Music executive Dave Shapiro dies in San Diego plane crash at 42

Shapiro had a pilot’s license and was listed as the owner of the plane that crashed, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. The music agency Sound Talent Group confirmed Shapiro died in the Thursday morning crash along with two employees.

“We are devastated by the loss of our co-founder, colleagues and friends,” the agency said in a statement.

Shapiro cofounded Sound Talent Group in 2018 with Tim Borror and Matt Andersen. The agency’s roster focuses on alternative bands across pop-punk, metalcore, post-hardcore and other popular hard rock subgenres. Clients have included Hanson, Pierce The Veil, Parkway Drive, Sum 41 and Vanessa Carlton.

Shapiro was a strong advocate for independent musicians and a co-founder of the National Independent Talent Organization. He was included in Billboard’s 2012 “30 Under 30” list recognizing rising stars in entertainment. Industry veterans say Shapiro paved the way for the formation of other independent agencies and helped many alternative bands find audiences in 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 said in a music industry podcast in 2021. “This is part of living your life if you really love it.”

Shapiro grew up in upstate New York in the “straightedge hard-core” scene, a subculture that promotes not using drugs and alcohol in reaction to mainstream punk.

In high school, he started a band with his friends and got signed with Victory Records right when they graduated. They toured for a few years, during which he made connections in the music industry that would help his foray into the business side.

Shapiro said he became instantly hooked on aviation after taking his first intro flight at age 22. He seemed to love music and flying with equal passion, at one point opening an office of his talent agency 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 said in a 2020 podcast interview.

Shapiro owned a flight school called Velocity Aviation and a record label, Velocity Records.

He offered flights in both San Diego and Homer, Alaska, where he and his wife, Julia Pawlik Shapiro, owned a home, according to his online posts.

Shapiro married his wife in 2016 in the small town of Talkeetna, Alaska. They picked up their wedding licenses, got on a plane and flew to a glacier inside Denali National Park, landing with skis strapped to the plane’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 blog post.

In 2019, he posted on Instagram that he had obtained his airline transport pilot rating, the highest level 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.