellular Center: 7,200

• Adrian Zelski's venues combined: 2,700

•Thomas Wolfe Auditorium: 2,400

• New Mountain Ampitheater: 1,500

•The Orange Peel: 1,100

•The Grey Eagle: 550

• New Mountain Theater (main room): 450

•Isis: 450

• Asheville Music Hall: 360

•The Mothlight: 250

•Tiger Mountain: 208

• The One Stop: 200

•The Altamont Theatre: 150

• Sol Bar at New Mountain, 125

• The Ridge Room at New Mountain, 100