BMG Partners With Shelter Music Group Management

BMG has partnered with Carl Stubner, manager of Fleetwood Mac, ZZ Top, Crowded House, and Neil Finn, among others, in a move into artist management. BMG is backing Stubner’s new Shelter Music Group, which will be a music management company with a global presence. Stubner serves as Chairman of Shelter Music Group, with Dino Paredes as President.

The label group already works with Shelter artists including ZZ Top, Puscifer and A Perfect Circle. Shelter will retain full independence under the arrangement to sign artists to other labels and music publishers. As part of the deal, Shelter has already relocated its Nashville operation into BMG’s new Music City office.

BMG CEO Hartwig Masuch said, “Carl Stubner is a force of nature and we are delighted to partner with him. As the lines blur between the services provided by labels and those provided by managers, it is inevitable that these previously separate parts of the business will come together. Ultimately we are both in the business of serving artists and have complementary interests. We believe that combining resources and expertise on certain projects will benefit artists.”

“BMG has created the first new music major of the streaming age,” said Carl Stubner. “This is an opportunity not just to work more closely with the most innovative company in music, but also to build a new kind of management company with a presence in every significant music market. We have ambitions to move into both records and publishing with BMG and are already in advanced discussions to recruit other managers to join us.”

BMG and Shelter are already collaborating on Mick Fleetwood’s forthcoming sold-out tribute to Peter Green and the early years of Fleetwood Mac due to take place on Feb. 25 2020 at the London Palladium, with guests including Billy Gibbons, David Gilmour, Jonny Lang, Andy Fairweather Low, John Mayall, Christine McVie, Zak Starkey, Steven Tyler and Bill Wyman.