Interscope Geffen A&M Nashville

HOW IS NASHVILLE CHANGING?
I started coming to Nashville 18 years ago, and certainly have seen things change. The town itself is growing rapidly, and that naturally includes the music industry. You’re now seeing artists that might normally head to L.A. or N.Y. come here to develop their talents. That also includes a greater number of writers and producers coming to Nashville to work with those artists. The same goes for managers, agents, publishers, etc.

The live-music scene continues to thrive and expand. Patrick Waters and I certainly are spending a lot of time in those venues. It’s also no surprise to see Mike Dungan and his staff at some of the same shows. It is a testament to how Nashville artists continue to create music that is influenced by multiple genres.

WHAT IS INTERSCOPE DOING DIFFERENTLY?
For starters, opening our office and committing to be part of this great music community. We’ve already signed four local acts: Billy Raffoul, Goodbye June, Nightly and Elizabeth Huett. They’re all unique artists, and we take great pride in working with them. I’m excited about the music just now being released, and what’s coming in the very near future.

We’ve also been very active in bringing in a wide variety of our acts, including Avicii, BØRNS and Skylar Grey, to collaborate with several of Nashville’s great writers and producers. On the flip side, one example is John Janick, Aaron Bay-Schuck and myself bringing Hillary Lindsey to L.A. to work with Lady Gaga. Several songs, including “Million Reasons,” came out of that collaboration. We’ll continue to look for those opportunities.

We’ve also made it a point to stay very engaged in the community. Aaron is here for meetings almost once a month. John’s first trip to Nashville after we opened the office led him, Aaron, and myself to a garage in the middle of nowhere, where we saw Nightly. Amazingly, they had homemade lights put together with duct tape, a fog machine and a cheap microphone their neighbor had given them. You gotta love that DIY mentality. We were happy to sign the band a few weeks later.